As the daughter of a Baltimore grocer, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski cherishes her image as tough-talking, wisecracking "Senator Barb" — a fighter for ordinary folks who is always willing to listen to their problems and seek solutions.
But her Republican opponent, Queen Anne's County Commissioner Eric S. Wargotz, says the four-term Democrat is not listening anymore and shouldn't be re-elected. In language mixing conservative doctrine and tea party indignation, he paints her as part of "the Capitol Hill establishment," following Democratic leaders down a path that's led to tax increases, deficit spending and job losses.
"She is completely out of touch with what's going on on the ground in Maryland," said Wargotz, a medical pathologist, citing the state's rising unemployment rate in a September interview. "Thirty-four years on the Hill breeds a culture of disconnect and arrogance for the public."
Mikulski pointed to state projects she's helped fund and the nearly 45,000 jobs Maryland is expected to gain over the next five years as a result of military base realignment and closings, or BRAC
Political analysts say Wargotz will have a difficult time prevailing in Democratic-leaning Maryland against Mikulski, who has garnered at least 65 percent of the vote in her last three general election contests.
"Mikulski is just enormously popular," said Donald F. Norris, chairman of the public policy department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Political scientist Todd Eberly, acting director of the Center for the Study of Democracy at St. Mary's College, called Mikulski "an institution" and said it would take a political earthquake to unseat her.
Mikulski also has a major fundraising advantage.
According to federal campaign finance reports, Mikulski had raised $3.3 million and had $2.9 million on hand as of Aug. 25. Wargotz had received $773,260 and had $543,500 on hand, with $575,000 in debt.
A former social worker, Mikulski, 74, was first elected to the Senate in 1986 after serving a decade in the U.S. House and on the Baltimore City Council. She has been a champion of space exploration — Maryland is home to the Goddard Space Center — and numerous state projects.
Wargotz, 53, pointed to the loss of 320 jobs this year at BP Solar's Frederick manufacturing plant and the erosion of more than 30,000 steelworker jobs over five decades at Sparrows Point near Baltimore as indicators of Mikulski's failings.
"When she puts an ad on TV talking about all these jobs she's brought to Maryland or supposedly helped bring to Maryland, she is completely out of touch," Wargotz said. "What is she talking about?"
Mikulski stressed her role in influencing the BRAC process; she led the state's congressional delegation in urging federal lawmakers to fund military construction projects needed because of base realignment.
On the Eastern Shore, where Wargotz lives, Mikulski said she's helped to direct more than $70 million in federal aid since 1999 to Maryland's watermen, crabbing industry, beaches and tourist sites. And she said she's helped to preserve the shore's 20,000 chicken farming jobs by pushing for exports to Russia and getting Maryland producers exempted from a federal homeland security plan to track storage of propane, used to heat the chicken houses.
Wargotz alleged that Mikulski tried to foist on his home county a State Department security training center even after county commissioners withdrew support in December for the project because of concerns about weapons training, traffic and water pollution.
"She was advocating this to be jobs, but it was just more pork-barrel spending and $70 million in stimulus funds — things we didn't need," Wargotz said.
Mikulski said in an interview that she asked the General Services Administration in January to extend a comment period and hold additional meetings on the project because citizens had been virtually shut out of the planning.
"What I did was take up for the people," Mikulski said. "I said, 'Big Government can't push little people around.'"
Wargotz also disputed Mikulski's oft-repeated praise of "Team Maryland" — meaning federal, state and local elected officials working together — as the key to economic development. He said Mikulski had no hand in two Queen Anne's County redevelopment projects that are expected to create 500 jobs in the next few years.
Mikulski said she wasn't asked: "I come where I'm needed; I don't come where I'm not needed," she said.
Wargotz calls himself an independent-minded conservative and says he identifies with the tea party movement, but he hasn't sought help from the Tea Party Express, the California-based political committee that has helped to engineer upset election victories this year in Alaska, Delaware and Nevada.
The issues closest to his heart, he says, are "the fiscal conservative principles: we need to get the state going again, the country going again with job creation, tax cuts and cutting wasteful spending."
On social issues, Wargotz says restricting abortions and same-sex marriage are state matters (although he personally believes marriage should be reserved only for opposite-sex couples). He doesn't oppose insurance benefits for gay partners.
Mikulski is a strong abortion rights proponent but, like Wargotz, takes a dim view of same-sex marriage; she favors recognition of civil unions instead.
The candidates differ on health care reform — she supported the bill that passed this year; he'd like to kill it — and gun control. He's a life member of the National Rifle Association; she voted for background checks at gun shows and against allowing guns in checked baggage on Amtrak.
Wargotz says he favors giving people the option of managing their Social Security money; Mikulski says she wants to ensure the solvency of the Social Security system.
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Online:
http://www.senatorbarb.com
http://wargotzforussenate.org
