What color is Salisbury News?

I was originally going to put this at the tail end of the last post but wrote enough to determine that it should stand alone. Tonight I’ll get to the General Assembly items.

I’ve noticed over the last week or two that Joe Albero has added a number of co-contributors to his site to cover other perspectives and topic areas, which to me seems loosely based on the model of Red Maryland he had a problem with a couple months back. Maybe he’s come to the conclusion that you can’t easily serve the twin masters of multiple daily postings and good content being a one-person operation. Certainly it can get to be a grind. While there are times I report on political events and do my best impersonation of a true journalist, in general I work from the latter idea of having one daily post of commentary while more often than not Joe’s way of doing business was multiple daily posts – with mixed results.

We all know that Joe is a rather controversial fellow, sometimes giving all of us local bloggers who take our time and try to present facts and cogent arguments supporting our point of view a bad name. (Almost 18 months on I’m still unhappy about us bloggers being called a “cancer” by Ron Alessi. It wasn’t anything I said but I was lumped in anyway.) On the other hand, there’s no denying Joe’s worked to place major news stories in the limelight, something the mainstream media couldn’t or wouldn’t take the time to cover. (And in no small part thanks to him, we bloggers now are part of mainstream media, i.e. Channel 47’s website. Credit where credit is due.) So it will be interesting over the next weeks and months to see how well the arrangement works for all involved. Personally I do like the added sports coverage – will you be covering the Shorebirds as well, Nick?

So what color is Salisbury News? If you go by the political commentators you’d have to say red but if you listen to his detractors the choice would be yellow (as in yellow journalism.) And since he has no advertisers at the moment, I guess it can’t be green. Maybe it’s black and white because of the frequent posting of law enforcement press releases, or sepia because that’s what the “one year ago” posts remind me of, old historic pictures.

I guess I’ll put it in black on a sort of light gray, since that’s the colors I use. Joe has the potential to make his a solid local news source, but there needs to be some organization done with it and I’m not sure he can do it with the limitations of his Blogger-based site. A good first step would be adopting categories as I have. It would also be nice to have the contributor’s name up top at each article, which should be as easy as selecting a different template. (One caveat – I admit my Blogger knowledge is lacking now since I haven’t changed a template there in awhile.) And hey, since you have sports why not weather too? Hopefully this is all taken as constructive criticism.

And before I get a long comment on the next subject from Joe (which wouldn’t get through moderation until I get home anyway since I wrote this last night), yes I was asked to be a Salisbury News contributor awhile back but I prefer the arrangement I have now with Red Maryland because while there’s multiple contributors and posts that mean my items won’t be in the lead spot too long, at least all the posts are within a related topic field.

Further, while Joe’s site emphasizes area items I generally don’t unless it’s a political event, local music, or my Shorebird of the Week. And I guess I like knowing those readers that I do get here come by honestly for the most part. I get some readers from Red Maryland but I have a lot of regulars too, some of whom come here after they check out Salisbury News.

But I’m going to close this out with something Joe or any other contributor to Salisbury News is welcome to take advantage of, along with all of my other local peers. This coming Sunday I’ll once again play host to the Carnival of Maryland, which begins year number 2 with its 27th edition. I’d love to see a lot of Eastern Shore participation since we do well on the political end of things in Maryland but maybe aren’t as well known for some of the other outstanding writing done locally. It’s easy to contribute, just fill out the form here. Ideally I’ll have 10-15 contributions by Saturday afternoon when I write up the post with the links.

Odds and ends no. 11

There’s a few items floating around that have piqued my interest the last couple days while I devoted myself to studying what our elected officials in Annapolis were plotting to do with our state law book and tax money, or simply working at my job. But none were really worth more than a paragraph or two so I’ll just call this another edition of “odds and ends.”

I added one item to the bottom so if you read this earlier you may want to reread it.

Delegate McKee resigns

This one was kind of a shocker, but sad nonetheless. It’s sad because the actions of one man besmirch the reputation of his peers in the General Assembly and give the Maryland Republican Party yet another headache it can ill afford.

For those who aren’t aware, Delegate Robert McKee of Washington County (District 2A) resigned suddenly after it was alleged following an FBI search of his home that he had child pornography in print and on his personal computer there. Of course, any Republican who resigns in disgrace is national news and this is no exception. It will now fall to my counterparts on the Washington County Republican Central Committee to recommend a replacement for McKee, who was first elected in 1994. Hopefully his successor will be a little better about not violating the public trust.

Is Ron Paul a little bitter? Or paranoid?

Because I maintain my place on Presidential campaign mailing lists even after the campaigns are history, I occasionally get little nuggets of information that interest me.

While Ron Paul hasn’t officially withdrawn from the Presidential side of the race, he’s more interested now in maintaining his Congressional seat from the 14th District in Texas against a conservative primary opponent, Chris Peden. So I got an e-mail from Ron Paul today I found kind of funny. After the financial appeal I read this:

My friend Congressmen (sic) Wayne Gilchrest (R-Maryland) was just defeated in his primary election by a neocon fraud similar to the one I face…People like our hand-picked opponents will do anything to gain and keep power.  They represent everything that is wrong with DC.

If I am defeated in the upcoming congressional primary, our ideas will be held to have been defeated as well.  It will be proclaimed from the rooftops in DC that such “ridiculous and outmoded notions” as the free market, sound money, personal liberty, limited government, and a pro-American foreign policy are through.

I am determined not to let this happen.  All that you and I believe in is far too important to the future of our country, and to everyone and everything we love, to let the neocons dance on its grave. (Emphasis mine.)

Somewhere Joe Arminio’s head is exploding. But hearing talk like that is what has placed Ron Paul is the category of right-wing moonbat to a lot of voters, and it will be an interesting sidebar to see what happens on March 4th in his district.

More love for Harris from Rush

From the radio program this afternoon. I’m starting to wonder when the campaign contribution check will come in from Florida:

It’s House and Senate races that are going to count here, regardless how you vote in the presidential race. And this is going to be my emphasis and it has been my emphasis. And, in fact, I gave an example last week after the Maryland primary, a challenging Republican defeated an alleged incumbent Republican. Guy’s name was Wayne Gilchrist (sic), that voted against the war. The challenger Republican won big, shocked everybody, especially because the conventional wisdom here is is that the Republican Party is eschewing itself of conservatism, people gotta get rid of it…People have to understand here, the conservative wing of the Republican Party is losing its power, it’s being diminished here, it’s being redefined and we’ve gotta go more mainstream establishment Republican-type Big Government, compassionate government, Republicanism, blah, blah, blah. And yet here in the state of Maryland, Andy Harris, member of the Senate there, was victorious over Wayne Gilchrist (sic).  And I pointed this out as exactly the kind of thing that needs to take place.

He then played a soundbite from DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen that talked about Frank Kratovil being more like the deposed Gilchrest than Harris is. Well, you can go here and here to judge for yourself, since this is what Frank said in order to secure his base.

Meanwhile, I’m sure Andy likes the attention, since he’s not getting much love from the Daily Times. They placed an AP hit piece above the fold on Page 1 today – six days after the election.

And last…just added at 10 p.m.

There’s a new blog in town. Debbie Campbell and Terry Cohen are On Your Side. First thing out of the chute is knowing that Terry Cohen will be the AM Salisbury 7:40 a.m. guest tomorrow with host Bill Reddish.

I know the pair have a lot to do, so hopefully they can keep this site regularly updated and inform city residents about what really goes on.

