JamesN | jnewt-maps.bsky.social

A little Chris Van Hollen origin story for people: *In the 1990s, he defeated an incumbent Democratic state senator he felt had lost touch with the voters over the strong opposition of the powerful state Senate president. *He defeated Mark Kennedy Shriver in the 2002 Democratic primary for a House seat — the most competitive in the nation — despite Shriver having far more money and national name recognition. In Annapolis he was known as the guy progressive groups would go to to get tough things done because he could get them across the finish line. He didn't have Shriver's money or hair, but he had an enormous number of volunteers knocking on doors for him. A mother who had lost a child to guns and knew him from his championing the state's trigger lock legislation, environmentalists who cheered his banning of oil drilling in the Chesapeake, health advocates who praised him for backing a hike in the tobacco tax. (I covered that race for the long-defunct Gazette Newspapers). *IE, this isn't the first time Van Hollen is going for a job that powerful forces don't want him to seek. *He was born in Karachi (son of an ambassador) with hyper-elite schooling combo of Swarthmore, Harvard and Georgetown, then worked as a Senate staffer including on the Foreign Relations Committee, where he co-authored a report on the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein. *I never once saw him in a bar or a restaurant at night in Annapolis. He had a rule of going home every night. (This was unusual to say the least.)