October 2008 – Page 3

A candidate for least surprising non-endorsement

In the category of “duh…”

House and Senate Republicans today announced their opposition to the constitutional amendment that would authorize early voting in Maryland. Ballot Question 1 authorizes early voting up to 10 days prior to Election Day, allows people to vote outside of the district and precinct they are registered, and authorizes absentee balloting on demand.

“Early voting without the appropriate safeguards threatens the legitimacy of our elections,” said House Minority Leader Anthony O’Donnell. “This amendment not only authorizes early voting but also allows people to vote anywhere in the State, regardless of where they were registered. Given that Maryland does not require photo identification for voting, this provision is ripe for fraud. We call on the citizens of Maryland to protect the integrity of their elections and reject this constitutional amendment.”

The Maryland General Assembly passed provisions for early voting during the 2005 and 2006 legislative sessions. The early voting statutes were challenged on constitutional grounds in Lamone v. Capozzi and were overturned by Maryland’s Court of Appeals. Currently, the only way early voting can be authorized in Maryland is through a constitutional amendment.

“There has been no significant increase in voter turnout in those states that have implemented early voting,” said Senate Minority Leader Allan Kittleman. “Why take such a risk that could threaten the credibility of our voting system when there is little to no benefit? We cannot jeopardize the integrity of our elections merely for the purpose of convenience.”

“Maryland does not need early voting,” said Minority Whip Christopher Shank. “We already have provisions for absentee balloting. If you are unable to vote at the polls on Election Day you may request an absentee ballot and mail in your vote. This makes the entire early voting system both duplicative and unnecessary.”

“Early voting will push another unfunded mandate on local governments, requiring higher staffing and operational costs to open polling places for up to ten days prior to Election Day,” said Senate Minority Whip Nancy Jacobs. “As we saw in February’s Primary Election, local election boards are already having major difficulties finding election judges for a single Election Day. How are they going to be able to find them for additional days?”

These are all valid points in what has seemed to become a very partisan issue. I don’t call thia “early and often” voting for no reason. Ohio’s early voting has led to a court battle because Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (a Democrat) decided that it would be too much work at this late date to check all the mismatches between voting and drivers license records. As the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals noted:

The apparent “turn[ing] off” of this voter-registration-verification process, or at least the discovery that it had been turned off, prompted this dispute. For reasons that the record does not reveal and at a time the record does not reveal, the Secretary of State apparently chose to deactivate at least part of the process, if not all of the process, described in section 15.4 of her manual. In particular, she concedes that at some point she stopped communicating with the county boards about mismatches and stopped renewing validation requests with the BMV after obtaining a mismatch.

Perhaps she decided that the voter mismatches might help her fellow Democrats win a few close races? At least with absentee ballots, you’re sending them to someone who is already registered and there’s no need to keep polling places open all those extra days. Ohio’s example is yet another reason that I also encourage a NO vote on Question 1.

Security risks

Yesterday I came across a newly-released voting scorecard put out by the Center for Security Policy, one that grades everyone in Congress on certain votes during the 110th Congress that’s just wrapping up now. While the presentation leaves something to be desired, the important part is how our local representatives in Washington scored. That also left something to be desired.

Actually, the issue I have with Frank Gaffney’s group is their scoring method because a person who came into office midway through the term can’t get a very high score based on the total number of votes overall (either 23 or 24, depending on body.) If I only had the opportunity to participate in five votes because I assumed office midstream I’d only have a rating in the 20’s even if I voted their way. (That’s why I have a different method for my monoblogue accountability scorecard which divides the votes proportionally. I would base the overall score on fewer votes if a member joined up late; however, this has yet to happen in 3 sessions.)

Regardless, of all the full-term House members our own Wayne Gilchrest was the second-lowest Republican rated with a score of just 35 percent. (Ron Paul had just 18 percent but did not vote on 13 occasions.) For our Delaware friends, Mike Castle was in a group of three who were tied for the third-lowest mark among full-term Republicans, scoring a somewhat more respectable 54 percent. However, the vast majority of Republicans were in the eighties and nineties, conversely most Democrats had scores under 20. That group naturally included two of the Senators representing Maryland and Delaware, as both Ben Cardin and Joe Biden scored a big fat zero on their cards. Somewhat better were Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski (33%) and Delaware’s Tom Carper, who managed a score of 44.

