May 2007 – Page 2 – monoblogue

In print no. 6

I got a call last Thursday from the oddest source – Tom LoBianco of the Washington Times. Apparently he’s a fan of monoblogue or at least has become familiar with it by reputation. I chatted with him for a few minutes about the feelings the Eastern Shore GOP has about our Congressman, Wayne Gilchrest.

So today I got my daily e-mail update from the Maryland GOP and it had an article by LoBianco on the race. You know I had to check it out. And sure enough:

“When I talk to other Republicans, they’re really not enamored with [Mr. Gilchrest’s] stances on the issues,” said Michael Swartz, a member of the Wicomico Republican Central Committee and author of the Eastern Shore politics blog Monoblogue. “He’s ripe for the picking if he’s not popular.”

Not only did LoBianco spell my name right (unlike some other “journalists” here) and get the name of the blog correct, he actually quoted me pretty closely. Since it was a phone call, I didn’t write down just what I said but it sounds like something I would’ve stated. The only other thing I could’ve asked for was a link!

But the article was interesting for much more than my quote. I know it’s sort of hard to fathom, being just over 6 months removed from the last election and almost 18 months away from the 2008 general, but because of the insanity that drives states to make their primaries earlier and earlier, we’ll pick the GOP and Democrat nominees in February. This means that politicians who may in earlier days have gotten this summer off will be right back out on the rubber chicken circuit beginning this summer. It also means that interspersed with the annoying holiday commercials will come the annoying political ones.

I liked the little bit of introduction in the piece we got to the other candidates from both parties. Since I’ve already talked about Andy Harris I thought it might be good to look at the other side. The two Democrats who’ve expressed interest are:

Frank Kratovil, a “conservative Eastern Shore prosecutor.” However, he wasn’t conservative enough not to back the liberal policies of Governor O’Malley during the campaign nor eschew support from O’Malley, Senator Ben Cardin, or state AG Doug Gansler – all varying shades of leftist.
Christopher Robinson, who ran unsuccessfully in 2006. He’s described by LoBianco as supporting the death penalty, pro-choice, and for the amnesty bill (my term) before Congress. Of those three positions, I only see one winner on the Eastern Shore. Yet Robinson is correct in one respect, quoted in the Times article as saying, “I just think Mr. Gilchrest is no longer voting the interest of the people of the First District.” He’s right but the Democrat Party of today is not tolerant of those like onetime Rep. Roy Dyson, who Robinson worked for.

And you know that once candidate websites get established I’ll be linking to them. Also, don’t be surprised if I dust off my Ten Questions, revised for the 2008 elections. We’ll see who has the cajones to answer them. In truth, I can probably use my 2006 ones since those issues by and large still remain on the table. (And they said the last GOP-controlled Congress was a “do-nothing Congress.”)

On an unrelated topic, I may end up doing “In print no. 7” later this week as I e-mailed a letter to the Daily Times last night. Think I’ll give them until Friday to put it in, otherwise I’ll post it here over the weekend. Of course, if they chop up my letter as they’ve been known to do, I’ll put in the actual items I wrote here so you get my true feelings on the matter in question.

Just stirring up the pot a little bit more!

2007 Maryland GOP Spring Convention

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending the 2007 Spring convention of the Maryland Republican Party. Unlike the Fall 2006 meeting, which reflected some of the bitterness and rancor of the then-recent electoral defeats, this time we had more of a forward focus.

The people supporting Mitt Romney were quite prepared, even outside the hotel.

As one may expect, people representing the men regarded as the top three Presidential contenders on the Republican side were out in force. After I checked into the hotel and started off to my room, I noticed this:

John McCain's local campaign had reserved one room...

Very elegant and understated, and a bit surprising with all of the “millennial generation” help he had secured via the Maryland Republican Youth Coalition. But around the corner I saw the Romney room.

...but Mitt Romney had quite the display set up in front of his hospitality suite.

All of this had to wait though because first on the schedule was the state Executive Committee meeting. Because our Chair, John Bartkovich, had a previous engagement and could not attend, the honor fell to our Vice Chair, Dave Parker. Parker definitely was a multitasker during this convention, because he also served on the By-Laws Committee and the Credentials Committee. He was one busy guy, and my hat’s off to him.

I sat in on this meeting as a guest. Many of the reports would be repeated during the general meeting on Saturday morning, but there were some highlights.

State party leader James Pelura was pretty upbeat and optimistic in our view, looking at some of the recent issues the party has suffered as “bumps in the road” but also talking about a number of achievements that have occurred during his brief tenure. I tend to agree that, at least by reputation of his predecessor, Pelura has made an excellent effort to listen to the local party leaders and get out the party’s side on the issues via the information superhighway. I get an e-mail update daily.

Pelura continued that the party must be the “voice of reason” and that the “madness in Annapolis is being noticed by the voters.” For my part, I intend to continue to hold the Democrats’ and Governor O’Malley’s collective feet to the fire.

We also heard from other speakers that the goal of this convention was to be a “training” convention, and a couple successes were recounted, particularly with the General Assembly adopting “Jessica’s Law.” As it turned out, we got more of a legislative lowdown in the breakfast session Saturday morning, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Once the meeting was concluded, the various hospitality suites opened up. Because of the nature of this convention (no party elections), the number of suites was down from the fall version. The host county, Anne Arundel, opted not to have their suite but PG County did, with karaoke as an added bonus. (They also had the best food.) Another group I’d not heard of previously, an outfit called Republican Rapid Responders, also had a small suite. Their main purpose at the convention was to plug their 2007 Speaker Series, which kicks off Tuesday night with House Minority Leader John Boehner as the guest speaker. (Particulars are noted on their website.)

But the McCain and Romney suites were where most of the action centered. I stopped by each and chatted up some old friends plus a few new ones. I also did sort of a mini-poll of the various suites and how much interest was generated by each.

The McCain suite wasn't all that lively, maybe because they had a small room.

Here’s a picture of the McCain suite I took at 8:55 p.m. By this point the executive session that the chairs had to attend had wound down, but you can see there wasn’t a whole lot of interest or buzz with the attendees.

A shot from the outside of Romney's suite, looking in.

One minute later I walked around the corner and snapped this shot looking into the Mitt Romney suite. In the shot below, it was 9:15 p.m. and probably about the peak time as far as suite attendance went. Both of these were wrapped up about 10:00 or so.

