I had never met Wayne Gilchrest before our interview over breakfast at Chestertown’s Village Bakery. He showed up wearing a worn T-shirt and jeans—not the expected uniform of a politician, whom we so often see in button-down shirts and suits. He had invited me to go canoeing before breakfast, and it looked as if he already had.
In between bites of his eggs over light, rye toast, and home fries, Gilchrest proceeded to regale me with stories of his days in Vietnam, his work at a chicken processing plant in Maine, and his enjoyment of working with kids and canoeing—two things he does an awful lot of these days.
He also reminisced about his decision to enter politics in 1987, when he was working as a high school teacher/part-time house painter in Kent County. “I was reading the Star Democrat while painting the post office in Kennedyville, and the paper said the Republicans couldn’t find somebody to run against [Democrat incumbent] Roy Dyson,” he recalled. “I thought, there has to be a voice in opposition.”
So the independent Gilchrest, who grew up in a Republican household, registered to run as a Republican mainly because it cost only $100, instead of $300 to compete as an independent.
He lost that election by just 460 votes but decisively beat Dyson in a rematch in 1990.
The political landscape is a lot different than when Gilchrest was first elected. There are far fewer moderates, of course. And “partisanship with congeniality,” as he said, has been replaced by “partisanship with bitterness.” Losing the 2008 Republican primary, he said, was a big relief. By then, “the job was just alien to every fiber in my being,” he told me.
Gilchrest was never one afraid to speak his mind and, now that he’s been out of Washington for a few years, he doesn’t hold back. He takes full swings—particularly at his own party—and disses the opposition as well. He may be relatively at ease these days, but the Gulf oil spill, dogmatic politicians beholden to special interests, and the ongoing degradation of the Bay continue to gnaw at him. As we ate, I recalled thinking that it may have been the first time I had ever heard a politician—one of them—sound like one of us.
Not all of you will agree with our choice to put Mr. Gilchrest on the cover during this election season but, like him or not, he remains a unique character of the Chesapeake who happened to have won quite a few elections.
Again, that was a different time—a time when an underfunded teacher/part-time house painter could read a newspaper article, lay down his hundred bucks, and volunteer to help run the country.
Until next issue,
Joe Sugarman
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