1,000 politicians

As advertised, if you were a politician in Maryland, you were more than likely in Crisfield yesterday eating crabs, clams, trout, corn on the cob, watermelon, and all the other fixins. And if you weren’t walking around with something political on your person, you were the odd duck indeed.

Here’s a few highlights and observations I had about the J. Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake. It’s the first one I’d gone to, so it was all new to me!

First of all, I think the organizers did a really good job. Whenever you cram 5,500 people into a fairly small area, you’re going to have lines. But in general, I sailed through them all with little problem or hassle. I guess they need more politicians at, say, the MVA, or the “20 items or less” aisle at Wal-Mart.

I got to talking to a LOT of people there. But one observation me and I think it was Dustin Mills (Mike James’s campaign person) had was that, of 5,000 people there, 1,000 were politicians, 3,500 were their hangers-on, and the other 500 were really the only ones from Crisfield. At least it was a funny joke to us.

Ended up speaking with 4 of the 5 38B Republicans, plus briefly with Page Elmore, all of the current GOP county councilpeople, and Major Doris. (Saw Mike Lewis but I was talking to someone else at the time so I didn’t get a chance to greet him.) One thing I think would have been more interesting for the Tawes people to do would’ve been to place the Republican and Democrat tents side-by-side. I sort of made the circuit from the GOP tent to the food line to the Pepsi truck but didn’t make a large number of detours to the Democrat tent, since they were stuck back in a corner. Need those links!

Also, I did reacquaint myself with Michael Steele, who was there, but I was very disappointed Governor Ehrlich didn’t make it down. Kristen Cox is a nice lady, I’m sure, but she just doesn’t have the star power of the Guv. I saw the grand entrance of one Martin O’Malley, escorted by a group of 15-20 people, mostly young, in these obnoxious bright puke green T-shirts. Mayor, if you govern the way your campaign coordinator picks out shirt colors, there’s going to be a mass exodus to Delaware. (Sort of like the one out of Baltimore, come to think of it.) The person I saw with the most campaign stickers on him had ten (by my count) and was wearing an O’Malley shirt. Had I been a little older and with more experience taking psychotropic drugs in the sixties, it may have induced a flashback seeing all those colors on one person.

I did notice that the rain came when O’Malley showed up. I suppose it all depends on your party affiliation as to whether the rain was a nuisance or welcome relief.

Speaking of rain, I was talking to Jack Lord (who is not dead), and I got to ask him something I’d been curious about for awhile. Since I knew he was a farmer, I had to ask him about something I’ve seen in my travels around Delmarva, especially down that way toward Crisfield and Pocomoke along Route 13. What I wondered is why it seems like a lot of the land down there is not agricultural but more of a scrub land. The answer Jack gave me was that the land doesn’t drain well, which I sort of suspected. (I did grow up in an agricultural area.)

It’s strange because the area I grew up in (Northwest Ohio) was once the Great Black Swamp, but the farmers and the fledgling state of Ohio developed a large system of drainage ditches and the onetime marsh became some really great agricultural land. I think the possibilities should be studied here, as growth swallows up farmland. Something tells me the zealots at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation would sue before the first shovel was turned. It’s what they do isn’t it?

I must say that the three hours passed pretty quickly. The rain started the exodus, but I hung around until about 4:15. Parking was a lot easier then, I had a 12 minute walk just to get to the line when I arrived but it seemed a lot shorter going back, probably because of all the empty spots. Hope the folks charging $10 for parking don’t spend all their money in one place, although that could be hard to do judging by some of the yards.

But what floored me the most wasn’t the food or the politics. The sheer fact that busloads of people from other parts of Maryland come down here for this event was what floored me. On that note, I wanted to put a shout out to Lynn, who I sat down with to get out of the rain (and stayed to talk to for awhile after the sun came out.) Thanks to her, I have a commemorative mug – reason being she was drinking beer because she was riding a bus home to Anne Arundel County while I was drinking diet Pepsi because I was driving back to Salisbury. She offered me the (empty) mug and I gladly accepted.

So the third Wednesday in July next year will be circled and I’ll go back down. It was a blast, Crisfield.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.