By comparison to the McCain suite, there was quite the crowd in Mitt's. However I think part of this difference is the bar in the far corner of the room, that my second shot is looking toward.

It’s also interesting to note that during the week prior I had a message left on my voice mail inviting me to the McCain suite, but Romney’s campaign sent me a direct mail invitation with the imprimatur of our two RNC representatives from Maryland, Louis Pope and Joyce Lyons Terhes. I’d be led to assume they are on board with the Romney campaign.

And I guess not everyone was in favor of McCain being the nominee:

Someone doesn't care much for John McCain I guess.

So things wound down as the evening grew later, and as I noted I caught up with old friends and chatted up new ones. One man I met was Andrew Harris, whose campaign for Congress I remarked on last week. As promised, he was checking out his support base at the convention. Now, go check out the article and then look at the picture below:

A lot of Eastern Shore and close environs conventioneers were wearing these stickers, like this person from Talbot County.

Scary, huh? Well, one of the people I ran into in Annapolis was Dustin Mills. Obviously he read my website and, whether by design or coincidence, that slogan was on these stickers. I also saw current Congressman Gilchrest working the crowd Friday night. From what I was told by two different people, this was the first time they recalled Gilchrest being at the convention. Whether true or not, it obviously shows he’s concerned about his base.

Day 2 of the convention began with a pretty sunrise over the water. Ok, it was the hotel's swimming pool.

We started Saturday with breakfast, of course. The featured speakers for breakfast were the two Maryland GOP legislative leaders, Senator David Brinkley and Delegate Tony O’Donnell.

Maryland state Senator David Brinkley (speaking) and Delegate Tony O'Donnell (left) speak at the Maryland GOP Convention breakfast, May 19, 2007.

Both of these speakers noted that day’s Washington Times article where Governor O’Malley is now shifting the blame for his pending tax increases to mismanagement during Governor Ehrlich’s tenure. Brinkley added that the Democrats were governing as if they had a “mandate” to increase spending, when no such thing existed. Further, Brinkley also derided the O’Malley administration for firing more political appointee employees from the Ehrlich era than Ehrlich was accused of firing during the year-long hearings on the case.

O’Donnell hit on several of the same themes but added that, with the Times article it was clear that O’Malley was “conditioning Marylanders for massive tax increases,” and that he should get no free passes for it.

You may wonder if the so-called frontrunner for the nomination, Rudy Giuliani, was represented. Well, he didn’t have a suite in his name, but his campaign came to the Saturday portion of the convention loaded for bear, with this table full of campaign items.

Candidate Rudy Giuliani did have some volunteers and literature at a table set up for Saturday morning, as did the McCain and Romney camps.

After breakfast was finished, we returned to the convention hall. It was set up just a little differently this time.

Looking toward the podium in our hall. We had a seat on the center aisle, unfortunately the Wicomico County sign sort of got in my way as I sat in the aisle seat.

As I noted earlier, several of the speakers for the main convention session already spoke during the Executive Committee meeting. While most of his content was the same, I noticed Chairman Pelura also spent a bit more time pointing to our legislative successes, with Jessica’s Law being strengthened, in-state tuition for illegal immigrants being stopped, and the paper trail for voting deemed as victories. Our RNC representatives, Joyce Terhes and Louis Pope, spent their time at the podium hammering on national issues, particularly the immigration bill. Terhes described the “Z-visa” as “amnesty” while Pope said it was “not fair to those waiting in line.” They also declared that the time was now to pick a Presidential candidate and work with them.

Also, we had an addition to the agenda as State Sen. Janet Greenip asked to say a few words about the early voting bill that will be on the November, 2008 ballot. She had handed out a flyer discussing the bill and its problems, which are many. Personally, I think it should be called the “Early and Often” voting bill, or just the “Invitation to Fraud” act – so you already know how I’ll be voting on it come 18 months from now.

We also did a little bit of party business, as three resolutions were passed at the affair. Two of them were pretty basic and straightforward and passed without much issue. The third, which had to do with voting on the Executive Committee, survived an attempt led by Montgomery County to table it. In the revised system, the Eastern Shore goes from partial votes for each county to a full vote for each, so obviously we were in favor of it. Vice-chairs also get a vote for the first time under our new system.

Because we overshot our scheduled time slot, we only had one training session afterward. I chose to attend the communications session hosted by RNC press secretary Summer Johnson. It was helpful to hear how things were done insofar as dealing with the media goes. But while maybe paranoid isn’t quite the right word, I almost think that the relationship between us and certain members of the press is too adversarial. Obviously when dealing with the New York Times or Washington Post we need to be on our guard but I’m not sure we need to be as wary of local papers. Just my view on things; of course, I like to think that as a journalist I’m pretty straight up. I have my opinions but it’s also clear where I stand. We did have a little bit of discussion on blogs and websites, and I found out that there’s 12 million of us writing them – a number that’s doubled in the last 2 years. Well, hopefully I’m in the top million. I did learn a tip and actually I’ve noticed Joe Albero using it as well, so maybe I’ll begin to do it myself.

The final event of our convention was the luncheon and awards ceremony, with keynote speaker former Lieutenant Governor and now GOPAC Chair and FOX News commentator Michael Steele. (Sounds better with the extra two job descriptions, doesn’t it?)

I got a couple shots in, they’re a bit dark because of the room. Two others I didn’t use because of how they turned out.

Michael Steele greets supporters at the Maryland Republican Party spring convention, May 19, 2007.

Michael Steele checks his notes during his luncheon speech before the Maryland Republican Party spring convention, May 19, 2007.

Michael made several points during the speech, which had a theme of overcoming adversity. He compared struggles he faced during his life and his recent election loss to those facing our party as we move forward into the 2008 and 2010 election cycles. But he also stated that the “Steele theory” about the 2006 election debacle was that we strayed from our principles that got us elected in 1994 – an “inability to honor our commitment.” He also took Democrats in Annapolis to task, remarking that “raising taxes is not the way to govern,” and that Republicans need to “convince people we don’t bite” but bite back when our opponents speak falsely of us. We need to stand for what is right, but call them on their “lies.”

He concluded by stating that we need to build a “farm team” for 2008 and 2010, and come ready to play. It was our generation’s job to cultivate our future American leaders.

I was sort of surprised to see someone lurking in the back of the room taking notes (besides me.) It would be my guess that this someone was Tom LoBianco of the Washington Times because there’s an article about Steele’s speech in today’s paper.