This is yet another reason I believe Andy Harris should take over Wayne Gilchrest’s Congressional seat. It’s almost certain that Harris would have a score comparable to most other GOP House members who take national security seriously. (In this case, many of the votes were related to Iraq but others were on border security and missile defense funding.) Frank Kratovil may score better than average for a Democrat but I don’t find a 35% score acceptable and I doubt the voters in the First District would either. (My score would have been 96 based on the brief descriptions given, the only vote which I would have been against Gaffney’s group on would have been REAL ID funding.)

I particularly liked the Pearce Amendment:

The Pearce (NM-2) amendment sought to remove $10 million in funding for energy conservation on military installations and increase funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program by $10 million.

The mission of the military (and I learned this from listening to Rush Limbaugh, although I believe he was actually quoting someone else – that’s a reference just to annoy my friends on the left some more) is “to kill people and break things,” not to promote energy conservation.

While I know at least some of my readers don’t like Gaffney because he falls into the neocon classification, he does have some expertise in the field of national security and should be taken seriously. (Conversely, I’m not too crazy about his continuing effort to mandate flex-fueled cars, something I’ve written about previously.) This effort is good for discussion purposes because, even though the economy has taken front and center position amongst key 2008 election issues, national security can’t be placed too far onto the back burner.

The tour begins

A few weeks back I interviewed Blue Star Mom Deborah Johns, who took it upon herself to spend two weeks traveling the nation because she believes Barack Obama isn’t fit to be President. Today is the day her bus tour begins in Sacramento, California and for the next 14 days she and others will make a 35-city whistle stop tour to spread the message. (As this post comes online, the bus should be gassed up and ready to roll!) While a few of the venues have changed, Deborah and friends will still end up in Washington, DC on October 29th.

One thing I questioned Deborah about was how she thought the national media would react. Mark Halperin of Time magazine answered that question in part yesterday by posting one of the group’s more strident commercial spots:

Yeah, that one’s a little over the top and a bit too shrill in my estimation – perhaps that’s the impression Halperin is trying to impart in his readers. I’d rather the focus of this tour be on both the anti-military aspect of Barack Obama that Deborah is most passionate about and the anti-business, high-tax economic policies likely to occur in an Obama administration; plus a dose of their strong support for fellow Blue Star Mom Sarah Palin tossed in for good measure. Happily, in part they do shift somewhat into that economic mode as part of this tour and use a humorous tactic to question Obama’s ability to lead:

As part of this tour we’ll be highlighting Barack Obama’s lack of executive experience, and we’re inviting you to participate. Here’s how:

Bring a copy of your resume to the rallies! That’s right, we’ll be collecting resumes from people at stops all across the nation, so if you have any executive experience — either as someone who ran or started your own small business, or a housemom who raised a family, or a senior-level executive who had high-level responsibilities, etc… be sure to bring your resume with you to the rally in your community.

We’ll display the giant stack of resumes for the national media at the end of our tour in Washington, D.C. And not only that, but we’ll also select 3 of the resumes and fly out those individuals, on our dime, to our Washington, D.C. news conference on Wednesday, October 29th as we highlight the fact that all those Americans who submitted resumes at our tour stops had more executive experience than Barack Obama, who now wants to be president and Commander in Chief of the United States! We’ll also make you available for media appearances/interviews if you’re up to it!

Don’t worry, you can always come out to our rallies even if you don’t bring a resume – but please be sure to bring your American flags either way!

Gee, if I’d have known that earlier I’d have sent a copy of my resume since the tour doesn’t quite make it here. I guess monoblogue IS a small – very small! – business because I do make a few pennies on ad revenue. They wouldn’t even have to fly me, just pay for my gas. (Then again, a private jet from here to DC might be a great way to get around that Beltway bottleneck.)

In any case, having now dealt with Deborah Johns and others in the OCDB group, I wish them nothing but the best on their tour and hope they take my advice – I suspect it’ll be worth at least a little more than what they paid for it. Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on their progress and see how well her prediction of “some” press coverage for the tour pans out.

