Last night I finally made it to another Wicomico County Republican Club meeting. The last two (in October and November) were cases when I looked at my computer Favorites list at 11:00 at night, spied the club’s link, and said to myself, “ah dammit! I missed the meeting tonight!”
But not last night. I did show up a couple minutes after the scheduled 7 p.m. start time, but now knowing that the first half hour is kibbitzing before the meeting is gaveled to order. During that time, I found I have at least a couple semi-faithful readers, which is cool.
So the pledge was taken, the meeting minutes from November approved, the club has a lot more money in the bank then it did this time last year, and our dues will go up $5 to $25 a year. Sounds fair enough. Also, the meetings will stay on their current 4th Monday of the month in the same place for at least another year.
The bulk of the meeting was remarks by our guest speaker, Worcester County Commissioner Sonny Bloxom. (Worcester County is the county immediately to our east, which is home to tourist attraction Ocean City.) He has tossed his hat in the ring for a GOP nomination for Delegate from District 38B, which is my district.
(Just an aside to those non-locals. Maryland has 47 State Senate districts and 141 House of Delegates districts, three for each Senate district. Some of these House of Delegate districts share the exact same boundaries as the Senate districts, and elect 3 basically at-large Delegates from the entire area. A few, like my District 38, split into two areas, with the larger area having two Delegates and the smaller area one. And there’s a couple that are split in thirds – much like I’m used to from Ohio politics.
And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more hacked up and gerrymandered political map than the map of Districts 37 and 38, which split Wicomico County. I live on the extreme western edge of Senate District 38, which covers the eastern half of Wicomico County plus all of Worcester and Somerset Counties. House of Delegates District 38B is the pretty much the Wicomico/Worcester portion.)
But Commissioner Bloxum had quite a bit to say. Early on, he quoted Maryland Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller (this from the Baltimore Sun, January 11):
GOP leaders are “going to be flying high, but we’re going to get together and we’re going to shoot them down. We’re going to put them in the ground, and it’ll be 10 years before they crawl out again,” the Prince George’s County Democrat said.
Key components of Sonny’s initial remarks were emphasizing a focus on growth issues. He noted that Worcester County had a comprehensive growth plan, and thought that it would be a good idea to take something of that nature to at least a regional, if not state, level. Bloxom emphasized his experiences with the task force seeking a location for another Chesapeake Bay crossing, with a particular trend that he spoke of being people who work on the Western Shore choosing to live on the middle part of the Eastern Shore because of the more rural lifestyle.
At that point, Bloxom opened the floor to question those present about what they thought the issues were.
First out of the box: social issues. Bloxum stated that, “he believes in what the Bible says.” In particular, he cited a court ruling that reopened the question of gay marriage. Further, he noted that even though any attorney can do the legalities for a same-sex couple to have advance directives, power of attorney, and wills similar to a married couple, the gay lobby is using these and other items to “nibbl(e) away” at the current Maryland laws. In Bloxom’s eyes, marriage is between a man and a woman. Since the court ruling threw the constitutionality of existing laws into question, one possible remedy would be to change the Maryland Constitution to state that marriage is between a man and woman only. Bloxom also wants to see a ban on partial-birth abortion in Maryland, a stance sure to appeal to many on the Eastern Shore.
He disagreed with Governor Ehrlich, though, on some issues, particularly the closing of the Eastern Shore DRILL Academy (for delinquent youth.) Bloxom thought that there was still a need for some smaller local juvenile facilities, rather than a large warehouse approach.
And, of course, the recent Wal-Mart issue came up. It’s a bad precedent, stated Bloxom, as it puts the state into the business of dictating to private employers how much they have to spend on health care.
(An irony that just occurred to me, since our company did this – what benefit would it be then for a company to look for a health insurance plan providing the same or even better coverage for less money, if the savings from that plan could be eaten away by this Wal-Mart tax?)
All in all, a very good start to the campaign to unseat our two Democrats. Here’s the press release for Sonny Bloxom, he was kind enough to send it to me.
Final meeting remarks were made by our club president, who announced that Wicomico County gets to host the tri-county Lincoln Day dinner this year, and they were working on getting a nationally-recognized speaker. Also, he whimsically noted that, under Maryland election laws, the party who has the governor’s chair is billed at the top of the ballot, so we needed a full slate of candidates for all the county offices.
Hopefully I’ll string together two months of attendance in a row and comment on February’s meeting. And if any of you don’t know who I am at the meeting, I’m the guy who was sporting the University of Michigan sweatshirt. Yes, despite the fact I’m from Ohio, I am a fan of the “team up north”, the maize and blue.