Finally, there were awards given out for excellence in the Republican Party. While all of the award recipients are worthy, I wanted to extend my congratulations to our cohorts in Worcester County, which was selected as the outstanding Republican county in the state of Maryland. They were the only county in the state that retained a higher percentage of Ehrlich voters from 2002 to 2006 than we did here in Wicomico, and ranked second in the state in improving GOP voter registration behind (surprisingly) Baltimore City. So a tip of the hat goes to our friends on the ocean.

Carnival of Maryland 7

Welcome to the Eastern Shore!

For the first time, the Carnival of Maryland moves to the east side of Chesapeake Bay. Now, I’m not a native of the Shore, but as my adopted home area I’ve become pretty militant about our role in the Free State. Far from the “outhouse” (as onetime Governor William Donald Schaefer referred to us), we’re the vacation destination of thousands (Ocean City), chicken farmer to millions (the Perdue chicken empire is based in Salisbury), and hub to an area stretching from Wilmington to Norfolk. Just remember, you pay to come into the Eastern Shore but you’re free to leave!

I chose to do this particular carnival edition because I was the 7th website to be added to the Maryland Bloggers Alliance, which now is up to 29. In June I’ll be a member of the MBA for a full year and I think being in the MBA helped my website get noticed and start the growth in readership I continue to enjoy. But I’m still the lone representative of the Shore in the Alliance so in putting together Carnival of Maryland 7 I asked for the bloggers who inhabit my area to submit their best stuff and I promised to focus on them.

I’m going to start with probably our area’s most controversial (and, due to that, most read) website. In “So Tell Me, Exactly What Is It Barrie Tilghman Is Trying To Hide?” Salisbury News digs into a local controversy involving our beloved morning radio host Bill Reddish of WICO radio and a recent interview he did with Salisbury City Council president Louise Smith. The subject of the post is Salisbury’s mayor Barrie Tilghman, a frequent target of author Joe Albero, and her input on this imbroglio. Even though Albero actually lives a stone’s throw into Delaware, his website focuses pretty strongly on Salisbury-area issues so it’s a natural to be included here.

As is the case almost anywhere you go, what happens to our tax dollars is a prime subject amongst our local writers. On ShoreThings, a case is made for repealing Wicomico County’s revenue cap with the post “66,000 Square Feet vs. Revenue Cap”. While I’m personally in favor of the cap, I’ll admit I wasn’t here for the whole campaign regarding it because the cap was enacted after a vote in the 2002 election and I only arrived on the Shore in 2004.

Another blogger from that “city too big for one state”, Delmar, is Karen from A Woman’s Point of View. Unlike Joe Albero, she lives on the Maryland side of the line and has a relatively new blog. In her contribution, Karen talks about the generational impact of one of my favorite subjects in Sports at the Beach. She’s an enjoyable read whether she talks about baseball or not.

Billing himself as “a spritual being having a human experience”, the writer who goes by Oceanshaman heeded my call for submissions to the nth degree, sending me three. While it’s not generally writing of a political nature, I think he’s pretty talented putting pixels to screen and his posts on marriage, being “in the moment“, and men of conscience are certainly representative of his talent. He does touch on politics to some extent in the latter post. If you read through monoblogue you’ll see where I have issues with my Congressman.

But for Carnival of Maryland 7 I’m choosing to submit a post that I started back in February; then revised and expanded on knowing that I’d host this Carnival and the focus I wanted it to have. In “An Eastern Shore blogging narrative” I look at some of the characters and issues that make our little corner of Maryland interesting in the world of the internet.

I also knew I could count on submissions from the other side of the Bay Bridge as well, as several of my MBA brethren got their posts in for inclusion in this semi-weekly focus on the best of Free State blogging.

It begins with the aptly named Pillage Idiot. No, I’m not talking about Atilla himself, I’m talking about a collection of idiots as he illustrates in “Maryland repeals the law of supply and demand.” To keep on an Eastern Shore theme, I’d like to point out that, of the three Eastern Shore legislative districts (36, 37, and 38), only one Delegate/Senator voted for this bill out of our 12 – the other two Democrats crossed party lines to vote no.

While Salisbury has its share of crime and controversy, another Maryland city with a female mayor makes us look good in that regard. Wade at Politics, Hon takes an in-depth look at Baltimore’s many problems with his post “Sheila Dixon’s 100 Days of Bloodshed“. Some things just don’t change regardless of who’s in charge and it’ll take more than a mayor to effect change in one of America’s most dangerous cities.

Enough about politics. I commented earlier regarding Karen’s post that baseball is a favorite subject of mine. As an example for those of you unfamiliar with monoblogue, I post every Thursday during the season about a player on our local team, the Oriole-affiliated Delmarva Shorebirds, calling it my Shorebird of the Week. David the Soccer Dad similarly takes some time to comment on the woes of Maryland’s major leaguers in “Wright is the wrong excuse.” Indeed, after a decent start the O’s have fallen on some hard times but aren’t out of the AL race quite yet.

Something that we on both sides of the Chesapeake share is an appreciation of the beauty of our state. So to wrap up this excursion called Carnival of Maryland 7 I’ll point to two women who take some time to comment on the natural side of Maryland. First, The Ridger shares with us “What’s happening in the park” from her blog The Greenbelt. In her comment when she submitted, she was worried about being too late but she was just in time and I’m glad to share her pictures and commentary. And Julie of Pines Above Snow talks about the impact reading one book (and of the person who suggested it) had on her life in her post “Books by the Bay.” She and Oceanshaman should really get to know each other, they seem to me two peas in a pod in their writing style.

Being that this is the first time I’ve hosted a carnival, I was worried about how many submissions I’d get. However, I got to the number I envisioned as being a successful effort (figuring between 10 to 15 would be good) and it worked out nicely split between both of our shores. So it’s been an enjoyable experience to do this, and I can let the remainder of the MBA folks who tend to run the Carnival of Maryland that I’ll be happy to share my space on an occasional basis with them.

So now you’ve been exposed to the Eastern Shore, and like many here say, once you get the sand in your shoes you don’t want to leave. I encourage you to add some of these local (and not-so-local) websites to the list of those you regularly read.