We’re number…45?

According to the Tax Foundation Maryland is now 45th out of 50 states in their measure of business friendliness. This was a plummet rarely seen among the beancounters because our fair state was 24th last year – not great but tolerable. Perhaps that’s why businesses and jobs are fleeing the state? Maybe they’re going to Delaware (#10), Virginia (#15), or Pennsylvania (#28).

With the new rankings, the only states beneath Maryland now are Rhode Island at 46th, my native Ohio holding down 47th, California sitting at number 48, New York 49th, and New Jersey having the dubious dishonor of being 50th. Amazingly, no other state shifted more than 5 spots in either direction for this year’s rankings, making Maryland’s drop Grand Canyon-like in its scope.

I’ll let the Tax Foundation take it from here:

In the midst of an economy in decline that has led to revenue shortfalls in Maryland, the Tax Foundation and the Maryland Public Policy Institute will be holding a press conference tomorrow in Annapolis announcing that Maryland has made the largest decline in the State Business Tax Climate Index, sliding from 24th in 2008 to 45th in 2009 in the annual ranking of the “business-friendliness” of each states’ tax systems. The press conference will come before Gov. O’Malley presents a final list of proposed budget cuts to the Maryland Board of Public Works.

Tax Foundation Staff Economist Josh Barro, author of the study, will be at Lawyer’s Mall near the Maryland State House on Wednesday, October 15, to hold a press conference with the Maryland Public Policy Institute on the Index at 9 AM.

The Index ranks states based on the taxes that matter most to businesses and business investment: corporate tax, individual income tax, sales tax, unemployment insurance tax and property tax. States achieve high scores by having low rates, broad tax bases, and simple rules.

Maryland’s drop from 24th to 45th out of 50 states on the Index is attributable to an increase in most of the state’s major taxes for FY 2009. They raised the corporate income tax rate to 8.25% from 7%, the sales tax rate to 6% from 5%, and the cigarette excise tax to $2.00 from $1.00 per pack. Maryland also created four new income tax brackets, raising taxes on filers earning more than $150,000 per year. The state’s top personal income tax rate is now 6.25% (up from 4.75%); that’s on top of a weighted average local option rate of 2.98%. Maryland now has by far the worst personal income tax in the country, with a significantly lower score than second-place California. (Emphasis mine.)

Being only a part-time blogger, I’ll have to take a pass on the press conference. All the Tax Foundation is really doing though is telling those of us in Maryland something we already know through experience – our taxes are too high! But Governor O’Malley and his Democrat allies in the General Assembly really don’t care because they’re assuming the federal government will replace any jobs that are lost in the private sector with both the growth of government and the importation of BRAC jobs from other states. Even better for them in the former case is the vastly higher proportion of unionized federal jobs when compared to the private sector – that means cash in their political coffers to beat back those pesky Republicans who have the audacity to believe that money earned by the citizens of Maryland actually belongs to them!

However, that thinking covers just the I-95 corridor where most of the beneficiaries of federal work and largesse live. Once you get away from the urban areas of Baltimore and DC you run into places where the statewide business climate makes it more difficult for job creators to stay in the state. Furthermore, with most areas of Maryland outside the I-95 corridor within a fairly easy drive to an adjacent state, the marketing strategy of a company which relocates can remain essentially the same.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see my e-mail tomorrow have a press release from the Maryland Republican Party outlining many of these same points being brought up by the Tax Foundation. I’m sure Justin Ready and others in the party stop by monoblogue so I’m happy to give them the heads-up if they haven’t already seen it someplace else.

And with the realistic possibility of Democrats expanding their majorities in Congress (why I don’t know given their single-digit approval rating as a body and horrible track record over the last 2 years under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid), it’s likely that we as a nation will be saying goodbye to the relatively reasonable tax rates of the last several years and dreading the return of the higher rates installed by President Clinton. (Remember the middle-class tax cut he didn’t deliver? Betcha Barack Obama will fall short there too if he’s elected.) In all, residents of the (not so) Free State may be continuing to absorb the body blows of oppressive taxation at the state level and getting that added sock in the mouth from the feds too.

And if we go to the canvas, it’s still a long count to 45.

