As far as campaign promises go, this one takes the cake. Rep. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), in a tight primary race against former Rep. Kweisi Mfume for the Senate seat vacated by the retiring Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes, will cure cancer by 2015.

Doug Donovan of The Baltimore Sun reports:

With a month to go before primary voters head to the polls to choose Senate nominees, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin kicked off yesterday a weeklong effort to highlight his congressional record and vision on health care by making the mother of all campaign promises - to cure cancer.

Cardin, a Democrat from Baltimore County, gathered with cancer survivors and doctors in Lutherville to detail his efforts to expand cancer screening and his plans to fight the disease.

"We are going to lick cancer by 2015," Cardin told a group of 15 people at the HopeWell Cancer Support Center on Falls Road.

The health care push comes as he and other candidates fight to distinguish themselves from the crowd of Democrats and Republicans vying to replace retiring incumbent Paul S. Sarbanes, the state's longest-serving senator. All are hoping to make their views and accomplishments known as voters start to pay more attention to the high-profile race.

Coinciding with the event, the Cardin campaign released yesterday an Internet campaign commercial in which a cancer survivor discusses how early detection saved him.

"They caught mine early and I'm cured," Dr. Edwin Adelson says in the ad. "Thanks to Ben Cardin, others can have their chance. ... He's literally a lifesaver."

Read the rest at the link above.

Wow, I don't want to die of cancer - better vote for Cardin!

As Ankle Biting Pundits, who pointed me to this story, comments: "What's Kweisi Mfume, his primary opponent going to do to top it - find the 'fountain of youth'?"

The sad part is that even if Cardin wins, Maryland voters won't be able to hold him to his promise at the next election. That would be in 2012, and Cardin would still have three more years to cure cancer.

Update -- Lorie adds: I thought that no one could top John Edwards when he said, "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again." I guess since more people get cancer than are confined to wheelchairs, Cardin's does take the prize. Edwards gets points for visual imagery though.

UPDATE 2:30 p.m.: As reader Gary Gross notes at Let Freedom Ring, Cardin's promise was made before a rousing crowd of FIFTEEN people.

It seems his "grassroots" support amounts to little more than a few weeds . . .