Me and Adrian Boafo sat down last week. A lot of people found that surprising. He beat me in the Maryland 5th primary. We’re still friends.
They shouldn’t be surprised.
We’re both from Prince George’s County. We both got in this race for the same reason. We stood at the same forums in southern Maryland for six months and said basically the same things. The tactics were different. The goals weren’t.
What made our race ugly wasn’t us. It was $12 million in outside dark money. AIPAC, AI and Crypto super PACs. Flooding a Democratic primary to elevate who they wanted in that seat. While squashing voices of people who were loud about wanting to end the system that put that money there. And here’s the thing I keep coming back to: they didn’t oppose us on policy. They didn’t even know where we stood on policy. They came after us because we were loud about wanting to keep them out of elections forever.
Adrian won. I called him. We talked. That was it.
I wanted to sit down with him because this conversation matters more than who won. Two guys from Prince George’s County who went through the same fire. The vitriol, the nasty messages, the hate. We had the same views on a lot of things: the economy is broken for regular people, the outside money is out of control, and the people yelling on the internet are not indicative of how an election is going to turn out.
Something I said in this conversation that I continue to think about: if the election was held online, I think I’d have won by 60 points. But it wasn’t held online. The mother in Charles County who wakes up, gets her kids to school, goes to work, tries to figure out how to feed her family with these expensive grocery prices. She doesn’t have time for the comments on social media, because she’s too busy trying to make it.
That’s Part 1. Parts 2 and 3 drop later this week.
-Harry
As much as I understand, this story would be characterized as a demonstration of high character on your part. But I looked up Boafo, found his web site and there, he admits that millions of AIPAC $$ helped him win. He's a political operative running for congress and admitting how much he was supported by "dark" money. And his rap is "Been there, Done that, now I am opposed to it." Can't wait for parts 2 and 3.
Great choice of subject to write about! That's our guy! You, Harry! You don't run away--you stay and investigate, you choose to have a conversation and really examine what's at stake here.