The second campaign

As I sit here, I have 23 e-mails and 3 snail mails here that relate to the various hopefuls seeking positions within the Maryland Republican Party. It’s like going through the election all over again except this time my mind’s not already made up for the most part. (Actually it’s sort of like the primary except we only get one election come Saturday.)

I haven’t actually read through all of the information yet, but I suppose the people I’ll vote for need to assure me that they’ll keep several things in mind and work toward certain goals for 2010.

As some readers may recall, I ran for Central Committee with a particular set of goals in mind. One is, “an open-door policy and outreach to the…College Republicans as well as local Young Republican chapters. (W)e as Central Committee members need to do what we can to encourage these interested youths to get involved with the political process. Take advantage of their youthful energy, not just as grunt workers for the same old candidates but give them an opportunity to make a difference. Will mistakes be made? Yes, but it’s better to make a mistake trying to make a positive change than screwing up doing the same old thing.”

The other key and relevent one is, “I’m a believer in contested primaries regardless of office. Just because someone is in elected office makes them no more special than the rest of us…In 2010, I would like to see even the Republicans who win election this year pushed to a contest in the primary. A spirited but friendly competition is a good warmup for the real test, when our candidates square off with those Democrats who will likely have the advantages of help from Annapolis and a friendlier media.”

The second one may be the rub and place me in a small minority as far as the Maryland GOP goes. The conventional wisdom is that having uncontested primaries frees up money for the general election and keeps the mud from being slung within the party. An example is the “Willie Horton” ad used by Democrats as an example of Republicans being mean and racist – it was actually first used by an opponent of Michael Dukakis in the 1988 Democrat primaries (I want to say Al Gore, but I’m not sure. Looked it up on Wikipedia and there’s conflicting stories on the source.)

Anyhow, I’m a person who puts his trust in party voters to elect the right person for the position. But sometimes the state and national GOP brain trusts place their support behind a warm body who just happens to carry an “R” behind his name and the power of incumbency instead of a candidate who is more in line with the party’s interests as a whole – only to see their fair-haired boy stab them in the back when the chips are down. See Specter vs. Toomey in Pennsylvania (2004) and Chafee vs. Laffey in Rhode Island (2006). In particular, I was perturbed when we had a representative from the state GOP come to a meeting to explain the Republican GOTV efforts and use this year’s Rhode Island primary as an example because the party was using it to endorse the RINO Chafee, who may have lost the primary if not for the efforts. And do you think some conservatives in Pennsylvania may have kept the memory of Rick Santorum endorsing Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in the back of their minds when they decided to skip that race or pull the lever for Bob Casey out of spite?

I want candidates to run my state party who understand that there’s no need to compromise its principles because we live in what’s now a “blue” state. We just need to solidify our base (the “outstate” areas) and focus on reeducating those in the swing areas that a conservative philosophy of governance is the best one.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

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