The strangest bedfellow

I can only shake my head in wonderment at how I ended up on the mailing list for the Environmental Defense Fund. But I did and they wanted me to send a message to the next President about what I wanted him to do in his first 100 days. And what, pray tell, would that be? Let me fill you in:

In George W. Bush’s first 100 days in office, he refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol and put forth a policy favoring increased exploration for fossil fuels and rapid construction of new power plants, rather than exploring conservation and sustainable power generation. Actions like these, put out so early in his administration, set the tone for eight environmentally destructive years.

As you may be the next President, I am writing to ask you to differentiate yourself from Bush’s policies of the past, and accomplish the following during your first 100 days in office:

1. Introduce legislation to cap global warming pollution.
2. Commit to creating new incentives to unleash energy innovation and build the green jobs sector.
3. Invest in public transportation alternatives to help Americans drive less.
4. Support alliances of industry, environmentalists, and landowners to protect endangered wildlife.
5. Take on the overfishing crisis through new economic incentives for fisherfolk.

By accomplishing these 5 tasks, you will be setting the stage for an environmentally protective administration, and taking the first steps toward undoing the damage the past 8 years have caused. I urge you to implement this To-Do List within your first 100 days in office.

Once I stopped laughing, I realized that, gee, one could have a LOT of fun with this editable form letter. The only problem is whether the EDF sees it before they send it and can stop it.

Instead, I simply came up with five better suggestions. You can take them as you may. Hell, sign my name to it and send it on in.

In George W. Bush’s first 100 days in office, he refused to fire any of those environmentalist hacks that plague the lower reaches of government and only put forth a policy favoring increased exploration for fossil fuels in his final year, finally ending his father’s prohibitions on offshore drilling. It’s unfortunate that actions like those wanted by the radical environmentalists may yet set the tone for eight economically destructive years if the wrong candidates are elected.

As you may be the next President, I am writing to ask you to differentiate yourself from failed policies of the past, and accomplish the following during your first 100 days in office:

1. Introduce legislation to eliminate the ban on offshore drilling once and for all.
2. Commit to creating new incentives to energy companies to allow them to create jobs.
3. Invest in better transportation infrastructure to help Americans spend less time being stuck in traffic.
4. Support landowners and protect their private property rights from overbearing government regulation.
5. Take on the overfishing crisis through eating more chicken – it tastes better anyway and supports our local economy.

By accomplishing these 5 tasks, you will be setting the stage for an outstanding administration, and taking the first steps toward undoing the damage the environmentalist wackos have caused. I urge you to implement this To-Do List within your first 100 days in office.

Sincerely,

Michael Swartz

www.monoblogue.us

Maybe they’ll vet their mailing lists a little better next time!

Sorry, since I don’t sponge off donations like the EDF does, I can’t offer you a gift for sending this in like they do. But who needs another travel mug or tote anyway?

Hey, drive-by media, here’s a sex scandal!

And it’s even in the very same district that Mark Foley resigned from two years ago, the 16th District of Florida. In this case his Democrat successor, Tim Mahoney, reportedly paid his former mistress $121,000 in hush money – not only that, he also got her a job at a political consulting firm. Nice work if you can get it.

For those of you who have forgotten, the Foley case revolved around inappropriate e-mails to some of the pages who worked around the Capitol and the cover-up by GOP leaders. Between that and “macaca”, the drive-by media had a field day assisting the Democrats who were running on a platform of cleaning up Washington.

Well, guess again. Even more damning are the allegations of a cover-up on the Democrat side:

Senior Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the chair of the Democratic Caucus, have been working with Mahoney to keep the matter from hurting his re-election campaign, the Mahoney staffers said.

A spokesperson for Emanuel denies that account, but said Emanuel did confront Mahoney “upon hearing a rumor” about an affair in 2007 and “told him he was in public life and had a responsibility to act accordingly.” The spokesperson added that it was a “private conversation” that had nothing to do with Mahoney’s re-election prospects.

Right, because they knew if this came out at the wrong time Mahoney wouldn’t have any re-election prospects. Then again, how long did it take for someone to get John Edwards to ‘fess up about his “love child?” That came out in the National Enquirer for gosh sakes.