It already has an entry in the category of “understatement of the year”:

The views expressed in this newsletter are those of Councilwomen Campbell and Cohen solely and do not necessarily represent those of other council members.

With the number of 3-2 votes that occur on Salisbury City Council, that may be the truest statement ever made.

Tomorrow I’ll go back to my longer format since there’s a couple subjects I’d like to address from bills pending in the General Assembly.

Legislative checkup, February 2008 (part 2)

Today it’s the turn of the loyal opposition Republicans to have the magnifying glass placed on some of their legislative agenda. While there were a couple measures that were mostly-GOP sponsored among those highlighted in Part 1 yesterday, today these are strictly GOP issues – at least among the local delegation.

This time I need only introduce local Republicans, beginning with District 37. That covers the western portion of Wicomico County and extends northward through Talbot and Caroline counties. Delegates Addie Eckardt and Jeannie Haddaway represent District 37B, while Rich Colburn is the State Senator there. On the east side of Wicomico County and points farther south and east toward Ocean City and the Virginia border in District 38, a portion is represented by Delegate Page Elmore of District 38A while my State Senator is Lowell Stoltzfus. And as a courtesy to Congressional voters, where the list of local sponsors also includes State Senator Andy Harris I’m adding his name.

In this case, I’ll have both House and Senate bills so we’ll do the House side first in numerical order, followed by the Senate side. And as I did yesterday, I’ll link to the General Assembly site.

I’ll begin with HB189 (Eckardt, Haddaway), which lowers the permitted increase in property tax rates year-over-year to 5 percent, down from the current 10 percent. The county people may scream but property owners would catch a break if this were to pass. The bill was heard last week.

Similarly in a taxation vein, HB193 (Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway) increases the exclusion for estate taxes from $1 million to $2 million, which should help families maintain reasonably successful farms and business for another generation. This bill also had a hearing last week.

HB259 (Eckardt) provides that a person may not require the disclosure of a Social Security number unless required to by state or federal law. Unfortunately, this was shot down in committee last week.

Giving back-to-school shoppers a break on sales tax is the goal of HB291 (Eckardt, Haddaway). This would establish a 12-day sales tax holiday for certain items of clothing and footwear this August. It had a hearing last week.

Harassment on websites such as Myspace and Facebook would be addressed by HB344 (Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway); this expands the current law against threatening or harassing e-mails to postings on social networking sites.

Much like HB291 above, HB345 moves an existing August sales tax holiday scheduled to begin in 2010 up to 2008. It’s a different way to skin a cat, and had its hearing last week as well.

While I don’t believe in the concept of “hate” crimes (a crime is a crime to me), nevertheless HB528/SB111 (Eckardt, Haddaway) expands those protected classes to include the homeless. The House bill was heard in late January, while the Senate bill not surprisingly passed through the Judicial Proceedings committee.

Getting back to sanity, HB530 (Eckardt) proposes a Constitutional amendment designed to cap state spending growth to a factor determined by population growth plus inflation, with certain exceptions. This has a hearing scheduled for February 28.

Renewing their bid to put actual rules in place for video slot machines, HB557 (Eckardt) is the GOP’s failed legislation from 2007. (Last year it was known as HB25.) Once again they’ve scheduled a late hearing on March 13, the better to squash the bill before it has much of a chance to move.

HB608/SB417 (Eckardt, Elmore) is an “opt-in” provision that requires utility companies to be granted customer permission before adding an energy efficiency program surcharge to their utility bills. Don’t look for me to grant them permission or, in all likelihood, for this emergency bill to pass. Both House and Senate versions will be heard next week.

Not allowing “sanctuary” cities in Maryland is the impetus behind HB735/SB421 (Delegate Elmore, Senator Colburn). This would require local governments to “fully comply with and support” federal immigration laws. CASA de Maryland should already have February 27th reserved for the Senate and March 11th for the House.

Much like the aforementioned HB259, a bill to prohibit requiring Social Security numbers on the Homestead Property Tax Credit application is HB791/SB113 (Delegate Eckardt, Senators Colburn and Harris). The House hearing is February 28, while the Senate version was heard in January.

Once again, the GOP tries to make English the official state language with HB886 (Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway). This will be another late-session House hearing on March 12th.

Here’s another bill the Democrats will never let sneak through. HB1102 (Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway) “authoriz(es) the election director of a local board to remove a voter from the statewide voter registration list if the voter is not a citizen of the United States” after a review by the Clerk of the Circuit Court in each county. You can tell this puppy is being buried by the March 18th hearing date.

Likewise, HB1103 (Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway), a bill that mandates the State Administrator of Elections do an audit of the statewide voter registration list prior to each general election (every 2 years), is probably just as dead of a duck because it too has a March 18th hearing scheduled. Can’t have all those illegals and dead people booted off the voter rolls right before an election can we?

Another bill dealing with elections, HB1199 (Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway) requires either the presentation of a valid photo ID or swearing an affadavit of identification under penalty of perjury in order to vote. Same hearing date as the two above, and look for the NAACP and ACLU to show up in force at the House that day.

Again taking the time to introduce a bill almost certainly doomed to fail in our Democrat-controlled legislature, HB1299 (Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway) is called the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights; a Constitutional amendment that requires voter approval of new taxes, spending limits for the state, and a giveback of any surplus tax revenue to those who pay the taxes. And I thought the voter bills were being buried, this gets a hearing March 20th.

At the risk of offending the author of Mainstream Shore, I’ll point out that HB1345 (Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway) is the Maryland Marriage Protection Act, which asks state voters to approve a Constitutional amendment specifying marriage is between one man and one woman. While it is not crossfiled, SB169 (Colburn, Stoltzfus, Harris) asks for essentially the same thing. The House bill is heard on the 28th, the Senate version had a hearing last week.

Now I’ll move to those bills which are strictly Senate bills.

SB34 (Colburn – sole sponsor) would require voters to prove they were United States citizens. This bill was actually prefiled so it had a January hearing.

SB40 (Harris – lead sponsor, Colburn) is a bill “Prohibiting public institutions of higher education from classifying specified individuals as in-State students for purposes of tuition remission; requiring the governing board of each public institution of higher education to adopt specified policies; etc.” There’s a hearing scheduled February 21st. That sort of settles the in-state tuition for illegals flap, doesn’t it?

Similarly to HB1199 above, SB136 (Harris – lead sponsor, Colburn) is a photo ID requirement for voting, but allows one who has no photo ID to cast a provisional ballot.

Looking out for our pocketbooks, SB151 (Colburn, Stoltzfus, Harris) was an attempt to rescind the 1 cent sales tax increase on the Eastern Shore. (Good idea, but about 5% too small in my estimation.) I note that it “was” because the Budget and Taxation Committee turned thumbs-down on it. Eastern Shore, I suspect you may thank the Democrats for that as well. It’s too bad committee votes aren’t public.

SB230 (Colburn, Harris) is the “Public School Collective Bargaining Sunshine Act”. What this would do is require collective bargaining agreements between the local boards of education and the collective bargaining units be made available to the public. This has a hearing on February 21st. Let’s see how quickly the teachers’ unions call on their Democrat toadies to shoot that one down, although the county boards might just follow close behind because many of them are elected to their posts.

Requiring those who apply for drivers’ licenses in Maryland to provide proof of citizenship or legal residency, SB621 (Colburn, Stoltzfus) has a hearing on February 26th. Look for the illegals lobby to be in full throat shouting that one down as well as the one below.