An Eastern Shore blogging narrative

I wrote part of this post back in February as part of another post about infighting amongst the local blogging community. For Carnival of Maryland 7 I’ve decided to update the article and make a few changes as I go. I originally wrote it in a fit of anger “off the cuff” so to speak so now I have the opportunity to review what I wrote and straighten out the narrative as required. In it, I’m looking at the lower part of the Eastern Shore since I’m not too familiar with any sites based north of Easton.

To begin with, I’ll cite myself. In April of 2005 I started my original blog called ttown’s right wing conspiracy. There’s a little bit of history before that but most of the local websites have sprung up after that date.

The first local blog I became aware of was Duvafiles. I occasionally read it when I first heard about it in the early days of 2005, but what got me started going there on a regular basis was the hullabaloo that May when Bill Duvall made his infamous “wetback” comment that got him in a lot of hot water. This comment cost him a position on the state judicial commission. Being of fair mind, I was curious about the context that it was written in, and I enjoyed his use of the various character names for local personalities. I have to say he was the pioneer who took the arrows and seeing how he did his website inspired me to start my own.

In the summer of 2005, I discovered the original Delmarva Dealings site along with the Justice For All? site and started perusing those, commenting occasionally. At that time there were only a handful of local sites (including mine), plus one that wasn’t truly local but run by a local native who lived upstate called Goldwater’s Oracle. Now it’s known as Gunpowder Chronicle. Delmarva Dealings left us for awhile during the summer of 2006 but returned as the campaign season bloomed. This website is a collaboration of several writers who write under various pen names, with “Cato” being the most prolific.

But the sleepy nature of those early days was about to change. During the fall of 2005, a certain commenter and photographer who posted frequently with Charles Jannace (the person behind Justice For All?) became fairly well known. His name was Joe Albero. Together Jannace and Albero blew the lid off problems at the Salisbury Wastewater Treatment Plant and at the Salisbury Zoo. And it can be argued that in the next year or so both these men became local celebrities and parlayed their newly found fame in different directions. With help from Joe Albero, Charles Jannace entered the political arena as a write-in candidate for Wicomico County Executive; and spinning off from Jannace’s website Albero branched out into his own site, originally known as National Joe-A-Graphic but evolving into what’s now known as Salisbury News.

But it wasn’t until close to the end of the year, after a nasty divorce of sorts between Jannace and Albero, that many of these new bloggers came online.

And 2006 saw a number of new players come into the Eastern Shore blogging scene. Crabbin’ and Delmar DustPan (from the city too big for one state) were among the most-read out of about 8-10 blogs that debuted in the early part of 2006, and both are still around. Many of these 2006 vintage blogs focused on the real or perceived misdeeds of Joe Albero.

Several anti-Albero blogs (The Maryland Townie, Paranoia and the Homunculus Photographer, Joey Albero is an American Idol, and Yh8 were probably the biggest four during this timeframe) became bases on which to flame Albero while Joe worked on trying to “out” the people behind them. Most are still going, although Yh8 has gone off into other subjects and dropped its anti-Albero slant. Even now there continues to be new websites that are based solely on discussing the deeds (or misdeeds) of unquestionably the dominant personality of Eastern Shore blogging – most recently a site called Joe Albero is a Class Act.

Sadly, the wrapup of the 2006 election also spelled the end of Justice for All?, which was one of my favorite sites. Charles Jannace decided to focus his energies on things other than blogging (like his family). For that I don’t blame him but his regular commentary on events in the Salisbury area is missed. We’ve lost two other pretty good sites over the last year or so, Fertilizer for our Bay and Westside Wisdom. So the blogging world here saw its share of comings and goings in 2006.

Another facet of the local blogging scene is its foray into other media. Local radio host Bill Reddish began this back in 2005 as he started mentioning some of Bill Duvall’s Duvafiles posts on his morning radio program. Over the past couple years, he’s made mention of more posts he’s thought worthy from Duvafiles as well as from Delmarva Dealings and, a few times, I’ve been honored by mentions of my monoblogue posts on the air. In fact, “Cato” from Delmarva Dealings (aka local resident G.A. Harrison) is a semiregular interview guest on Reddish’s show, and I’ve had a handful of turns in the “hot seat” myself.

With bloggers being such a focus of the local political scene, another new local afternoon radio show, “Robinson on the Radio”, has retained Joe Albero as a guest several times (as well as myself on one occasion.) John Robinson also is a regular commenter on the local websites and operates his own site which focuses on his radio show. Even the print media has taken notice as earlier this year the Daily Times began to solicit comment and content from local internet users via its “Storychat” feature.

But the bread and butter of Eastern Shore blogging is the political realm. We have sites all over the political map, from the left-leaning integrity only matters sometimes and (to a lesser extent as far as political content) Objectivity and Observation to pretty strong right-wingers Crabbin’, Delmarva Dealings, WorcesterRight, and my website. We on the Shore tend to lean to the right, so the majority of the sites tend to work that way.

We made quite the impact on the last two local elections as a group. In 2006, the Wicomico County Executive race got a lot of play from the local websites. When GOP hopeful Ron Alessi won the primary over a candidate backed by Justice for All? writer Charles Jannace, Charles decided to jump in the race. Alessi had already rankled many in the local blogging world by terming them a “cancer” after several postings by Jannace and Joe Albero questioned Alessi’s role with the Salisbury Zoo and previous legal proceedings Alessi was involved with.

A much lengthier conflict has gone on between several of the local blogs and the Salisbury city government, in particular Mayor Barrie Tilghman. It has resulted in heavy coverage of issues that may have escaped notice without a vigilant set of ears to the ground. The wastewater treatment plant fiasco is one of many issues brought forth; others include a rash of graffiti pockmarking several downtown Salisbury buildings, questions on financial dealings involving former City Councilman Michael Dunn, and controversy over tax increment financing given to those developing the old Salisbury Mall site. In fact, Dunn laid some of the blame for his not seeking another term at the feet of local bloggers, and they were heavily invested in seeing a group of three candidates attempt to win City Council seats in this spring’s election.

In the 2007 Salisbury election, two of those three candidates were successful; however, City Council President Louise Smith (who was supported by most local bloggers) has proven to become a lightning rod for controversy because of what many percieve as poor financial management and too much willingness to raise taxes, unlike the two others who she was lumped with during the campaign.

