Did Maryland's Geographically Challenged Governor Jinx the Ravens?

Wes Moore has spent his entire life lying about his ties to Baltimore–is it crazy to think he jinxed the team?

It’s no secret that Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore, has spent very little time in Maryland–and Baltimore in particular, most notoriously. As such, his latest efforts to look cool fell remarkably flat–especially considering he had just tweeted that the Kansas City Chiefs play in the wrong state when he made a bet with a fellow Democratic governor about the outcome of today’s game.

Earlier today, Moore potentially jinxed the Baltimore Ravens–in conjunction with the NFL’s obvious desire to have Taylor Swift and the Kansas City Chiefs at the Super Bowl–following some cringe-inducing shotgunning to show how “normal” he is. But, it’s worth remembering that Moore spent more time in Baltimore today than he has in…basically his whole life.

Moore had full faith in the Ravens, who were favored to win by 3.5 points. “When the Ravens make it to Vegas, we will be there.” Instead, they got crushed by the Chiefs and Lamar Jackson continued his playoff problems. 

During the 2022 Democratic primary for governor, CNN dismantled every aspect of Moore’s life–highlighting how he used a friendship with Oprah Winfrey to gaslight his way into Annapolis.

It’s rare to see a piece so thoroughly dismantle someone, but that’s exactly what Edward-Isaac Dovere did in a piece called “A rising Democratic star told his origin story. But did he allow a narrative to take hold that didn’t match the facts?”

The whole story is a must-read, but the crux of it is that Moore wrote a book, The Other Wes Moore, that is required reading in many Maryland schools about another man named Wes Moore who was convicted of killing a cop. Its entire premise is that Moore is Baltimore born and bred.

But, as CNN notes, Moore was not born in Baltimore–and didn’t really even live there until he went to Johns Hopkins for college.

From the article, emphasis added:

According to Moore’s website, he wasn’t born in Baltimore but in Washington, DC. As the book lays out, he spent his early childhood in the suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland, some 30 miles from Baltimore. After his father’s sudden death when Moore was 3 years old, he then moved with his family to the Bronx, which at the time was beset by crime, drugs and poverty – much as Baltimore was in the 1980s and 1990s.

Late in the summer before he turned 16, Moore’s mother moved to the middle-class enclave of Pasadena, in Maryland’s Anne Arundel County. But by then Moore was away at military school in Pennsylvania. Moore’s campaign says that when he would visit his mother as a kid, he would often go roller-skating and get his hair cut in Baltimore.

It wasn’t until he was a 20-year-old undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University that Moore first lived in Baltimore. Even then, as a student at Johns Hopkins, the world he inhabited while attending a prestigious private university was nothing like the notorious inner-city housing developments of Baltimore where the 2010 book says the other Wes Moore grew up.

Now, did the fact that Moore’s main Baltimore experiences were getting haircuts and going rollerskating there as a teenager prevent Moore writing in his book that he grew up on the same Baltimore streets as the other Wes Moore? Of course not.

Moore writes in his book: “This is the story of two boys living in Baltimore with similar histories and an identical name,” later adding that “we’d grown up at the same time, on the same streets, with the same name.”

Surely Moore corrected Winfrey, Judy Woodruff, Joe Scarborough, Stephen Colbert, when they said he was born in Baltimore, right?

Not at all. In one telling instance, Scarborough said to Moore: “You were haunted by the fact that a guy with your name, grew up in the same neighborhood, a couple of blocks away, a lot of similarities, but you end up working in the White House, and he ends up in jail.” 

This is, in any telling, completely inaccurate–not that Morning Joe could know that, given the lies surrounding Moore. Instead of correcting the record, “Moore listened contentedly, making no correction,” CNN notes.

Moore is a liar, and mid at shotgunning. To make matters worse, he botched one of the easiest tasks in all of politics: making a bet against a fellow elected official, in which he suggested that he had no idea where the Chiefs even play.

“Thrilled to welcome @GovLauraKelly 's @Chiefs to Baltimore this weekend,” Moore tweeted earlier this week. “Although, Governor, I really think my @Ravens are going to take this one–want to make a bet? I’ll put up some crab pies from @crustbymack , whatcha got?”

Laura Kelly is Kansas’s governor. The Chiefs do not play in Kansas, they play in Missouri. Although given Moore’s lifetime of geographic gaslighting, maybe it’s not a surprise that he got the state wrong–after all, lying about geography has gotten him this far.