Last but not least, that same February 26th hearing slot is reserved for SB681 (Colburn), which would require law enforcement to alert ICE if it’s determined that a detainee is an undocumented alien. Of course, it’s no guarantee that ICE will show up to do its thing, but at least we’re trying.

So that is a look at just a few of the bills our local representatives to the General Assembly are backing. If you read through the body of work represented by each of our political parties, it should be obvious which party’s legislation has the interests of those of us who live on the Shore at heart, and which party uses their dominance to thwart common-sense legislation.

Legislative checkup, February 2008 (part 1)

Now that the General Assembly has reached the point where no new bills can be introduced outside of the Rules Committee, it’s a good time to see what our local Delegates and Senators are sponsoring as far as new and revised laws and regulations. And I would have had almost 2400 bills’ worth of fodder to go through; however, once I got it down to bills our local folks had placed their names on the number became much more manageable. Then I just looked at bills which piqued my interest as ones which would have statewide impact and finally boiled it down to a total of about 50 pieces of legislation.

Today I’m going to focus on what I consider the top 25 of those that are sponsored by one of more of the local Democrat delegation. Some of these are also underwritten by members of the local GOP delegation but because I went through Democrats first, I’ll place these today and enter ones exclusively from the Republicans tomorrow.

First let me go through the cast of characters. Representing the western side of Wicomico County and points north are Delegates Rudy Cane (D-37A), Addie Eckardt (R-37B), and Jeannie Haddaway (R-37B); along with State Senator Rich Colburn (R). On my eastern side of Wicomico County and points south and east, we have Delegates Norm Conway (D-38B), Page Elmore (R-38A), and Jim Mathias (D-38B); with State Senator Lowell Stoltzfus (R). As a courtesy to Congressional voters, I’m also listing State Senator Harris as a co-sponsor where appropriate.

Now to the bills. Because the local Democrats have no State Senators, all of these are House bills listed in numerical order with their local sponsors, with crossfiled Senate bills listed concurrently. Of course I link to the General Assembly website so a reader can see just what the bill is about and how it would change Maryland law.

HB115 (Cane) would require the state of Maryland to place a statement on certain state-issued checks reminding the recipient they may be eligible for state medical or children’s health insurance assistance. It will officially make it through committee on Tuesday.

Nothing like trying to drum up more dependents for state programs. Shouldn’t an individual take responsibility for finding these things out on their own?

HB288 (Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway, Mathias) requires applicants at the MVA present proof of citizenship or legal presence. As written, the bill applies to those born after December 1, 1964 but will become law for all ages in 2017. A hearing is scheduled for March 19.

Right now I grandfather in (born two months before the cutoff) but I’m not worried about showing a birth certificate. It’s good to see Delegate Mathias cross over on a common-sense bill – there’s a couple other examples of this today too.

The Maryland Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2008 is HB358/SB819 (Delegates Conway, Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway, Mathias, and Senator Colburn). State expenditures over $25,000 with certain exceptions would be available for inspection on a searchable website. This had a House hearing on February 6, no Senate hearing is scheduled.

If it’s like the MLIS website this would be an outstanding help to Maryland residents.

A series of bills was introduced at the request of the O’Malley Administration to deal with the subprime mortgage and foreclosure issue. These bills are:

All four were co-sponsored locally by Delegates Conway, Eckardt, Haddaway, and Mathias. They’ve all had their Senate hearing earlier this month and a House hearing for these will be February 21.

I’m not sure what impact tightening these laws will have, time will tell if these are prudent or an overreaction.

HB364/SB269 (Cane) is another Administration-requested bill that extends the work zone speed cameras used in Montgomery County to statewide use and increases the fine. Both bills get their hearing next week.

Just like red light cameras, it’s another way to make revenue for the state because as written they can’t put points on your license for an offense nor can insurance companies charge you more. Of course, to contest you have to prove you weren’t driving rather than the state prove that you were. By the way, they give you 10 over and the first year you get a warning.

HB368/SB268 (Mathias – co-lead sponsor, Conway, Eckardt, Elmore), the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – Maryland Strategic Energy Investment Program, is an Administration-sponsored bill as well. It repeals the Maryland Renewable Energy Fund and replaces it with a similar fund that will also spend money on, among other items, climate change research and targeted programs to reduce electricity demand for low- and moderate-income households.

Still falling for that manmade global warming bullshit, huh? I will grant that reducing energy consumption where we can while maintaining our standard of living is a good thing, but it won’t affect the climate.

HB370/SB211 (Delegates Eckardt, Elmore, Haddaway, and Mathias; Senator Colburn) is another Administration bill mandating DNA sample collection from those arrested or charged with certain crimes.

Tim Patterson at Gunpowder Chronicle (a fellow Red Maryland contributor) has his concerns about a similar bill in this session’s hopper.

HB371/SB214 (Delegates Cane, Eckardt, Elmore, and Mathias; Senators Colburn and Stoltzfus) is another Administration bill that requires the State Retirement and Pension System to divest from companies doing business with Iran.

I guess I’d like to know how much we actually have invested in particular companies and determine these things on a case-by-case basis. One could argue that we should do the same with China and a host of other countries too.

HB374/SB205 (Conway, Elmore, Mathias) is an Orwellian Administration-sponsored bill that will “(establish) the State goal of achieving a 15% reduction in per capita electricity consumption and peak demand by the end of 2015; requiring that, by specified dates, the Public Service Commission shall adopt regulations or issue orders requiring each electric company to procure or provide to specified customers specified energy efficiency and conservation measures and services that are designed to achieve specified energy reduction targets by specified dates, etc.” It already had its hearing.

That’s how we get the compact fluorescent light bulbs that are made in China and have enough mercury in them that if they’re broken it’s a hazmat spill. On the one hand, the Administration bitched about the 72% BG&E increase two years ago, yet they look to increase regulation forcing yet more rate increases to keep these companies profitable. Oh yeah, utilities are supposed to operate at a loss.

HB376/SB208 (Conway – lead co-sponsor, Eckardt, Elmore, Mathias) is yet another Administration-requested bill called the High Performance Buildings Act. The House version has a hearing set for February 26, the Senate version had its hearing.

Essentially this requires all new state buildings and ones that undergo major renovations to comply with a LEED Silver rating, including new schools. The state will pick up part of the difference for school buildings until 2014. Again, we’re catering to the green crowd on this one and I don’t feel it’s necessary.

HB451/SB100 (Cane – lead sponsor, Conway, Elmore, Mathias) establishes a Minority Environmental and Land Trust, at a cost of $950,000 annually for seed money through 2013.

HB508/SB99 (Cane – lead sponsor, Conway, Elmore, Mathias) establishes a Virtual Environmental Science Center that’s intended to be funded by the Minority Environmental and Land Trust established above. Both of these related bills have a House hearing February 19 and already had a Senate hearing.

Is this something that’s truly filling a need or just an excuse to put more of the Governor’s friends on a state board and create another administrative position for the person running the center?

HB512/SB302 (Cane) establishes the Maryland Affordable Housing Investment Fund and an accompanying board. These bills will be heard in late February.

And where will this fund get its money? To start, beginning in FY 2010 the state would be required to set aside $19,740,000 annually to the fund, with subsequent increases indexed to inflation, PLUS a 2 cent increase per $100 of assessed value for property owners – that is, unless you’re a utility, then it’s 5 cents per $100.

HB519 (Cane, Mathias) requires the State Board of Education to establish a weighted numerical assessment system to calculate a total score that students are required to achieve to graduate from a public high school in the State. Hearing is March 5th.