But the Eastern Shore has caught up to the rest of the world as far as having an interesting and diverse palette of websites to read and choose from, in fact almost too many good ones. Three of our newest ones that I enjoy checking out are Shore Thing, Oceanshaman and A Woman’s Point of View. And I encourage comments on any I missed, I’m sure there’s a few out there but I think I got the ones worth mentioning anyway, maybe even the one who considers me a “yawn” most of the time. Can’t please everyone I guess.

Weekend preview

A couple things:

Blogging will be light the next couple days; however, I did write a post that I’ll self-submit for Sunday’s Carnival of Maryland 7. At the moment I have 7 submissions, but I’d love to have at least 10 to 15. (Hint, hint to Cato, Karen, and Joe Albero – you’ve done some worthy stuff the last two weeks, submit it through the link I just put up.) The post I’ll submit will be the one that appears tomorrow.

I’m going to attend the state Republican Party convention, which I think will be pretty exciting. It’ll give me a chance to hopefully check in with all of the announced GOP Presidential candidates. No, they won’t be speaking but several will have their own hospitality suite hosted on their behalf and I can size up those folks in Maryland who are supporting the respective candidates. I’m positive that the John McCain campaign and Mitt Romney campaign will be represented since I’ve already been contacted by those two, and I’m sure many others will be present as well. Who knows, maybe a second-tier one will even put his face in the place. There’s also the intrigue of Andrew Harris seeing what type of support he’ll have for a possible run against Wayne Gilchrest, plus there’s other items which I’m not going to divulge at the moment but may be featured on monoblogue in the coming weeks.

So I’ll take my camera and notebook and see what’s exciting, just like I did last time. (Wow, that was 160 posts ago?) It’ll be in the same locale, the Doubletree in Annapolis so we’ll see how the camera does and how well I can read my notes and stuff afterward. That will likely be Monday’s post after I compile CofM7 on Sunday.

Also, continue with the great comments I’ve gotten lately, you folks are really making my posts even better with your input. First thing I do when I get back is moderate comments so be patient. I look forward to seeing plenty of comments to moderate and my site meter with decent numbers. That’s your heads up for the weekend, so I’ll have new stuff to keep you coming back!

Shorebird of the week 5-17-2007

Wilfredo Perez warms up before his Shorebirds debut, May 6, 2007.

The young Dominican lefthander Wilfredo Perez is my choice as this week’s Shorebird of the Week. Despite the fact he’s had just three outings since being brought up from extended spring training May 6th (when this photo was taken it was his Shorebird debut), he’s done an impressive job in two of the three, not allowing a hit until he took the loss Monday at Hagerstown. Very impressively he’s managed 14 strikeouts in just 7 2/3 innings, while allowing just 2 hits.

The 22 year old worked a limited time with Aberdeen last season, appearing in 7 games (5 as a starter) and wrapped up 2006 with a 1-1 record and 3.28 ERA. So this is his first experience at a full-season level, and thus far left-handed hitters in the SAL don’t like him much because they’re batting a big fat zero against his offerings. Based on 3 1/3 innings pitched against lefties with one unearned run allowed, that leads me to surmise they are 0 for 11 against Perez, the run reaching on an error.

If Wilfredo continues to eat up lefties like this, don’t be surprised if he’s not in an Orioles uniform in a few seasons. Guys who can get lefties out are always in demand and if Perez stays healthy there’s no reason to doubt he’ll have a long career if he can excel at that specialty.

Here’s what I think of Louise…

Since I was “called out” by Joe Albero (even though he keeps spelling my name wrong – no “ch” there pal!) I suppose I’ll answer the question.

Insofar as civility and running meetings goes, it sounds like she’s somewhat of an improvement over our last City Council president. But the more important side is financial and there she’s been a disappointment.

I’m a recovering pack rat, but I make an exception when it comes to saving stuff like campaign literature. And here is just a sampling of what she campaigned on, in the words of her own handout. This is what I take as her promise to the voters of Salisbury.

“I am Louise Smith. I an asking for your vote in my bid to win a Salisbury City Council Seat. I am running for office because I believe that Salisbury’s elected officials should be more responsive to citizens and more responsible with our tax dollars. During the past four years, our council had presided over the giveaway of millions of our tax dollars to subsidize developers, incurred fines for environmental violations from the Maryland Department of Environment, and has earned a reputation of favoring special interest groups over ordinary citizens.”

As far as being responsive to citizens, I’m curious to know if she (or any other city employees, or city-based politicians) have signed the petition for referendum regarding the city’s property tax hike. To me, that would certainly be responsive to the citizens in allowing them a say over their tax rates. It goes without saying that I’m not impressed with her being responsible with the city’s tax dollars. If the additional tax revenue is necessary, that should be the LAST resort and not the first as it appears to have been.

“The city is halfway through this fiscal year without last year’s audit being completed. Using my experience in audits and contract compliance, I will focus on the important role that a council member plays in passing the city’s budget and determining how tax dollars should be spent.”

Thus far I fail to see that she’s done her homework, or at least has done as much as her cohorts Debbie Campbell and Terry Cohen.

“I am equally concerned about public safety. The upsurge in violent crime has been described in the Daily Times. Non-competitive police salaries and high turn-over rates have been identified as core issues that must be addressed in order to deliver police services at the most efficient and effective level.”

I’ll grant her that she’s made it a priority to give the cops a raise, but she’s not spoken out insofar as I know about the firemen, who endorsed her but are not due a raise under the Tilghman budget. As Bill Reddish noted this morning, there’s five priority items that the city needs to take care of: police, fire, water/sewer, garbage, and streets. I think the problem with the budget is one of ‘well, let’s just take what we spent last year and add 5% to the numbers’ and it truly needs to be stripped to bare bones and rebuilt from scratch. Perhaps that way we won’t get $250,000 errors in the police budget.

“Do you have a sense that the city has lost touch with its citizens? I do. I ask for your vote so that I can work to create an atmosphere of accountability, responsiveness, and confidence that your elected officials are working for you.”

Now I will note that the people who have complained the loudest are obviously the ones who were most dissatisfied with the previous City Council. There are some out there who think Louise Smith is doing a good job under difficult circumstances and some who just plain don’t keep up with the issues anyway.

And I know Louise in passing, as she served prior to me on the Central Committee. In my dealings with her, she’s been pleasant but I certainly wouldn’t call her a good friend of mine. I actually ran into her the other day in the elevator at the GOB since I was there to get a building permit and she obviously doing city business. We just exchanged the usual pleasantries and I got off the elevator at the second floor. In short, I don’t hang out with her; however I did donate some money to her campaign.

