Ken Holt Shows Why He Should be Baltimore County Executive

Republican Ken Holt

My district in Baltimore County has been represented by arch-socialist snob, Kevin Kamenetz for 16 years.  Last night was the first time that I've heard someone finally take him to task for his lying about issues concerning taxation and spending, corruption, and corporate cronyism with local land developers.  The man who took him down was Republican Ken Holt.  Holt is challenging Kamenetz for what Democrats thought would be a coronation for County Executive.  Holt and Kamenetz debated last night on a new radio show on WCBM hosted by Jay Liner of "All Politics is Local".

You can listen to the full audio of the debate here.  (Courtesy of Bryan Sears of Patuxent Publishing Company)

Some of the highlights included Holt's dressing down of Kamenetz's 10 year lie about not raising property taxes in the county.  Holt pointed out that they raised the assessed property values so much that it is tantamount to a tax increase.  Also, when asked about an intangible quality that he posses over his opponent, Holt tersely replied, "Honesty".  One of my favorite moments was when Holt reminded Kamenetz that for his million dollars worth of ads he only received 40,000 votes.  (And according to the Gazette, a third of that came from early voting, of course.)  Towards the end of the debate, Holt admonished Kamenetz for his nasty and misleading primary campaign against fellow councilman Joe Bartenfelder.  To everyone's surprise, Bartenfelder called in and gave the following haunting retort to Kamenetz's promise to run a facts and issues based campaign:

“Kevin, buddy,.. If we're gonna have factual dialogue between now and the general [election], let’s make sure you stick with exactly what the facts are, buddy, OK?

“Because, you know, I wouldn't want any more of those misrepresented ads out there.”