What happened to passing a test? We know that this system will eventually be dumbed down so that in order to graduate you only have to demonstrate the ability to breathe.

HB598 (Cane) establishes the Commission on Minority Business Enterprise, and will have a hearing on February 27.

If you want to put together a commission, how about one dealing with how to make Maryland more business-friendly for entrepreneurs regardless of race, creed, gender, etc.? That might get us someplace, because I can see all this commission will want is more set-asides and the like.

HB613 (Cane) proves that obnoxious ideas never die, they get re-introduced in the next session. This is the infamous Maryland Education Fund, which will get some of its funding from the unused portion of any gift card you receive. Not only that, issuers of gift cards will have to keep detailed records so they can figure out which cards are deemed by the state to be abandoned. Way to kill my Christmas shopping. It’ll be heard March 11th.

HB898/SB434 (all six Delegates co-sponsor, Cane is lead) is the Incentives for Agriculture Act of 2008. It requires a $5 million investment for FY10-13 with money given as tax incentives to maintain agricultural land and for biofuels, among other things. The hearing on the House version is March 6.

I guess the issue I would have is using a tax burden to tie the hands of a farmer who may want to do something else with his land down the road by eliminating the recapture. Just another way to use the tax code to modify behavior.

HB947/SB646 (Haddaway, Mathias) authorizes individuals to be debt management consultants. Generally in the past debt management has been the realm of non-profit organizations, but this allows individuals who want to be in that line of work the opportunity to start their own businesses. Senate hearing is February 27 and House hearing is March 11.

It’s a rare victory for business and entreprenueurial interests, and another good crossover by Delegate Mathias.

HB1236 (Cane) is, I believe, the infamous “illegal aliens get in-state tuition” bill, similar to the 2003 one which got Andy Harris in trouble during the campaign. Instead of the term “immigrant students” used in 2003, they now say “Maryland High School students” but the bill’s language is similar. Hearing is slated for March 4.

HB1314/SB583 (Delegate Mathias, Senator Colburn) revamps the charge of the Public Service Commission. Someone smarter than I on the subject needs to read through this, but it looks to me like an effort at reregulation. A House hearing is set for March 4.

HB1328/SB645 (Cane) repeals the death penalty in Maryland. They have late hearings on this bill, March 6 in the Senate and March 13 in the House. This may be one they try to sneak through fast.

Didn’t we just have some guy who was a lifer break out of a hospital and wreak havoc until he had his suicide by cop? Stiffs don’t escape the grave except in monster movies.

HB1416 (Cane) mandates that a study be done to look at the impact the Intercounty Connector highway will have on global warming. Key in this bill is the provision that no state money can be spent on the highway until the study is complete this December, effectively stopping its progress for six months.

When you’re stuck in gridlock down there where the highway’s supposed to go, you can thank these legislators for wasting your time because their real goal is to cram everyone onto mass transit, regardless of personal safety therein.

This concludes part 1, with a look at 25 bills the GOP is sponsoring tomorrow.

 

A relentless pursuit of the truth

On Wednesday I put a sentence in my post about Rush Limbaugh taking part of his opening monologue that afternoon to talk about the primary victory by Andy Harris over Wayne Gilchrest. He actually started on the subject the Friday before (without mentioning any names) with a general comment that conservatives need to work on bringing up a “farm team” from the local and state level to move up to Congress eventually and work on reestablishing conservatism from there. (I attempted to get through and tell him the future was now in our district; alas, all I got were busy signals this time.) 

Somehow those comments moved onto a couple other local blogs because of the Harris/Gilchrest post-election flap, here’s one take from “Straight Shooter.” So I decided it was worth setting the record straight. (By the way, I rate as “the innocent” at Off The Cuff. Guess it’s better than “bad” or “ugly.”)

I know people like to misquote Rush Limbaugh and take him out of context, so I’ll just have to put up what the “Great One” had to say. This is from Wednesday’s program (February 13th):

But what I was talking about in Maryland last night, there was a primary for a Congressional seat currently held by an alleged Republican. The alleged Republican’s name is Wayne Gilchrest. He is from Maryland’s 1st Congressional District. Last night, he lost his bid for renomination to a genuine conservative, a state senator, Dr. Andy Harris. And Harris is expected to win in November over a Democrat opponent in Maryland. Andy Harris is a true conservative. Now, Andy Harris happens to credit talk radio for being a major part of his victory, specifically our old buddy Tom Marr, who precedes this program on our blowtorch affiliate in Baltimore (WCBM Talk Radio 680). Gilchrest, the alleged Republican, was endorsed by Newt and President Bush, the old boy network. In fact, Gilchrest voted against funding for the war I think. He voted with Pelosi a lot. Yeah. In fact, he voted for a timeline for withdrawal.

This story even made the UK Guardian. It’s from Chestertown, Maryland: “A nine-term Republican congressman critical of the Iraq war has been defeated by a well-funded state senator in Maryland’s primary. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest was narrowly defeated Tuesday by state Sen. Andy Harris. Gilchrest voted to go to war in Iraq but later said he regretted the decision. A year ago, he was one of two Republicans in Congress to vote for a withdrawal timeline.

Gilchrest called the campaign the most intense of his political career. Harris depicted Gilchrest as too moderate for Maryland’s first congressional district, which includes the state’s Eastern Shore and parts of the Baltimore suburbs.” In an interview — and Tom Marr sent me a note today from down in Baltimore — in an interview with the Baltimore Sun editorial board, the alleged Republican Wayne Gilchrest apparently on tape personally criticized me, El Rushbo, and talk radio. He’s in the ash heap! Now, I bring this up, ladies and gentlemen, because people have been calling, “What can we do, Rush, what can we do?  I mean, McCain’s not conservative.”  You focus at the state level. This is exactly the kind of thing that I was talking about. Congratulations there to Dr. Andy Harris.

Yes, when I heard that at work it certainly perked up my ears. And just so readers know, I am a Rush 24/7 member so I suppose (as Reagan did) that I paid for this microphone. All I did to the original transcript was place the italics on the sources that need to be italicized for proper quoting. By the way, do us all a favor and cite the source when you steal it. Credit where credit is due.

Personally, I’ve said from early on that this was a primary race to watch and I’ll be damned if it didn’t get national and international attention.

I have a couple other observations while I’m at it. For those of you (such as the Daily Times) who whine about losing “our” representation if a person from the Western Shore wins, they need to remember that in order to get our own district, the Eastern Shore would have to achieve a population of roughly 700,000. According to 2006 estimates, our nine counties fall somewhat short of that at 432,667. So unless the anti-growth people decide to stop worrying about the so-called sprawl we have and let the population increase, we’re going to share a seat with at least some people across the bay. While I’m not a native, it would be my guess that we always have done that.

The other thought I had was about one G.A. Harrison, contributor to Delmarva Dealings, Campaign Edge, Red Maryland, and Salisbury News. Yeah, some may think he went to the Dark Side when he started writing on the latter website but to each his or her own – I prefer to stay independent. And if he’s seeking or being considered for a position with Andy Harris, either with the campaign or, if Harris wins, his Congressional office, more power to him and best of luck. I’m going to do my share of writing about the Congressional race as it unfolds and I’m sure one point of reference I’ll use is G.A.’s insight on how things are going.

Later today I’ll get back to the General Assembly analysis I alluded to earlier this evening. But I read some of what was being said and decided to put this post up to further a “relentless pursuit of the truth.”