So I’m probably more tolerant than most because it’s a four year term and I continue to have faith she’ll learn from her mistakes. The trouble is that she’s not doing well at what she ran her campaign on, based on her blind support for a tax increase and, while I’m not familiar with the procedures behind writing applications for grants, I’ve yet to hear about any we’ve secured (or even applied for) in the time since she’s assumed the position on City Council.

And when you look at the other newcomer to City Council (Terry Cohen) and how she’s done since coming on board, Louise’s work with the budget doesn’t look very good.

Since the names of Louise Smith and Bill Reddish are now entwined in the annals of Salisbury radio history, I’ll take a moment to comment on my appearance this morning. As always I enjoyed it, and I think the main point I managed to get out talked about my feelings toward both the city’s and state’s budget process. (I also got out my comment above about Louise Smith and her prowess at securing grants.)

But astute listeners may have noticed that I alluded just to the budgets in the city of Salisbury, state of Maryland, and federally. I intentionally left out Wicomico County because they are forced to live within means by a revenue cap – instead of a 12 cent rise in property taxes, I’ll enjoy a 6 cent drop because I live a stone’s throw into the county. I know my “partner in crime” this morning, G.A. Harrison, does not like the revenue cap, but from what I understand about the budget situation previously in Wicomico County, it was the only method a frustrated public could lay its hands on to say to the county, enough!

So in essence this referendum drive can be thought of as a group of citizens wishing to put a revenue cap of sorts on the city.

It may be Polyannish of me, but I think that if Louise Smith just comes out and admits that she didn’t do her homework on the budget originally, but comes at it in a second pass with the tenacity of a bulldog and helps to cut out enough to avoid all or most of the tax increase she originally deemed necessary, she could get through this situation with reputation repaired and intact. If not, it’s going to be a long four years.

Run, Andrew, run!

I heard a blurb on the radio today, and it’s probably good that I wasn’t in a lot of traffic as I was driving since it’s tough to cheer and applaud while keeping both hands on the wheel. And I was cheering and applauding!

But State Senator Andrew Harris (R-Baltimore County) is mulling a run for the Congressional seat held by Wayne Gilchrest. He was going to use this weekend’s Maryland GOP state convention (which I’ll be attending) as a gauge to see whether he has enough support. And if the support for Gilchrest is as tepid as the rumblings I’ve heard in my rounds Harris could have a legitimate chance. It’s just my hope that the state party listens to the grassroots and doesn’t take a side in this battle, allowing the two (plus any others) to debate the issues. One thing that I’ve publicly stated my opposition to is having the party bigwigs annoint an incumbent as a perpetual candidate. In this case, I want the higher-ups in the Maryland GOP to put no pressure on Harris to discourage a run. As a Central Committee, it’s our job to support whoever the Republican voters favor, not connive to try to discourage opposition and avoid a messy primary fight. That was my frustration with the Ohio Republican Party and we see where it got them – nice going guys.

Regular readers of monoblogue might recall that I graded our local Delegates and Senators on how they voted in the last General Assembly session on key issues I felt strongly about. So here’s how Harris voted, bearing in mind that my stance was “no” on each issue.

HB131/SB103 (the “Maryland Clean Cars Act”) – NO
HB148/SB634 (the National Popular Vote Act) – NO
HB359/SB91 (“Clean Indoor Air Act”) – NO
HB430 (Living Wage) – NO
SB739 (relatives of legislators cannot receive legislative scholarships) – yes

Four out of five ain’t bad – in fact he was more attuned to my views than either of my local Senators. And it goes without saying that I’ve got several problems with the incumbent Congressman, particularly with his stances on the Long War and energy independence.

But something tells me that the Congressman might have suspected something was up when Harris was an attendee at our recent Lincoln Day dinner. Just a few days later I received a letter from his campaign (sent to my old address – come on guys get it right!) Right up top was a quote in bold from Newt Gingrich:

“I think we have more problems making the American government work than we have making the Iraqi government work.”

(snip)

This may not be something you want to hear, but I think it’s a message that we all need to understand: The Republican party has lost its way, and we need to return to the core fundamentals of our party if we hope to regain the trust of American voters.

(snip)

I believe our party and our nation is at a crossroads, and that as someone who has been willing to get involved with the political process, you would be willing to join a new effort to regain our momentum and restore America’s trust in us.

But first we must turn away from the negative attack politics of Washington, and we must again become the party of big ideas.

I was recently talking to my friend, former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, and he agreed that our best – and possibly only – hope is to clearly articulate our positive vision for America, and to return to the core principles of our party which brought us the trust and confidence of American voters.

(snip)

As you probably know, I have gained a reputation for speaking my mind – even when I think our party is going in the wrong direction. But I have dedicated a career to building this party and I am proud to be a Republican, and I believe our best days are ahead.

As you can also imagine, reform does not always sit well with leaders in Annapolis and Washington, and I imagine that some of the entrenched special interests will spend a great deal of money and resources to block a reform movement – and my own reelection.

That’s why I am writing to you today. I think that you can be an important part of our effort to change the way politics works, and we can send a message to our party’s leadership.

In reality, this letter is about three pages long and I just hit what I considered the highlights. But it’s quite intriguing that the nine-term incumbent cloaks himself in a “reformer” mantle. Wonder if that’s a poll-tested remark? Even more interesting is where he uses his friendship with Newt Gingrich to establish what conservative bonafides he does have while voting at every opportunity with the more moderate sector of the GOP, or even with the Democrats on some issues.

And this is why I highlighted Harris’s voting record. Would it not be a message to the rest of the country and the GOP stalwarts if one of their most moderate is knocked out in a party primary by a conservative? It could go a long way to reinventing the Republican Party as I’d like to see it done.

With just nine months remaining until the primary, the time to act is now should anyone wish to challenge any of Maryland’s incumbents in Congress. If there’s a primary fight on the GOP side in our district, it may bring us national attention and we can show the rest of the country how we on the Eastern Shore really feel about the direction of the Republican Party.

Down but certainly not defeated!

I’m sure the subject of this post will laugh and point out the recent election results as he smugly sits in his ivory tower; however, since Issac Smith at Free State Politics linked to one of my recent posts I’m going to respond in kind.