What makes this different and more serious than anything Foley did was the money involved. Definitely, the woman in question also has a lot of court time in store for her but you have to wonder where the investigation will be on this compared to the supposed abuse of power Sarah Palin exercised as Governor – a case hurried by a Democrat State Senator to arrive prior to Election Day and extended past its original scope. As originally brought up, Palin was cleared of any wrongdoing in sacking her Public Safety Commissioner because he was an at-will employee.

(If you want to read all 263 pages of the Palin report, you can do so here. It’s noteworthy that the report assumes Palin wasn’t worried about her ex-brother-in-law because she let go part of her security detail. I think the woman can handle firearms herself!)

And I’m not even going to go into the controversy about whether Barack Obama was actually born in America. We know John McCain wasn’t born in the United States but in the Panama Canal Zone (when we still held the Panama Canal,) however Obama’s been less forthcoming. My blogger friend Bob McCarty has been all over this one, beginning with this post of his and culminating with yesterday’s video link.

In any of these cases, if the situation were reversed don’t you think the evening news would be wall-to-wall with it? The answer is blatantly obvious and reveals part of the reason we in the pajamas media are more popular than ever.

Pictures (and text) from a fundraiser

Originally I intended to take a couple pictures of yesterday’s fundraiser for Andy Harris which featured our county Sheriff, Mike Lewis, as one of the hosts, and add them at the end of my previous post. But then I found out we had other company:

As it turns out, McCord also interviewed me so it’s possible my interview may be on the WYPR airwaves as part of the fundraiser story. He asked me not about Andy Harris but how I felt about John McCain. You may figure out why in a few paragraphs, or I’ll clue you in.

Andy actually spoke twice at the event, which was good for those who were a little late in coming.

Like I said, I didn’t exactly go to play reporter but I’m glad I did bring a little pad of paper to jot down a few observations on what Andy Harris and Mike Lewis said.

Harris on the economy:

It was “liberal policies” that got us in trouble, and we would have a recession. Andy decried another $160 billion bailout pushed by Nancy Pelosi that won’t work.

On the bailout:

Washington has had a “complete breakdown” and a “total disconnect” from the people over the last 3 weeks. Barney Frank and his allies in Congress “fiddled while Rome burned” and now are “putting gas on the fire.”

On foreign affairs:

We’re “still living in a dangerous world” and people are “scared about the wrong outcome” in this election. Harris also noted that “Barack Obama doesn’t sell in the First Congressional District.”

On John McCain:

Andy said that McCain “goes against the grain” of Washington, but there were a few places where John McCain went against Andy’s grain too.

Mike Lewis was more brief, telling us that we “need to secure this Congressional seat.” Obviously his concern was about crime and law enforcement, and Lewis also brought up the fact that Harris had come to him over a year ago to seek his support.

Now the final picture.

And Andy said this picture wouldn’t come out. I do know a little about Photoshop, so I just added the flash my camera didn’t. As you can see, I have my McCain/Palin shirt on and two Sarah Palin buttons. (Do you think I like her?) That’s why Joel McCord wanted to talk to me about McCain, and I was honest – he wasn’t my first choice but he’s the best choice now. (I had to fill Joel in a little bit on who Duncan Hunter was as part of explaining my evolution through the GOP Presidential candidates I supported as one by one they dropped out. Hopefully Andy and the younger Duncan D. Hunter, who’s running for his father’s seat, will be two among a large GOP freshman class.)

Still, I had fun, ate probably a little too much (but the pig was really good!), and just got a little more motivated to help Andy get elected. We have three weeks plus a day of work to do, but it can be done.

Air sortie counterattack

Wow, the ads are flying fast and furious now. This is the latest from Andy Harris’s Congressional campaign:

Surprisingly, I only recognized one “regular” person in the ad so he didn’t just get a bunch of shills. Maybe you’d count Governor Ehrlich as a shill but remember he was on board with Harris even before the primary.

And as I’d hoped, those contributions from regular folks like you and me to the Club For Growth have paid off. The cavalry arrived with not one, but two spots:

It’s interesting that no one has asked Frank about his stance on the misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act”, unless it came up in one of the debates I didn’t attend. While the Club For Growth may be making a misplaced assumption in that commercial, they are fairly dead on in the second example. Here’s what I wrote in my coverage of a Democrat forum last November:

(Kratovil) felt that the government “(has the) responsibility that families have health care,” and we should pool our resources to insure everyone.