Weekend plan – legislative checkups

This evening I’ve been looking through the Maryland General Assembly website and checking out which of our erstwhile state representatives have been sponsoring bills that affect our lives and well-being. It’s been taking longer than I thought it would, but I know people check my site daily and I hate to let a day pass without a post.

Just to let you know how active this process is, between the six local members of our House of Delegates they sponsor or co-sponsor a total of 508 bills. The two local State Senators have a total of 127 bills they’ve signed onto as co-sponsors. Obviously most of those bills have multiple local sponsors and many deal with issues of local import. My emphasis beginning tomorrow will be on more major legislation, although I might take another pass through everything afterward just on earmarks and items intended for the bond bill that comes out toward the end of the session. Hey, the election is over and I’ll need something to write about, right?

This does give me the opportunity to point out a recent Gazette article on a man who happens to be my Delegate (although not by my personal choice), Norm Conway. Not saying Norm’s a bad guy, I just disagree with him about 80% of the time. But writer Sean Sedam looks at several of the issues that have irked his constituents, particularly the sales tax increase that puts us even further behind the 8-ball when compared to Delaware. In the article, Conway looks at the issue as one of fairness:

The tax was particularly unpopular on the Lower Eastern Shore, where retailers face competition from Delaware, which is just miles away and has no sales tax.

Instead of playing it safe, however, Conway gave an emotional speech in support of the tax bill on the floor of the House.

He knew, Busch recalled, that the tax revenue meant money for shock trauma, for fiber-optic expansion, for Salisbury University and Wor-Wic Community College and for much-needed road projects.

‘‘I’m going to be coming up here asking my colleagues to help me out with these projects,” Conway recalled last week. ‘‘I think I have to say to them, ‘I’m not just asking you for a handout. I’m asking you to help me and I’m willing to pay my fair share.’”

‘‘He believed if the Eastern Shore was going to get its share of money, someone had to stand up and take their share of responsibility,” Busch said.

Fortunately for Norm, voters here tend to have short memories and will likely continue to support him should he choose to continue his legislative duties in 2010 (he’ll be 68 by then.) But tomorrow I’ll take a pass at some of the issues that have been predominantly co-sponsored by local Democrats (a total of 30 bills I found interesting) while Sunday will be reserved for the Republican responses. Neither list will be exclusive, but in general there’s not a lot of crossover.

Weekend of local rock volume 9

Normally I put these posts on the weekend but with my heavy political posting schedule I decided to wait until now and take a break from the political for a day. Besides, it’s Valentine’s Day and one thing I love is the local music scene.

So last Friday I was enjoying three local bands, beginning with my good friends from Semiblind making a semirare Salisbury appearance.

You should know these guys, I write about them a lot. On this song Jim is singing.

From what I was told, this was pretty much a last-minute thing for them. Thus, they drew the opening slot and they got off to a late start because of some sound issues at the Monkey Barrel. Still they played a good set, which to my pleasure was mostly their originals. They do justice to most of the covers they play (like the Black Sabbath classic “War Pigs” in this case) but I really dig the stuff they wrote for themselves.

No completely gratuitous Michelle shot this time. I'm only giving them two pics today since it's not like they haven't been here before!

So if these guys put out a CD anytime soon, I’ll be the one looking to buy it, toss it in my car CD player, roll down the windows, and crank that sumbitch up! (Let’s hope this is in July, though.)

Next up was a local band I’d kinda sorta seen before called Boats to Tangier. If my memory serves they played at Salisbury’s Riverfest last September but I was working a booth at the time and didn’t hear much of them.

This is one shot I took from the front. You know, it's really hard to get a picture of these guys because they're a five-piece band.

I believe this may have been a first for me, seeing a rock band with a piano playing a bar. Usually bands I see have the normal guitar, bass, drums, singer setup but these guys are different. Certainly that element gives them a unique sound. And the young lady with the nice voice singing about ghosts and zombies doesn’t hurt the uniqueness factor either.

By the end of their set, there were cage dancers to stage right behind the pianist.

I don’t know how or why, but somehow this worked leading into the next band, Goatbag.

This cast of characters is the band known around these parts as Goatbag.

To the right of the shot you can see that the mosh pit begins when Goatbag takes the stage.

I don’t think just listening to the band on Myspace or buying one of their CD’s gives you the full experience. They put on a show to be sure, and not only were the guys in the mosh pit in front of the stage digging it, so were these young ladies.

These two young ladies were probably a little sore in the morning.

Goatbag is definitely a band with aggressive, sledgehammer riffs and I can deal with that once in awhile. Because of the sound problems early on I think their show was cut short a little bit. But they seem to be a fairly regular presence at the Monkey Barrel venue and Seaford’s CC-22 club, playing a lot with local bands in a similar vein like Hard$ell and Falling From Failure so it’s not like one couldn’t see them a lot if desired.

Aaaaaah, that was fun. Back to politics tomorrow.

Primary postmortem

All right, I get a healthy serving of crow. However I did get the result I really wanted in the Congressional race, so perhaps I managed a bit of reverse psychology here.

Let’s just go to the results I predicted and how things really turned out:

Presidential race, Democrats statewide

What I said: Obama 56%, Clinton 42%, all others 2%

How it turned out: Obama 61%, Clinton 36%, all others 3%

What I did wrong: Actually I wasn’t far off but Obama outperformed in places I thought Hillary may actually carry, those areas which actually tend to vote Republican in state elections. Hillary did carry 8 counties: Allegany, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Garrett, Queen Anne’s, Washington, and Worcester. She was also within two points in Calvert, Harford, and St. Mary’s. My geography wasn’t far off but my numbers were a touch too optimistic for Hillary.

Presidential race, Democrats in Wicomico

What I said: Clinton 50%, Obama 48%

How it turned out: Obama 55%, Clinton 39%

What I did wrong: Something tells me a lot of people flipped to Obama in the last couple weeks, and having Michelle Obama pay a visit close by may have helped. But it was the same phenomemon as statewide, overestimating Hillary’s strength.

Presidential race, Republicans statewide

What I said: McCain 62%, Huckabee 26%, Paul 7%, all others 5%

How it turned out: McCain 55%, Huckabee 29%, all others 10%, Paul 6%

What I did wrong: Forgot that a lot of people had already sent in absentee ballots with Mitt Romney’s name checked. He pulled 6% and actually finished ahead of Ron Paul by about 1,000 votes statewide. On the others I was within a reasonable margin of error. McCain won all 24 jurisdictions, barely edging out Huckabee in Garrett and Washington counties. Those were 2 of the 6 places McCain didn’t get 50% but he did no worse than 45.7% anywhere.

Presidential race, Republicans in Wicomico

What I said: McCain 52%, Huckabee 35%, Paul 7%, all others 4%

How it turned out: McCain 52%, Huckabee 38%, all others 7%, Paul 2%

What I did wrong: Overestimated the Ron Paul vote here, but that’s about it. Had I just said McCain and Huckabee, I would’ve looked like a genius on this race.

Congressional race, Democrats overall

What I said: Kratovil 61%, Robinson 33%, Harper 5%, Werner 1%

How it turned out: Kratovil 40%, Robinson 31%, Harper 17%, Werner 12%

What I did wrong: Hey, I had the order right. Obviously the two bottom-feeders were much stronger in the race than I thought they would be based on the amount I’d heard about them. Of course, I don’t often run in Democrat circles.

