WASHINGTON – Maryland Republicans have another chance to put a Kimble in Congress. Now, so do Democrats.
While Republican John Kimble is mounting his third bid against 4th District Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Largo, his Democratic mother, Joyce Kimble, is running for the first time in the neighboring 8th District against Rep. Connie Morella, R-Bethesda.
The Kimbles and Maryland archivists believe it is the first time a mother and son have teamed up in the state to run for Congress.
“The only way to straighten things out is to take her job,” John Kimble said of his mother’s bid. “It puts me in an interesting bind because I like Connie Morella …but [Joyce] she’s my mom.”
Even though they are from separate parties and running in separate races, the Kimbles vowed to stand beside each another.
“We will support one another, even though we’re running in separate campaigns,” John said.
Support from outside the family may be hard to come by for the Kimbles, whose shared platform includes a pledge to move houses of prostitution away from schools and into industrial zones where they belong.
Neither the Maryland Republican Party nor the Maryland Democratic Party seems eager to back the mother or son.
Paul Ellington, executive director of the Maryland Republican Party, said the organization will put its energy into supporting the state’s “more serious candidates.”
“Obviously, we’re not looking for a circus sideshow,” Ellington said. “I think people see through these publicity stunts.”
The Maryland Democratic Party was less than enthusiastic about Joyce Kimble’s candidacy.
“I really don’t know anything about either of them,” said Rob Johnson, executive director of the Democrats. But, “if she wins, we’ll back her.”
The same may not be true for the Republicans, who did not offer any help to Kimble after he won the nomination in 1998. Party disenchantment with him began in 1996, when Kimble won the nomination and offered to pose nude for Playgirl magazine in an effort to earn $1 million for his campaign.
That same year, Kimble, who is white, proposed a 10-year moratorium on immigration. He has since been quoted as saying he wished African-American voters in the predominantly black district would stay away from the polls — he now denies saying that — and he has filed suit to dismantle the 4th District, which he called an example of reverse discrimination against whites.
Kimble said Friday that he has backed off the immigration moratorium in favor of a “Berlin Wall thing” on the country’s southern border. “You see all the families in the South, where they have to shoot at the Mexicans to keep them out,” he said by way of explanation.
He admits that getting his mom to run in the 8th District “would give us more press,” but insisted that it is not a publicity stunt. He said the main reason they are running is to “get rid of the old-boy network.”
“Maryland has been noted in a lot of historical books that it’s a corrupt state. I think it [our election] would bring integrity to Congress,” John Kimble said.
His mother said she was moved to run because Morella ignored her complaint that a retired District of Columbia police officer, who is black and was working as a security guard, grabbed her breast at the school where she worked. The incident traumatized her, and more people lashed out at her than helped her, she said.
Joyce Kimble said she plans to push legislation that will protect women from such ridicule and embarrassment.
“White women just do not stand up and report black men for sexual harassment,” said Joyce Kimble, who said she was a schoolteacher for over 32 years, last working in Montgomery County Public Schools
Aides to Morella said the office did not ignore Joyce Kimble’s letter about the alleged sexual harassment, which it received in August.
“We did respond immediately,” said Lisa Boepple, Morella’s chief of staff. “We referred her back to her representative,” who is Albert Wynn, she said.
John Kimble said he and his mother live together and own homes in both the 4th and the 8th districts. But Joyce Kimble, whose campaign filing shows a Spencerville post office box as her address, maintains that Morella is her representative and that the alleged assault took place in her district.
While controversy may bring headlines, political analysts doubt it will bring the Kimbles votes.
Manning Marable, a professor of history and political science at Columbia University who closely follows Maryland politics, said John Kimble is “on the fringe.”
“There’s no way he can be elected, and this is not a serious campaign,” Marable said.
But John Kimble, who is running unopposed in the GOP primary, has hope.
“I was born on the same day as John Kennedy,” he said, maintaining that that alone will likely bring him luck.
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