When I use quotes, that’s the words out of his mouth. It’s also reflected right on his website. Under “Universal Health Care…Means Universal” Frank notes:

For nearly a century leaders in Washington have been talking about universal, affordable health care for all Americans.

(snip)

Universal coverage cannot be achieved until we accept the premise that every adult and child must be insured. If elected to Congress, I will support and advocate for true universal coverage and will provide leadership in forging consensus on a policy that provides such coverage without harming employers.

I strongly disagree that every adult and child MUST be insured; the choice should be up to the end user. I certainly recommend that they have health insurance, but that market should be opened up to allow more options and make the cost more bearable – not via mandate but by freeing people to buy insurance across state lines, reducing the amount of mandated coverage, etc. etc. I’ve frequently covered this ground before.

But Frank still contends that Harris is the one backed by special interests:

There they go again. For over a week now, Andy Harris has been attacking me the same way he attacked Wayne Gilchrest and E.J. Pipkin in the primary. Now, with his poll numbers continuing to slide, he has called on his old friends at the Club for Growth to come to his rescue and join the TV ad wars attacking me. Together, Andy Harris and his Club for Growth backers are distorting my views on health care, ignoring my proven record of cracking down on illegal immigration, and flat out lying about my commitment to middle class tax cuts.

It says a lot about Andy Harris that in the midst of our nation’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, he is cozying up to an extreme special interest group whose agenda includes eliminating taxes on Wall Street speculators, risking the future of social security on the stock market, and eliminating government regulation of our financial markets. He rails against “Wall Street fat cats” during our debates, but he has no problem accepting over $1.2 million worth of support from those same “fat cats” when he needs help smearing his opponents.

Personally, I’m honored to join Wayne Gilchrest and E.J. Pipkin in the ranks of those who just aren’t extreme enough for Andy Harris and his buddies at the Club for Growth. We’re in the midst of a crisis caused by corporate greed, fiscal irresponsibility, and a failure to provide proper oversight to our financial markets. I’m running against an opponent who is pushing more of the same failed policies that got us into this mess. As for me, I’m running for Congress to fight for Maryland families, not Wall Street special interests.

Frank, you’re not Ronald Reagan, so don’t use his phrase. And personally I’d prefer his old friends at the Club For Growth – the people who make America work – to your new Beltway insider friends at the DCCC, those guys whose lack of regulation in reverse, such as their mandates to banks to make mortgage loans to people who hadn’t the assets to cover them (like making banks count unemployment payments and welfare checks as income), set the foundation for the financial house of cards coming down around us. I hold them personally responsible for the devaluation of my investments, not the “Wall Street fat cats” who fairly negotiated their benefit packages.

I also just proved above that the Club For Growth is NOT distorting your views on health care, you want universal health care. It says that right on your website.

And quit pandering to families! As a single person I’m just as (if not more) concerned about the issues facing our nation today. If you were really concerned about families you would stand for ways to help them prosper by leaving more money in their pocket for them to spend or save as they like. (Included in that is keeping the capital gains tax low, which the Club For Growth stands for. Do you?)

Besides Frank, while you cherrypick some of what those producers of society who back the Club For Growth’s efforts purportedly support, do you support school choice as they do? How about legal reform to stop the abuse of lawsuits? (Oh wait, you’re an attorney. Never mind.)

Being conservative is NOT being extreme and I refuse to accept even the premise that it is. Mr. Kratovil, you may be talking a moderate’s game in the campaign, but I saw you when you were running for the Democrat nomination and you had no problem being associated with those radical tax-and-spenders in Annapolis then. You embraced Martin O’Malley until you realized that most of us in the First District are taking it in the shorts with his fiscal incompetence and are the bulk of the reason his approval numbers dipped into the mid-30’s, then you threw him under the bus.