Congressional race, Democrats in Wicomico

What I said: Kratovil 53%, Robinson 43%

How it turned out: Robinson 37%, Kratovil 32%

What I did wrong: Not accounting for the strength of the other two candidates made me look bad here too. My mistake was thinking that Harper and Werner were the Arminio and Banks of the Democrat race.

Congressional race, Republicans overall

What I said: Gilchrest 38%, Harris 36%, Pipkin 21%, Arminio 3%, Banks 2%

How it turned out: Harris 43%, Gilchrest 33%, Pipkin 21%, Arminio 2%, Banks 2%

What I did wrong: I way, way, WAY underestimated Andy Harris on the Western Shore. Figured he’d win by 2 points and he won by 34. Gilchrest actually took the Eastern Shore counties 41%-33% over Harris but got destroyed west of the Bay. Apparently the denizens of those three counties use editorial pages as bird cage liners.

Congressional race, Republicans in Wicomico

What I said: Harris 39%, Gilchrest 36%, Pipkin 20%, Arminio 4%, Banks 1%

How it turned out: Gilchrest 41%, Harris 40%, Pipkin 19%, Arminio 2%, Banks 1%

What I did wrong: I said all along it could go either way. While Gilchrest won 8 of the 9 Eastern Shore counties (Pipkin won Queen Anne’s), Harris only trailed by these amounts:

  • Caroline – 0.5%
  • Cecil – 1.2%
  • Dorchester – 10.7%
  • Kent – 38.5% (that’s Wayne’s home county, but it’s the second-smallest on the Shore)
  • Queen Anne’s – 3.6% (but only 0.2% behind Wayne in 2nd)
  • Somerset – 7.9%
  • Wicomico – 0.7%
  • Worcester – 12.4%

That’s why you got the blowout once the Western Shore (which was 44.3% of the vote) was counted. Harris won Anne Arundel, Baltimore, and Harford by margins of 18.7%, 50.7%, and 41.4% respectively. Even if you argue that E.J. Pipkin ruined things for Wayne because they were from the same local area, Gilchrest would have needed about 75% of Pipkin’s votes to catch up.

I also talked about undervoting (or overvoting) between the Congressional and Presidential races. While my numbers were well off the mark, in principle my theory was proven correct. The average undervote for the Congressional race vs. the Presidential race for Democrats was 21.8% (in other words, the total number of Congressional votes fell short of the Presidential total number by 21.8%). One of five voters left the Congressional part of his or her ballot blank. Meanwhile, on the GOP side that undervote was just 2.9% and Baltimore County actually accounted for a lot of it. Kent County actually had more votes for the Congressional race than the Presidential one and five of the nine Eastern Shore counties had an undervote of less than 1 percent.

So it was a mixed bag for me as far as predictions go, it just gives me an opportunity to learn and be better the next time.

One exciting thing about this race was that Rush talked about our results during the very first monologue segment of the program right after noon. Pat Toomey of the Club For Growth also weighed in:

We did it! Last night economic conservative Andy Harris defeated 18-year tax and spend incumbent Congressman Wayne Gilchrest in the Maryland Republican primary.

Club for Growth members like you made the difference. Our members donated over $435,000 to Harris’s winning campaign. The Club and its PAC also spent $670,000 on ads urging voters to reject Gilchrest and elect Harris.

I sincerely appreciate all the Club members whose donations to the campaign and the PAC made this stunning victory possible.

(snip)

Polls taken in the weeks before the election showed Gilchrest and Harris neck and neck, but last night Harris won 44% to 32%, with 95% of the precincts in Maryland Congressional District 1 reporting. State Sen. E.J. Pipkin placed third with 21%.

This race was one of the most difficult I’ve ever seen. When we endorsed Harris, it appeared it would be a simple race with Andy challenging the incumbent. Then just before the filing deadline, Sen. Pipkin entered the race. We were concerned he would split the anti-incumbent vote. Worse, Pipkin spent nearly $1 million out of his own bank account and much, if not most, of that money was spent on false attacks on Harris.

As you can see, Club members played a vital role to ensure the Harris campaign had the funds needed to fight back. And our PAC told voters the truth about the big government records of both Gilchrest and Pipkin.

This was no small victory. Gilchrest is an 18-year incumbent who has staved off challengers twice before. Although he is an economic liberal Republican in a conservative district, he had the advantage of incumbency and endorsements by President Bush, Newt Gingrich, and former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele. Gilchrest’s campaign also got a $180,000 boost from one of the biggest most liberal labor unions in the country, the Service Employees International Union!

But none of these advantages could overpower his liberal record of voting for tax increases and outrageous pork projects, especially when contrasted with Andy Harris’ strong economic conservative record. As a State Senator, Harris led the fight against taxes and voted against six out of nine state budgets because they spent too much.

MD-01 is a conservative district – Bush won 62% of the vote here in 2004-so we can rest assured that Andy Harris will have no trouble in November and will be joining other fiscal stalwarts in Congress next year. We can look forward to great things from Andy Harris.

Perhaps the most important consequence of Wayne Gilchrest‘s defeat is the message it sends to other liberal Republicans in Congress. When liberal Republicans come to the House floor to vote in favor of a tax increase or for a new bloated government program, they will have to ask themselves: Will the Club for Growth PAC use this against me? Will Republicans in my district toss me out like they tossed out Wayne Gilchrest? The more congressmen who ask these kinds of questions, the better off American taxpayers are.

But none of this could have been accomplished without the help of Club for Growth members like you.

When Andy Harris stands on the floor of the United States House of Representatives next year fighting for taxpayers and economic growth, you can take credit for helping send him there.

I cut the fundraising appeal out, since I know a lot of my readers just LOVE the Club For Growth. And yes, I’m a member.

So that’s how things worked out. Now we may have a record (or at least tie for it with Maryland’s Fourth District) of having a Congressman who’s the lamest of lame ducks. Even though Wayne Gilchrest and Albert Wynn both lost yesterday, they still have about 10 1/2 months to serve out their terms from the 2006 election. Plenty of time for the staffers to get out resumes.

And I see E.J. Pipkin has stepped up and “pledged his support” to Andy Harris, along with vocal Harris critic Brian Griffiths. That’s a good thing because we know Frank Kratovil will come out loaded for bear and this time there’s no legislative record to pore over – Kratovil will have that advantage in this race. While I’ll keep tabs on it over the coming months, it’s time to take a break from electoral politics and after this sentence the hiatus begins.

A look back at Primary ’08

Well, it’s been a fun campaign, hasn’t it? I’m not going to miss all those commercials taking up airtime on the radio and TV though.

I went out to my polling place after work and was told that they had been “busy”; however, having worked the polling place in 2006 for a local candidate it seemed pretty dead for what would be a peak time after work. I only waited about a minute and that was probably because I was looking down at my cheat sheet for my delegate and alternate picks and didn’t see the nice lady waving me over.

And other than a handful of Andy Harris and Wayne Gilchrest signs (more Wayne ones at this location) you may not have known it was a polling place driving by. No one was out in the drizzle soliciting votes in the parking lot. It seems like the campaigns sort of hunkered down closer to their home bases in order to be around when the counting begins in a few minutes.

I have to say that I enjoyed getting to meet and speak with all but one Congressional candidate on both sides – the only one I missed was Democrat Joseph Werner. That may have been my favorite moment of the whole nine months I followed this, being outed at the end of a Democrat forum at Salisbury University. In the process I did get some kind words about my website and that made me feel pretty good. Yes, I have an editorial bias but I try to state what’s said at these events fairly and, not that I’m trying to blow my own horn, I have to say that there were a lot of events which would’ve gotten much less thorough coverage had I not been there. The fun part about this blog is not having to have things done by a deadline except that of my own choosing.

