You saw the picture of Josh Kurtz at the Kathleen Matthews announcement last week, right in the cleanup spot between Bill Turque and John Fritze, a veritable Murderers Row of local political journalism. Today Kurtz posted an article on Center Maryland about Matthews’ candidacy that is very definitely worth a read. A taste:

Not so long ago, it would have been easy to dismiss a vanity candidate like Kathleen Matthews, who spent 25 years on local TV and a decade as the top flack for Marriott. We’ve seen in the D.C. suburbs a parade of contenders who were big shots in their fields in Washington, or obscenely wealthy, but had no real local connections, so their campaigns fizzled.

But lately the paradigm has shifted, with the election of Larry Hogan as governor last year and Congressman John Delaney in 2012. Now it’s not so easy to write off the wealthy political novices. Anyone who sees Kathleen Matthews as the second coming of Lise Van Susteren or Ray Schoenke or Josh Rales will be sorely disappointed.