This ought to bring some good responses. Oh, by the way, Final Frontier, congrats on having your Daily Times comment included in the Kratovil newsletter. I really don’t think that Andy Harris will alienate himself from everyone else in Congress, he’ll just be alienated from the ones who have steered our financial Titanic. The common-sense ones will accept him as their own – you can bet on it because I’ve already asked Andy Harris that question.

By the way, I may add some pictures here later so check back tonight. I have a fundraiser to attend. I decided I had enough pictures and text from the fundraiser for a post, so it’ll be my noontime post tomorrow.

Comment soliloquy

I actually started this as a response to comments on my “macaca” post but after writing so much decided it should stand alone as a post and response to “idiot” and “Final Frontier” – two good but misguided folks who put up the fight for the other side. ‘Soliloquy’ is probably an apt word because I suspect I’m beating my head against a wall with these two, but the optimist in me will make the attempt anyway.

I’m going to work backwards, sort of, regarding your two comments.

“If one of the nuts tries to take matters into his own hands, McCain will have some culpability because he is using fear to get votes.”

Well, if we haven’t had anyone take a potshot at GWB despite the movie depicting his assassination, Obama should be all right too.

“A true patriot would ask his supporters to take a step back, calm down, and debate the issues rather than demonize their opponent.”

So why didn’t Barack Obama take up John McCain’s offer of a large number of joint townhall appearances to debate the issues? And where have Obama or other thoughtful Democrats been for the last six years or so? There’s a reason we have a condition only half-kiddingly referred to as “Bush Derangement Syndrome.”

“If youre a student of history, then you would know that the South used to be solidly Democratic until they supported the Civil Rights Act and have not voted consistently Democratic since.”

I seem to recall that it was the Democrats in the South who resisted the civil rights initiatives and tried to stop the Civil Rights Act from being enacted with a filibuster. But I think the evolution toward Republicanism in the South was more religious-based than racially-based. That “Bible Belt” and family values thing.

“Race is in issue and it is stupid to say that it isnt. There are litterally polls out there sayng that about 6% of the populaion is not going to vote for Obama merely bc of his race.”

Only 6 percent? I’d say that’s progress. And I’d love to see an age breakdown on that, because my bet is that most of that 6 percent are 50 and over. Personally, I do look at the stance on issues, content of character, and not the amount of pigmentation when considering a candidate. I supported Michael Steele two years ago and thought way back in 1998 that Ken Blackwell would have been a far better governor in Ohio than Bob Taft would be – but the bigwigs in the Ohio GOP didn’t want a primary fight so they convinced Blackwell to back off. I still say that was a big mistake on their part. On the other hand, I don’t support Barack Obama for many of the same reasons I didn’t vote for Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry – their policies would take America in the wrong direction.

“As someone who has constantly supported the worst president in modern history and his policies, what makes you think that you have any say in the “correct” way to run this country and that your views on Obama’s qualifications hold any merit? You cant be wrong for a good 6 years and then pretend it didnt happen. Deregulation and trickle down economics and barroom-bully diplomacy do not work.”

No, I wasn’t a Carter supporter, I was a little young for that. As for whether my way would be the “correct” way to run the country, I’d like to have it tried sometime. Lord knows that neither of the two main candidates are going to restore power to the people as they should, it’s just that we won’t sprint nearly as rapidly away from that goal under McCain as we would Obama.

“And you mention Freddie and Fannie, but you dont mention that McCain’s advisor is the lobbyist for them. So while Obama was paid for access to discuss their concerns, McCains guy was out there actively pushing for their interests. Which is worse?”

Neither is great but a lobbyist can’t introduce or support legislation. McCain tried to change the system, Obama did not.

“Maybe I am reading too much Andrew Sullivan, but where are all the real conservatives who are man enough to stand up for REAL positions and not just be party hacks…and toe the line? Man up Michael. Admit McCain is no longer a Maverick as he votes with Bush 90% of the time (and you apparently vehemently disagree with Bush) and admit that Palin is way over her head and a political and shortsighted choice meant to cater to the lowest common denominator of the party, if not society.”

I happen to think I do stand up for real positions. Go read the posts under “50 year plan” starting from the earliest and see whether GWB has followed my advice, or if either McCain or Obama would. You can also go into my archives (search for “Who should I support?”) and see how much I disagree with McCain’s positions too.

