In print no. 5

Today my letter to the editor was posted in the Daily Times. However this is a letter I had to truncate from the original. So I’m going to do is replicate the DT letter and anything I had to edit out is in italics.

To the editor:

On November 7th, Wicomico County voters will join with their brethren all across America in a national debate about our future. Because of the way the Founding Fathers set up our political system, once every two years the entire nation unites to dictate its direction for the next biennium.

Something I’d like to stress is that, regardless of party, it’s the one opportunity all of us citizens possess to have our representatives truly be representative of our own personal views, or as least mirror them as closely as it’s possible for two different individuals to share those views. For example, the choices I have in our Congressional election come down to two gentlemen who I disagree with to at least some extent, but on balance I find that the incumbent agrees with me on more issues; thus I’ll give him my vote and attempt to enlighten him further on those things I feel strongly about during his next term.

On the more local level, something I’ve found that many on the Eastern Shore possess is a disdain of the political system, particularly the one in Annapolis. There’s those Delegates who come back to our neck of the woods touting their record of accomplishments, but when you pull back the curtain on their voting record you find that they voted just like the boys who we detest in Annapolis did. In fact, one Delegate I’m thinking of who brags about heading the House Appropriations Committee managed to vote right down the line with the Baltimore/PG/MoCo cabal on all but two of 25 key issues selected by the Maryland Accountability Project for the 2005 session, and the two exceptions were times he didn’t vote at all. In three years (2003-2005), he deviated his votes from this party line only three times and I bet when 2006 stats come out early next year we’ll see he had a similar record for the last session. If you don’t believe me, look it up yourself at www.marylandaccountabilityproject.org. I suppose in order to maintain his plum role as Chairman he has to vote with the machine and scavenge whatever crumbs the Annapolis special interests allow us on the Shore to have.

But in the days after the election, once all of the counting and recounting is done and the yard signs slowly disappear from the landscape, I know I’m going to continue with what I’ve been doing and try to ignore the dictates of onerous government as much as the law allows me to. Obviously I feel that task is easier if one party maintains its hold on Congress, keeps its seat in the Maryland governor’s chair, and gains enough seats in the General Assembly to maintain this governor’s vetoes, but I’ll deal with whoever the voters decide to put there, as we all must do.will have to.

With this in mind I call on local citizens to make your decisions in a learned and careful fashion in order to participate in the process come November 7th (or earlier if you choose to use the absentee ballot.) Perhaps it’s appropriate that Election Day comes shortly after Halloween, since come January we’ll either have to deal with tricks or treats depending on who is placed in the seats of our government.

Then there was this comment on the delmarvanow.com website:

Delegate Conway has done an excellent job for the Shore. Our writer contends that he is quite aware of politics in Annapolis. I find this hard to believe, because if he was aware he would have seen Delegate Conway working harder then most. I’ve met with Delegate Conway on several occassions and eveytime it was between session and appropriation meetings when he was trying to eat, he gave himself about 15 mins. and then he was right back at it. I doubt Mr.Schwartz works this hard. Please remember Mr. Schwarz that it is a house of representatives, not one person, and Norm fought hard for the shore. I may not agree with Delegate Conway on all matters but I do know he has work hard, given both sides a listen, and then made his vote. What more could anyone else have done!!!

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 10:16 am

Aside from the fact this person spelled my name wrong (twice!) I had my reply ready.

My commentary had nothing to do with how hard-working Delegate Conway was. I’ve spoken and dealt with him on a few occasions and found he’s quite pleasant – we can agree to disagree in a civil manner.

Rather, I’m looking at his voting record. If those on the Shore think that he should vote in a nearly identical manner as Mike Busch, Peter Franchot, and other liberal Democrats in Annapolis then they’re free to vote for him. Further, at one time Conway voted for the interests of small business about 80% of the time, but since becoming the chair of his committee, that number has dwindled to about 25%.

Our area doesn’t have the luxury of outsourced federal jobs from DC and state government posts to fall back on – the Eastern Shore needs to be a place that’s perceived as business-friendly and good for entrepreneurship. I think that the Shore would be better represented by Delegates who would vote for values that are more common here, a sensible conservatism. Talking one way and voting another can’t fool the electorate this time.

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And that’s where we stand at the moment. Now, the reason I had to edit the original was to get it down to a 400 word limit. However, I will give the DT credit for not chopping up my letter into fourteen one-sentence paragraphs like I’ve seen done before. They kept the thoughts together reasonably well this time.

One other quibble I have is that the online version messes up the link by splitting marylandaccountabilityproject.org up. But I think astute readers will figure that out.

But now I’m pretty much stuck with this blog as far as communications go since they had a long backup of letters that I’m aware of. Endorsements I’ll just have to pick on later I suppose.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.