I truly wish we’d gotten a little more love on the Shore from the national candidates though. I remember back in 2000 then-candidate George W. Bush made an appearance at our local airport and thousands came out to see him. There was a line for security about a half-mile long and it was one time I was glad I could pull rank a little bit because that was the year I was President of our Young Republican club. I got pretty close to the stage and was right by the limo pulling away. Didn’t get to shake his hand though.

Finally, I do have something to say about my predictions. Obviously there’s other opinions out there as to how the races will go and that’s great. I was happy to promote discussion. But one thing that needs to be remembered is that bloggers like me (or Bill Duvall, Joe Albero, G.A. Harrison, or my Red Maryland brethren – when do we get a sisteren?) represent people who are more into this than 90% of the general public at large. And if you combine the readership of all these outlets, you’re still likely not reaching more than 10% of the nearly 19,000 registered Republicans in Wicomico County alone in any given week.

However, there are other news outlets that do reach more of these people and I had to consider this as a factor. People you see in the news more often with favorable coverage tend to do better at election time. I’ve seen it enough over the years where people go with the names they recognize and shy away from challengers due to fear of the unknown. That’s why it’s tough to beat an incumbent, even if he or she doesn’t necessarily vote in a way that’s best for their district. Name recognition goes a long, long way.

But tomorrow the votes will almost all be counted (except for a few absentee and provisional ones) and life will go on for everyone. Seven people in our Congressional race will be disappointed, and two start plotting their strategy for November. The Presidential bandwagon will head for other parts of the country.

As for me I’m going to start looking at what’s going on in state politics once I do the obligitory primary postmortem post on how I fared with my predictions and how much of a serving of crow I’ll choke down. I saw a story last week that will probably lead things for state political issues on Friday, since I already know my Thursday post will be anything but political. But our folks in Annapolis are overdue for a hard look at what they’re doing so I’m going to give it to them.

A clarification is in order

I actually have had a couple e-mails regarding the subject, so I’ll revisit the Wayne Gilchrest/Ron Paul flap briefly.

I just checked with both the Ron Paul for President and Ron Paul for Congress websites and found no mention of the an endorsement there. Meanwhile, the Gilchrest for Congress site is down for some reason this evening. (Someone will blame it on Andy Harris or the Club For Growth, I’m sure.) So no confirmation from there.

This morning prior to my radio appearance I did get the opportunity to listen once again to that portion of the interview last Thursday and after talking about the endorsements from President Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Michael Steele, Wayne indeed added that he had Ron Paul’s endorsement.

Since both are Congressmen and they do share a somewhat common view on the Iraq situation, it would not surprise me that Ron Paul did endorse Wayne. While there have been situations where Gilchrest claimed endorsements he didn’t get, I believe this one is legitimate.

Radio days volume 11

I guess this is the Spinal Tap edition, I’m up to 11.

No, in reality I’m going to go ahead and finish up on some of the points I either got to or meant to get to this morning. And since I’m in for a penny on the prognostications, I may as well be in for a pound. That’s at the end. But I’ll begin with what I said (or wanted to.)

  • Positive campaigning at the Lincoln Day dinner – who knew!?!

That was nice, much better than the scorched earth of the last few weeks.

  • Presidential race.

Because the conventional wisdom pre-Super Tuesday of a Hillary coronation on the Democrat side and a brokered GOP convention, I was expecting at least one GOP candidate to make a stop on the Eastern Shore before the Chesapeake (or Potomac) Primary while the Democrats stuck to the I-95 corridor. Well, it turns out we had the reverse happen, sort of. Michelle Obama is better than no one at all, and it may even turn a county or two down here. It was a point I didn’t get to make, as was one I talked to Bill about afterward.

At that point I speculated we’re going to see a 3-5% undervote among the Eastern Shore counties on the GOP side for the Presidential race vs. the Congressional race, since the First District has such a hot race while the Presidential one is pretty much set. Conversely, the Presidential race should get 1-3% more total votes than the Congressional one for the Democrats since there’s not nearly as much name recognition.

  • Congressional race.

I forgot to plug when Andy Harris would actually be here. Oh well.

Now, as to what I said about the way the various areas of the First District would vote. West of the Bay I see Harris winning by a small margin (2 points or so) over Wayne Gilchrest. It would have been more like 6 points, but I think the endorsements by the Annapolis Capital and Baltimore Sun might help Wayne pick up 3-4 points. It’ll be a bit disappointing since that’s Andy’s home area.

The upper Shore will go for Gilchrest, with Pipkin and Harris battling for second. Actually, Pipkin hurts Gilchrest a lot here because they both share the same home area. In a two-person race Wayne may have won that region by 10-15 points over Harris.

In our area, I expect much the same result as the Western Shore, with Harris winning here by 3 to 4 points. I’ll restate my prediction on the race below for those who didn’t listen, but first I’ll go through the other races.

  • Predictions.

These are just my gut instincts based on a few (about 10-12) years of political experience. Starting with the Democrats, for the Presidential race statewide I see it this way:

  1. Barack Obama 56%
  2. Hillary Clinton 42%
  3. all the others 2%

I think Hillary will carry Wicomico County by a 50-48 margin. I wouldn’t be surprised if Michelle Obama’s visit turned that number around, though.

First District Congress:

  1. Frank Kratovil 61%
  2. Chris Robinson 33%
  3. Steve Harper 5%
  4. Joseph Werner 1%

Robinson will do better locally, but still lose by 10 points or so. How about 53-43?

Now to the GOP. Thanks to Mitt Romney pulling out, I’ll probably not be able to defend my Central Committee title from the last election but you never know. (I had Romney winning in Wicomico County but McCain statewide with a smaller percentage than I now have below.)

(Late edit: I forgot to add the local numbers on the original.)

  1. John McCain 62%
  2. Mike Huckabee 26%
  3. Ron Paul 7%
  4. all others 5%

There may be a little more of a McCain protest vote than 5% statewide, and that would come out of Ron Paul’s number. Locally, I think the split will be McCain 52%, Huckabee 35%, Paul 7%, and all others 4 percent. But I wouldn’t be completely shocked if Huckabee actually carried the county.

First District Congress:

  1. Wayne Gilchrest 38%
  2. Andy Harris 36%
  3. E.J. Pipkin 21%
  4. Joe Arminio 3%
  5. Robert Banks 2%

Man, as a Harris supporter did it hurt to say that. Locally Harris will win Wicomico with 39%, Gilchrest 36%, Pipkin 20%, Arminio 4%, and Banks 1 percent.

As I mentioned, it’s really tough to beat an incumbent in a primary in the first place. But what will do Andy Harris in is not the negative campaigning or questions about the influx of money from the Club For Growth. He could have easily overcome those.

Nope, what denies Andy Harris the GOP nomination is one E.J. Pipkin.

I believe that if you ask the Pipkin voters, 70% would have pulled the lever for Andy Harris had Pipkin not jumped in the race. That works out to an extra 15% for Harris and 6% for Gilchrest, and Harris wins easily. Even had John Leo Walter stayed in the race and pulled the 10% or so I figured he’d get, Andy had enough margin to win without Pipkin injecting himself into the race at the last minute.

What really sucks about that is the establishment Republicans will see the Gilchrest win as more evidence that the conservative wing of the party is no longer dominant, while in reality three guys who are more conservative than Wayne Gilchrest will draw 60% of the vote but get squat.

