Saturday, June 11, is a gorgeous, sunny morning for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to open her campaign headquarters at 2601 N. Howard St. There is a café on the corner, but no door to the new office. To get to the grand opening you have to go down to an opening in the building, through a gate, and into a hidden courtyard.

There are around 50 people milling about at 11:30 this morning. Most of them appear to be city employees, or close to it. There’s Mel Freeman, executive director of the Citizen’s Planning and Housing Association and City Councilmember Robert Curran (D-3rd), bubbly as usual, crowing about his upcoming legislation squeezing certain towing companies. Baltimore Housing Deputy Commissioner Reggie Scriber is here, the man people see when they’re left homeless by crime or disaster; Kevin Cleary, deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods, shakes peoples’ hands a few steps from Salima Siler Marriott, the former deputy mayor and former state delegate. Black and yellow balloons fly from posts. Busy cooks turn over ribs and dogs on the grills. Children frolic in the spaces between knots of adults talking shop.

The mayor shows up at 10 till noon, looking slim in bright white pants and unusually tall in what look like 5-inch heels. Smiling while her daughter clings to one leg, Rawlings-Blake appears painstakingly assembled, tight as a drum, and slightly uncomfortable.

In the 11 weeks since that morning, Rawlings-Blake has run her campaign like she runs her office: cloistered elegantly, almost regally. She and her aides have met challenges her predecessors have not had to tackle—the budget and the pension crisis—but she has hardly deigned to acknowledge her challengers and, on the street, many see her as aloof.

There are fewer candidates in the mayoral Democratic primary this year than there were in 2007, yet the field feels weightier. Four years ago, only Keiffer Mitchell seemed in a position to challenge the incumbent, Sheila Dixon. With strong family name recognition and years on the City Council, Mitchell emerged early as the main alternative to the incumbent, even as Andrey Bundley and Del. Jill Carter (D-41st District) siphoned anti-Dixon votes.

This year, despite rising to the office upon Dixon’s resignation, the incumbent is at once stronger by virtue of her scandal-free reign and arguably weaker because the economy has forced on her wrenching choices that recent mayors never faced. And the field is stocked with experienced contenders such as Otis Rolley, who spent 10 years in high-level city administration without ever becoming a true insider; Jody Landers, whose city service decades ago is still remembered and who has been a go-to man for high-level commissions; and state Sen. Catherine Pugh (D-40th District), a former city councilmember. Even Frank Conaway Sr., the clerk of the Circuit Court who is something of a perpetual mayoral candidate, has brought something new to the table this year, pushing an ambitious proposal to expand the CSX tunnel to create jobs.

The only candidate not proposing bold ideas is Rawlings-Blake, who contends that her opponents lack the realism required to govern. “I think they’re equally adept at pointing out the obvious,” she says. “I haven’t heard any original ideas.”

If that’s true, she is not listening very carefully—a complaint critics have leveled for years. Yes, Rawlings-Blake managed a string of crises, beginning with double blizzards, better than many others would have, and better than many expected. But her growth in office feels put-on, like extra-high heels, and her rose-garden-plus-brute-force re-election campaign plays like someone else’s script—as if Rawlings-Blake is, uneasily, acting the role of imperious mayor.

That this is Rawlings-Blake’s race to lose is axiomatic. As of Aug. 12, the last campaign finance reporting deadline before the primary, she had raised $1.4 million this year, nearly twice what her opponents had, all combined, while those challengers have been fighting among themselves. (On the Republican side, Alfred V. Griffin III is battling Vicki Ann Harding for the right to lose the general election. Neither candidate has filed a campaign finance report, and neither candidate has any visible base of support.)

While Rawlings-Blake’s policy achievements are substantial (finessing a $121 million budget deficit and taking on police and fire unions to save $800 million in pension costs were Herculean efforts unmatched by previous Baltimore administrations or most mayors in her peer group), they do not lend themselves to campaign sound bites. So the mayor has resorted to hype, directing a flood of press releases touting things like street paving and her new Vacants to Value initiative, a six-point anti-blight plan that’s gotten her an audience with President Barack Obama.

Despite her dismissal of them, her opponents have countered with several substantial policy initiatives, including several solid property tax-cut proposals, calls for school rebuilding, and even an ambitious, left-field railroad plan.

The 2011 mayoral primary is “one of the best races in 40 years,” Jody Landers says, marveling at the quality of the competition. He and his advisors think he can win the office with 30,000 votes. “We don’t need a majority,” Landers says, “we just need a plurality.”

On the morning of June 13, Landers has not yet quit his day job (his last day as Executive Vice President of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors came June 24) but he’s scheduled for the American Visionary Art Museum’s flea market, the Greek fest, a house party/fundraiser, and the Association of Black Charities gala at Martins West. Sunday he’s got the farmers market and then home to cut the grass.

> Email Edward Ericson Jr.

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