Republican Larry Hogan on Angela Alsobrooks: “Great Leader” Who’s “Taking Dramatic Action” on Crime [Mother Jones]

Hogan: “My dad is a former county executive… I can’t remember a better county executive than Angela Alsobrooks”

Republican Larry Hogan has a record praising Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, including commending her work reducing crime and stating he “can’t remember a better county executive,” a position he acknowledged was once held by his own father.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT.

Mother Jones: GOP Senate Candidate Larry Hogan Says His Democratic Foe Is Awful. He Once Praised Her as “Great.”

By David Corn

October 4, 2024

• [Hogan] repeatedly insists he is a “straight shooter” who eschews “performative politics” and asserts he is “fed up” with politicians who are “more interested in attacking one another than actually getting anything done.”
• [Hogan] has pulled a giant flip-flop, assailing [Alsobrooks’] performance in office as disastrous, even though Hogan had, prior to this campaign, praised her as a “great” leader and a highly accomplished county executive.
• Yet not so long ago, Hogan was praising Alsobrooks. In an interview in March with Axios, Hogan was asked whether, when he was governor, he had a “warm working relationship” with Alsobrooks. He replied, “I do… I think she’s been a good county executive.”
• In April 2022… [Hogan] held a joint press event with Alsobrooks… and he gushed about her: “I want to just thank the County Executive for her incredible leadership. This really is her vision that brings us all together here today… I want to sincerely thank you, Madam County Executive, for the incredible partnership that we’ve had through the entire time that you’ve been county executive. I want to say you’re doing a great job… I want to say the County Executive, Angela Alsobrooks, is also super bad.” He hailed this project, which she had championed, for bringing “more jobs and more economic development to the neighborhoods right here where I grew up.”
• At this press conference, Hogan, whose father was the Prince George’s county executive from 1978 to 1982, laid it on thick: “I shouldn’t say this, because I’ll get in trouble, but my dad is a former county executive, and one of my best friends for many years was [county executive] Wayne Curry. And I’ll say, I can’t remember a better county executive than Angela Alsobrooks. Thank you so much for your leadership.”
• In a television interview in December 2022, he said, “She’s a friend. She’s a great leader.” 
• He even commended her for her handling of crime: “Some people are taking it more seriously than others. In Prince George’s County, they’ve got a crime issue, but the county executive, Angela Alsobrooks, is taking dramatic action. She’s instituting curfews. She’s keeping kids off the streets so they’re not committing crimes, and seems to be supporting police in their efforts to break up some of these criminal gang activities.”
• The problem is that Hogan has been selling himself as a… different kind of politician, one who opts out of the “polarization” of the Trump era… Yet Hogan has no trouble firing misleading charges and harsh rhetoric at a woman he recently lauded as the best Prince George’s county executive in decades. 
• This flip-flop shows Hogan is nothing but the sort of politician he claims to despise.

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