Now when the votes are counted tomorrow night, I would be more than happy to have a large serving of crow should Andy Harris win. (Can I at least have it sauteed with a little garlic butter?) Above all, it will come down to turnout and whose campaign gets the votes out.

As on the radio that will be my parting remark for this evening. See you at the polls tomorrow.

Endorsement redux

First of all, *Shameless Plug Alert!*

I’m scheduled to be on the AM Salisbury program (WICO-AM 1320) tomorrow morning at 7:40 with Bill Reddish, and I’ll give you my fearless prediction of election results for Tuesday. That and other thoughts about the political race as our part of the primary campaign winds down.

If you’ve seen monoblogue anytime in recent weeks, it’s tough to miss that bright yellow banner on the lefthand column proclaiming my endorsement of Andy Harris’s Congressional campaign. I’ll backtrack a bit and go into my main reasons later. You may also have noticed that after Duncan Hunter’s exit from the race, I haven’t chosen to endorse any Presidential candidate. This is simply because the ones I like kept dropping like flies, leaving me with fewer and fewer palatable choices.

In the end, I decided to go back to what I originally wrote. While subsequent events have given me some reason for pause, I strongly recommended Mike Huckabee in the first place, and I believe he still merits your vote on Tuesday.

There are two key reasons that I believe this should be done. First of all, I do like Mike’s message on health care – it was one of the strongest categories he had compared to the others in the field (I’m not crazy about a federal smoking ban though.) He also scored well in the area of energy independence, and made enough points to stay near the top of my list in most other areas.

More importantly, at this time he is the anti-McCain and he won two of the three contests this weekend, in Louisiana and Kansas. (McCain won in blue-state Washington.) The reason I say this is that Huckabee is the conservatives’ last opportunity to keep John McCain’s feet to the fire and attempt to move him rightward on at least a few issues. It’s obvious by election results that McCain would have a hard time winning in the South, which has been a GOP stronghold for a generation.

Unlike Bob Dole in 1996, I can’t see John McCain giving up his Senate seat to devote his full attention to running for President. (Would it have helped John Kerry in 2004? Perhaps. But I doubt either Hillary or Barack Obama would give up their seat to run full-time either so it may not be such a disadvantage this time around.) To me, yes John McCain made a good speech at CPAC, but if he’s serious about doing many of these things I’d like to see him introduce bills like the McCain Permanent Tax Relief Act of 2008 while he’s in the Senate – he could get a good head start on his platform right now. (The same goes for Obama and Clinton, but we know they wouldn’t dare.) And if I were fortunate enough to run for and win a spot as a Delegate to the Republican National Convention at our state convention, I’d much rather be a Huckabee delegate than a McCain one.

Now I’ll turn to Andy Harris and my original endorsement of him. (Also check out this post for his Salisbury schedule tomorrow.)

In looking for a Congressional candidate, I looked at the same issues I did for the race for President. What I want in a Congressman is a person who would think the same way I do on the floor of the House, but perhaps without as much of the urge to choke the living shit out of Nancy Pelosi when she says or does something stupid and against the Constitution. And when I did my research on the issues, Harris stood head and shoulders above most of the rest of the field – only John Leo Walter kept up with him as far as principles go. (Walter would be an asset in state politics as well. Let’s hope he continues his political career.)

While some see Harris as phony, it’s not the impression I’ve received in my dealings with him. (If you want a phony politician, I know this guy well and he is.) And the idea that he’s bought and paid for by the Club For Growth? With goals like this, I’d be honored to have their backing myself. At least some of those are good first steps to restoring a more appropriate federal government in terms of size and scale in my book.

Now, I understand that there are two primary objections to the way Andy Harris has ran his campaign. The first is district-wide and the second is more parochial and local.

Generally, a campaign starts out by introducing the candidate with a positive, soft-selling ad campaign that emphasizes the officeseeker and his or her family. However, I can see the point where this may not have worked here against an entrenched incumbent Congressman, particularly one whose voting record had been in question for some time. The ads were too harsh for my taste, but what’s done is done and I’ve also taken the time to meet and talk to the candidate in person, which is something we should all try to do. Unfortunately, the others in the race chose to respond in kind and we have the last couple months of commercials, mailings, print ads, etc. to show for it.

On the second point, let me just say that I brought Andy Harris to the local blogosphere’s attention way back in May when he first considered running. Unfortunately, that era was the time of the former sbynews.com domain and I can’t verify when Joe Albero started talking about him – I think it was around the time of the Tawes get-together in Crisfield in July since he and I were both there. It would have been my preference to get the weekly Harris columns rather than Salisbury News but he asked first so I’ll give him due credit there. (Besides, I do get plenty enough other info from Andy’s campaign.)

Now I want to speak about the others in the race, beginning with the incumbent.

What got my goat about Wayne Gilchrest was his vote against oil exploration in ANWR – putting caribou before consumers. In an era when a large chunk of our oil supply comes from nations hostile to our interests, it makes no sense to cordon off vast areas of domestic supply, barring them from exploration. Yet that’s what Wayne did. Sorry, conservation won’t cut it and alternative energy is still years away. The ANWR oil could serve as a bridge to that point.

The rest of the district became upset with his Iraq vote, and more recently he may have stepped in it again. About minute 27 Wayne says:

“I was not elected by the general public to go there and be an echo chamber for some mythical Republican icon. Uh, whatever that is.  I don’t know if it’s Rush Limbaugh or Hannity.  Two pretty uninformed people when it comes to a lot of issues like energy and global warming and immigration.”

I guess in Wayne’s eyes disagreement equals “uninformed.” I happen to agree with Rush that we should secure our own energy – even if it’s oil – that global warming is a myth insofar as mankind causing it, and that we need to crack down hard on illegal immigration. Sounds like conservatism to me.

One other Gilchrest item to note – on Friday I received a mailer that told me Wayne Gilchrest was “Fighting for US” on the issues of fiscal responsibility, reforming immigration, and protecting the Bay. But it came from the group Republican Majority for Choice, and oddly enough didn’t say a thing about that particular subject. Just food for thought.

In any other race I’d probably like E.J. Pipkin, but I’m not sure that there was a groundswell of anti-Harris, anti-Gilchrest voters crying out for a third alternative to jump in at the last minute. Perhaps if he hadn’t ran for the Senate just four years ago, or entered the race back in the summer, I might have seen him as less of an opportunist. He does have the expertise on financial issues that’s needed in any legislative body so there’s nothing wrong with keeping him where he is.

Joe Arminio and Robert Banks are good people; unfortunately, the dynamics of this race pretty much assured they weren’t going to have much of a chance. Arminio may well be one of those people who we may look back on in twenty years and wish we’d followed his advice, but his presentation of the issues went over the head of many, many voters for whom arcane economic theories make their eyes glaze over. As for Robert Banks, I am curious if he lives in District 7. If so, perhaps he may be considered for a spot that’s vacated by Harris or his successor should Harris ascend to Congress.

In listening to Rush on Friday, he espoused that, assuming McCain is likely the nominee and the Democrats add somewhat to their majorities in Congress, we need to pay particular attention to House and Senate races to find our conservative leaders. In that instance, Rush told the audience to look to promising people in their state legislative bodies to run for the future and I was sorely tempted to call in and tell him the future is now in our First District. We have a chance to put a good conservative voice in Congress, so let’s not blow it. Vote for Andy Harris on Tuesday.

Crossposted on Red Maryland, because the First District deserves to know.