Wyn Delano
WMAL.com

SILVER SPRING, MD — (WMAL) Danielle Meitiv’s personal nightmare became a national conversation after she was charged with neglect when police picked up her two boys – aged 10 and 6 – walking home from a Silver Spring Park.

Meitiv was cleared of all charges almost two years ago.

“You know one thing that really interesting about our story is that it really resonated with people across the political spectrum: I was on Fox News and I was on MSNBC. I got contacted by Glenn Beck and the Daily Show,” Meitiv told WMAL.

Though she is running as a Democrat, Meitiv is hoping to use that attention and bi-partisan sentiment to make a successful run for an At-Large Seat on the Montgomery County Council this year, kicking off her campaign at an event on June 30th in Silver Spring.

And Ms. Meitiv, rather than hiding from her particular controversy, made it very clear that the reason she is running is, in part, because of what happened to her family:

“My family; my children were picked up by the police, we were harassed by Child Protective Services, we were charged with neglect – and that all happened here in this county. That is absolutely one of the reasons why I woke up to the fact that my life is really impacted every single day by what happens at the county level, and that’s why I want to get involved,” she said.

However, Ms. Meitiv is not a single-issue candidate – running on many other more traditionally Democratic issues such as environmentalism, infrastructure building, and raising the minimum wage.

Yet, she finds herself in a unique position among candidates due to her past exposure, especially since she is unapologetic about her “free-range” parenting style – though she disputes that term:

“What we’re doing now, not giving children freedom, that’s radical. What I’m doing with my kids, that’s the norm everywhere else,” she says.

Though, she is quick to offer an olive branch to those who disagree with her confident stance:

“Reasonable people who care deeply about their children can disagree on how to raise their children – I am certainly not running on a platform of “how to parent.”

And that kind of reaching out may just be the key to her moving from “Free-Range Parent” to “Council Member.”

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