Dem’s fightin’ words to me

Let me begin straight away by crediting Daniel Reiter at PolitickerMD for the article I’m about to comment on. It puts words similar to those I’d heard from another’s mouth and commented on last month further into public discourse.

At a PAC fundraiser (attended by about 15, which makes me wonder about either interest or the price of admission) state Democrat mouthpiece David Paulson is quoted as saying:

“We’re very, very serious about making eight in ’08,” Paulson said. “We want every house seat in this state in Democratic hands. Period, bar none, and we want it there, we want it there for the next two decades.” (Emphasis mine.)

Does that not remind you of this quote from Maryland Senate President Mike Miller a couple years back?

(GOP leaders are) “going to be flying high, but we’re going to get together and we’re going to shoot them down. We’re going to bury them face down in the ground, and it’ll be 10 years before they crawl out again.”

Obviously the Maryland Democrats are feeling a little cocky these days. I suppose they have that right despite the fact that they’ve raised taxes but still not addressed the state’s long-term structural deficit, presided over a Public Service Commission which still isn’t stopping the massive electric rate increases that they bludgeoned the Ehrlich Administration over, and continue to have several of its high-profile lawmakers targeted in scandal. And that doesn’t count their federal counterparts who have fiddled while the contents of our wallets burn because gasoline is close to $4 a gallon.

Will the First District race be a tough one? Yes, probably tougher than it should be because you have a State Senator with a proven conservative voting record that’s pretty much in tune with the desires of the First District constituency (borne out by their consistently voting for right-of-center politicians over the last 20 years) placed up against a legislative neophyte who talks tough on some issues like crime and immigration but would roll over for other items that our district might not care so much for like mandating health insurance, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the Long War, or increasing taxes. In a normal cycle, this should be a race on the order of a 25 point win for the GOP, but this year’s foul-mood electorate may place the blame on the wrong party and make the election a squeaker.

And if that wasn’t enough, Paulson wasn’t through with his mouth:

Paulson also criticized former Gov. Bob Ehrlich and the state Republican Party: “Ever since he’s been elected, that party has done nothing but slip into the abyss. And it’s their fault. Every time I hear Republicans say to me we need a viable two party system in this state because that’s healthy and that’s good for government, I say I’m not going to apologize for success and if you want to build a two party system do a better job.”

He continued, “It’s not our fault you fail.” (Again, emphasis mine.)

I guess the first question I have is when the GOP hadn’t held the governor’s chair in decades and had been perpetually in the minority in the General Assembly, how could they have slipped into an abyss that they were already in for awhile?

Be that as it may, I think this failure Paulson refers to is not a permanent one. However, one trick we have to master is to convince Marylanders who are receptive to our message not to vote with their feet. (Admittedly it’s tough with the hostile business climate Democrats are known for creating.) If we can just get them to stick around for another couple years we have an opportunity to make inroads and start reversing this trend toward higher taxes coupled with more spending and regulation. A good first interim step is to defeat both of the ballot issues on the November ballot. While I could write paragraphs to argue against each, in brief there are better alternatives than rewriting our state Constitution just for adding slot machines, and with the shall-issue absentee ballots Maryland voters are already entitled to there’s no need to waste taxpayer money and risk fraud in the electoral process by opening the polling places a few days earlier.

In the meantime, as long as I have the voice to do so I’m going to keep fighting the machine and this completely arrogant ATTITUDE exhibited by Paulson. I think that attitude comes from being around cronies with similar political philosophies based on acquiring and securing political power without accountability.

I may not have the largest readership of all the blogs in Maryland but two things I do have are that I’m really damn stubborn and I don’t surrender when it comes to principle. After all, I’ve done this my way despite the critics for 2 1/2 years. Throw in the enjoyment that I derive from both writing and researching posts and I’m only going to become more of a thorn in the side of some folks in the future – you can count on that.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.