He did have some left-handed complements for the Prince George’s County GOP, as he cited a recent Gazette piece about the party attempting to “reinvent” itself there. His comment on the piece was telling though:

No one expects Republicans to start winning in Prince George’s, of course, but it seems focusing on actual problems in Maryland is a better course than offering up the usual — and increasingly unpopular — agenda of endless tax cuts, warmongering, and anti-immigrant hysteria.

Personally I prefer to think of this agenda as prosperity, defending our freedom, and discouraging illegal immigration, but I’ll allow Issac his claims for the moment.

There is one good point Smith brings up as far as how far behind the Republicans are as far as taking advantage of the power of the Internet to influence voters. (Ok, at least some Republicans are behind. I was here before quite a few of these upstarts were, and I’m doing my best to reinvent the party for 2008 and beyond.) But appealing to today’s youth can be a problem when you hew to what’s considered a point of view that’s so like when MTV actually played videos 24/7. (Insert current teen/young adult slang for not being hip because it’s too much like being a mature adult; in my day the phrase would’ve been “lame.”)

So obviously there’s a generation gap here. But good ideas are timeless, and I write as I do because I believe that enacting the ideas I have will lead to a renewal of the Republican Party and another Reaganesque “morning in America.” Most of the under-25 set doesn’t remember it well, but the 1980’s were some very good years. And sometimes the trouble Republicans have is they hope to find a person who is the Reagan of this generation – that’s simply not possible. However, we need not stray from the principles of smaller, better government either.

But I’m not seeing a “progressive” agenda that does much besides simply roll back what they perceive as the bad parts of the last six years. Let’s use Smith’s three items as an example.

“Endless tax cuts.” I don’t know why so-called progressives have such a problem with people keeping their own money. And I don’t have a problem with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or Oprah Winfrey keeping more of their money – after all they earned it. They took risks and were paid off handsomely. And the same goes for millions of other people, many of whom own businesses, managed to invest well, or even parlayed a skill they have into fame and fortune for themselves. I’ll even put John Edwards in that category for his gift of gab and playing to jurors’ emotions.

“Warmongering.” This one is where he cited my recent post, “Wayne’s world (view)”. I suppose if wanting victory over the forces of radical Islam makes me a “warmonger” I’ll gladly accept the label. Imagine we give folks like Issac Smith what they wish and withdraw from Iraq today, waving the white flag as we go. My bet is before the year would be out Iraq would become an Iranian puppet state and the bloodletting in that nation would be only beginning as the Kurds would be victims of “ethnic cleansing.” (Maybe the Democrats would want to get involved then? I doubt it.) And sometime after the 2008 elections we’d have another attack that would make 9/11 look like a day at the park.

These guys ain’t playing around – we have to fight fire with fire.

“Anti-immigrant hysteria.” Thousands of immigrants come to our country legally every year and make productive places for themselves in our society. But they come to be Americans, not just to make cash to send home, or, more darkly, come to America to victimize both the native and illegal population. In California, problems with prison overcrowding can be traced to all of the illegal immigrants locked up – not just for the offense of crossing the border illegally, but for a multitude of felonies. If there were no illegal immigrants in California prisons, the number of prisoners would be under the capacity allowed.

The fact that three of the six members of the “Jersey jihad” were in our country illegally should give us pause; however, since the “progressives” have no problem with felons voting they must see six more possible Democrat votes among these men.

Finally, it’s interesting to note that, while the Maryland GOP is thought by Smith to be at an ebb, it’s going to be interesting to see what sort of spin the Maryland Democrats will put on the higher sales, gasoline, and other taxes that Marylanders will be paying by the time the next election rolls around. One thing about Governor O’Malley delaying the fiscal day of reckoning – unlike Governor Ehrlich or the two Democrats preceding him – and adding new spending on top of it is that all of this reaching into the back pockets of Free State residents will be a bit fresher on the minds of the voters.

And, like the elephant is known for, people like me in the Maryland GOP don’t forget.

Cheers and applause…

I get quite a few pats on the back from Cato at Delmarva Dealings but tonight it’s my turn to heap praise upon him for his thoughts on the Wicomico County budget. Something tells me that, if he doesn’t have a guest tomorrow, Bill Reddish may have something to say about Cato’s sentiments.

Also, I made a comment on the DD post where I alluded to a link. Since I wasn’t quite sure if a link would work off his comment box, here’s the entirety of what I wrote about Rick Pollitt at the Pittsville forum, and I excerpt here:

“Finally, we got to the two County Executive candidates who were at the event…Drawing first blood was Rick Pollitt, who touted his family’s 300 year history in the area but sought to make the county the home of “stay-heres.” In a bow to the hosts, he also used part of his opening statement to note that the fire department in Fruitland has a seat on their planning and zoning board, which gave them input on egress issues, among others. He continued by saying that he “would do better by fire companies” in the budget but the budget had to be prioritized. In fact, Pollitt claimed that each year he started the Fruitland city budget from scratch and built it as a whole (rather than the federal style of baseline budgeting.) (emphasis mine, in repost). Pollitt advocated a “climate of thrift and economy” with incentives for department heads to save money.

I saw Rick’s answer on the sprinkler question as telling – it was “unfortunately” up to the individuals whether or not to install sprinklers in new single-family dwellings. Where growth was concerned, Pollitt claimed to be running on his record of making “growth pay for growth” with impact fees and other measures like making developers build out the “paper streets” found in most developments (these are stub streets that would connect to future subdivisions.) Rick also claimed that the trouble with reducing property taxes for seasoned citizens lay in the assessments.

In his first 100 days in office, Pollitt vowed to start by “building bridges and establishing relationships” and would immediately begin working on the education portion of the budget instead of waiting until the spring as has been the usual case.

Pollitt closed by pleading guilty to the charge brought by his opponents of being a bureaucrat and said he did so “with a lot of pride.” He “knows the limits of government” and agreed with the residents cited by (opponent Charles) Jannace in his remarks that water and sewer bills in Fruitland were too high – Rick promised to establish a “blue-ribbon panel” to study putting together a countywide water and sewer authority. If you control the water and sewer, Pollitt claimed, you can control growth. He finished by stating that he was “motivated by his children” and hoped there would be another 300 years of Pollitts in the area.

Oddly enough, I can do a twofer with this because I also remarked in that post about what Pollitt said regarding residential sprinklers, something that’s become a hot subject on Salisbury News. And here is what Rick Pollitt said in response to my post with my two cents on the subject of residential sprinklers.

