Dan Cox is the dishonest candidate for governor | READER COMMENTARY

I was darkly amused to read (“Maryland GOP nominee Dan Cox knocks Democratic gubernatorial foe Wes Moore’s book in wake of lower polling, party disunity,” Sept. 19) that the Republican nominee for governor, Del. Dan Cox, thought it to his advantage to hold a press conference demanding that Baltimore City Public Schools drop Wes Moore’s book from required reading lists, condemning the book as “fictional campaign material.”

Cox’s whole beef appears to be based on the claim that “The Other Wes Moore,” his rival’s work, falsely pushes the idea that candidate Moore and his now-incarcerated namesake both grew up in West Baltimore.

Having taught from this book myself (while substituting for a colleague), I can witness that the text of the book itself nowhere makes that claim. The only place there is a suggestion that the two Wes Moores grew up “blocks apart” is in the publisher’s back-cover synopsis, but “blurbs” of this kind are often a bad indicator of a book’s real contents.

As for the idea that The Other Wes Moore is “campaign material,” it is hard to see how author Wes Moore could have known when the book was published in 2010 that he would be running for governor of Maryland 12 years later. Anyone who actually read the book can see that even if Moore foresaw his own candidacy in 2010, the text itself gives no hint of any such ambition.

Cox’s claims, even if supported by a misguided relative of the “other” Wes Moore, are ludicrous. It is sad to reflect that this not-very-honest candidate was boosted by Democratic money on the premise that he would be “easier to beat.” Be careful, Dems, what you wish for!

— Mark Chalkley, Baltimore

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