Thursday, June 22, 2006

Slow day...or so I thought...

...Until, thanks to David Wissing, I found out that Doug Duncan has dropped out of the race for governor. In announcing his decision, Duncan admitted that he was recently diagnosed with clinical depression, which he has been struggling with for the past year.

Although I was leaning towards O'Malley anyway, I can't say that I'm in any way happy about this news. Depression is a terrible disease that goes untreated far too often. That Duncan has campaigned this long under its grip is admirable; his decision to seek treatment is even more so. Maybe it inspires someone who's almost given up to find help, or maybe it changes the antiquated mind of someone who still believes those suffering from depression are just "moody."

While Duncan's exit is certainly best for him, it's bad for Maryland voters, even those already staunchly aligned with one of the candidates. We benefit from debate, especially debates within parties. The rhetoric, the politics, the posturing, the attacks, now they will all be so predictable, so devoid of substance, so mindlessly partisan. Alas.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

as a resident of baltimore, i was leaning toward Duncan. Here's hoping O'Malley makes a better guv'ner than mayor (at least i think he will)

Anonymous said...

For the life of me, I cannot figure out how the democratic party chooses who to back - the process too often produces abominable results at the local, state, and national levels.

Unrelated: how to change my logon info: Past email address had 'expired', have new email address.

Hayduke said...

Mary, if the website is remembering your logon information, I think the only way to change it is to clean out your temporary internet files folder (including cookies). Go to the tools menu on Internet Exploer and choose Internet Options, from there you'll be given the choice of deleting temp files and cookies. It's best to clean this folder out occasionally anyway, as it can after a time take up a lot of space.