Both Delmarva Dealings and Salisbury News put up excellent posts this weekend, and hopefully folks will spend their Monday morning catching up on these websites if they didn’t see them over the weekend. I know my readership drops a bit on the weekends because people are out enjoying life, but Monday jumps the count right back up.

Finally, I encourage both of these gentlemen to submit the articles for CofM7 next week and share this excellent writing with the rest of Maryland.

A 50 year plan: Crime and justice system

Note: if you read this Sunday afternoon, I added a little to the end.

This weekend I’m going to shift gears a bit and continue my series on the 50 year plan. In this installment it’s my views on where the justice system needs to shift focus to in the next five decades.

In our justice system there are two separate types of cases – those on the criminal side and those on the civil side. There’s problems with each but both have led to overcrowded court dockets.

Unfortunately, our legislative bodies continue to enact more and more regulations and ordinances, so the chances of you running afoul of a law increase. As an example, effective June 1st a person may not catch oysters for sale in Maryland without certifying they received information from the state about where oysters may not be harvested. So if you forget to send in this piece of paper you’re in violation of the revised law. And obviously with more laws come more court cases.

I think the best way to solve this issue is to take a series of steps involving how we write laws and what we regulate. First of all, let’s stop passing laws and regulations at the federal level mandating the states write some particular law or regulation on their part, otherwise they lose federal funding. The Tenth Amendment is there for a reason, so stop violating it.

The next step is for the states to junk many of the laws that I consider “nanny state” laws. These cover areas that properly fall under personal responsibility. Is it a crime that one doesn’t wear a seat belt while driving? I don’t think so. I’ll be the first to admit I do buckle up but to me that’s common sense and I’d do it even if the law didn’t say I had to. On a more controversial note, I’m not sure that many of our drug laws are necessary. Having a couple ounces of marijuana or a few pot plants for personal use really shouldn’t be a crime (however, the sale of it or driving under its influence should remain in the criminal realm.) In this case, I’ve not tried marijuana myself but have been in situations where it was smoked and offered to me. (That would be pretty much any concert I attended in my formative years, the 1980’s.) So I guess I’m the anti-Clinton in that I didn’t try it but I did inhale the second-hand smoke. To me growing marijuana for personal use equates with home brewing or winemaking, both of which are legal in most locales.

All in all, my libertarian side is most pronounced when I discuss these sorts of issues. While I do agree that there should be guard rails, it should be the force of society that shames people into compliance rather than the force of law fattening government coffers and crowding our jails and prisons with drug offenders who were (in many cases) otherwise nonviolent.

The other side of the legal system coin is the civil side. If you watch TV, drive down the road, or even look at your phone book, chances are sooner or later you’ll see some lawyer advertising his or her services because you’ll be screwed by the insurance company after your auto accident if you don’t hire them, or else you should get what’s “yours” because you took Vioxx, was exposed to asbestos many years ago, or some other common real or imagined affliction (in other words, the class-action lawsuit.) And what has all this legal action gotten us? Mostly it’s resulted in some extremely rich trial lawyers (think John Edwards or Orioles owner Peter Angelos) and some extremely stupid warning labels placed on products because some idiot didn’t use any common sense. However, he or she probably won life’s lottery via class action suit and made a trial lawyer quite wealthy in the process.

My thought is that just one measure is necessary to rid the system of a whole lot of junk lawsuits. It’s called “loser pays.” And while the article I cite is now almost 12 years old, the idea is just as valid and probably more pressing. Of course, trial lawyers hate the idea, and so do the Democrats. They whine that “if you do ‘loser pays’, it will discourage the average citizen from filing a lawsuit.” Not if their case has merit.

Further, in many civil cases lawsuits get settled long before they get to the courtroom because a company decides that it’s better just to settle and make the problem go away than risk the prospect of John Edwards “channeling” an unborn child who ended up with cerebral palsy and swaying a jury with emotion rather than the facts behind the case. That doesn’t necessarily go away with “loser pays” but trial lawyers will have to build up their cases better. (Hopefully the juries of tomorrow will be better in critical thinking thanks to my ideas for education reform too.)

One idea that I’ve heard regarding trial by jury that I don’t care much for is the idea of paid professional jurors. Back in the day, people seemed to take jury duty more seriously than they do now – now it’s something to be avoided. You end up taking a day (or more) off work for the pittance that you’re paid, which is essentially paid to make up for the parking fee you’re charged to keep your car at the courthouse all day.

So somebody came up with an idea about juror as occupation. This writer is among those arguing for it. But I have to disagree because what you’re doing in this case would be appointing more unelected judges – a panel of 12 professional arbitrators, if you will. Instead, being called for jury duty needs to be more mandatory (fewer excuses for avoidance) but also more lucrative, with at least a minimum wage placed on it. With fewer trials clogging the courts, the need for a jury pool is lessened and the savings could be placed on making jury duty less of a financial hit.

Our system of justice has worked pretty well for over 200 years. But the courtroom should not be a place where a trial lawyer strikes gold by playing to the emotions of twelve jurors in order to convince them that, hey, this company won’t miss the $30 million I’m seeking to have awarded to my client (never mind I’ll get half); nor should it be the place where one who is growing marijuana solely for personal use end up risking a jail term.

You know, I reread this after I posted and it occurred to me that I had one more point. Quite simply, I think regulations and many laws should have a sunset date. As one example, the PATRIOT Act was set up originally to expire in four years; however, many thought that it should become permanent. But where a lessening of civil rights is concerned, any measure curtailing them should be temporary. I think ten years is a good timeframe – first, it allows a turned over legislative body to revisit the law and its consequences; and secondly, if they’re looking at existing laws it’s less likely they’ll think of new ones!

So with that addition, there’s another piece of my 50 year plan. I have four more installments I’m going to do and then a summary. All of these will be written over the next month or two because I want to wrap it up in time to do a Presidential candidate focus featuring these particular issues near and dear to my heart.

I think we’re set to go now…

As I noted last weekend, I’m looking for submissions to Carnival of Maryland 7. And I think I’ve finally found out how to get them. Let’s put it this way – either I do or Bruce at Crablaw gets them and he knows my e-mail address.

But the form to use is here, and I want LOTS of Eastern Shore submittals. Those on the other side of the bay, well, you’re welcome as well. I noticed the little CofM box has my name properly in it so we’ll see how much attention we can draw.