But in essence I have two choices in this race, and I don’t see Obama as an effective President. On the other hand, I think Sarah Palin would be a fine President in 2012 assuming John McCain only decides to serve for one term. Palin/Jindal could be a great ticket!

I know you two didn’t bring this up, but I have a question for you both and anyone else who reads this. When is government allowed to say “no”?

Once upon a time, in what seems like a lifetime ago, I was married and raising a 6 year old daughter – this was back in 1990. My wife and I both worked and we wanted to pursue the American Dream of home ownership. However, we were a young couple and young couples sometimes make financial mistakes and impatiently want everything in life right away – in other words, our credit wasn’t great. We went out looking for a house, though, and found one we liked listed at $26,000. (This was an older home in a neighborhood sort of between working- and middle-class but in a pretty decent school district.)

But when we went to the bank to get a mortgage, they looked at our credit history and politely told us “no.” However, they also told us why we were denied and made some suggestions on how to straighten things out. Indeed, we worked on those things for about a year and happily the next summer we finally bought our first house. And even though I was laid off from my job literally the DAY we got the keys to the place, we managed not to fall behind on the mortgage enough to lose the house because we had put our financial priorities in order beforehand. It was a rough summer and fall, but we pulled through it.

In this era, though, maybe we’d have gotten that first mortgage and continued on our destructive high-spending path of living beyond our means. And what lessons would that have taught us?

In this life, sometimes we have to hear “no”. We may whine that it’s unfair to be denied something we believe we’ve earned simply because we live in America, but the idea behind our system is only that equality of opportunity be granted. Equality of outcome simply isn’t possible in this or any other system; at best misery is also shared equally, at worst we have an Orwellian outcome where some are more equal than others.

Those who thought it would be a splendid idea to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to backstop mortgages in the cases where otherwise prudent lenders would politely say “no” to borrowers placed the bottom supports on the financial house of cards we’re now seeing collapse around us. I’m sure that Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Barack Obama, et. al. had the best of intentions but they also didn’t stop to think about what not saying “no” when it needs to be said could lead to. All of the talk about CEO salaries and “Wall Street greed” only distracts from the real issue of whether government should have been in that business in the first place. Personally, I think it was a mistake but given recent events we’re going to be stuck with a government presence in the mortgage market for the foreseeable future. Like many other government entitlements, Americans don’t yet have the stomach to make the changes I feel would be necessary.

The Rolling Stones once sang, “You can’t always get what you want” and that’s one thing we all have in common from the earliest days of infancy. But in the next line they sing, “But if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need.” My wife and I didn’t get our mortgage the first time we applied, but what we did get was the good advice that set us on the proper path.

It’s not government’s job to cater to our every desire. All I ask is that they allow me and everyone else to succeed as far as our ability takes us – not by handouts but by stepping back and letting us fail every once in awhile until we find the proper path. It’s a hard lesson that they need to learn themselves.

Does Delaware know Jack?

Not according to a radio ad that I’ve heard on occasion here in Salisbury. Being close by Delaware and with Salisbury being the main media market for the southern end of the state, we do get a lot of spillover from the First State campaigns. (I’m not aware of a companion TV ad; then again I don’t watch the local news channels when many political commercials are aired.) In this case, GOP candidate for Governor Bill Lee questions whether Jack Markell’s business experience that he touts is all that valuable since he ran the ship at what would become the ill-fated Nextel – key among the accusations is that Markell used inside knowledge to dump nearly $2 million in stock. (The site likes to call him “Wall Street Jack”, and given the tanking of the market at-large that might be an effective tactic.)

Obviously the site is a smear site, but it does call into question the costs Delaware taxpayers will shoulder if Markell is elected. (Some of this I went over about a month ago when Delaware held its primary election.) In essence, Markell had two selling points – his terms as State Treasurer and his business experience. It was enough to get him through the primary against the favored candidate of the Democrat establishment (Lieutenant Governor John Carney) but in part this was because Carney didn’t make an issue of Markell’s time in the private sector during the 1990’s.

Still, Bill Lee has an uphill battle in Delaware because, like Maryland, state politics is dictated by a small geographical area with a large population (in their case, New Castle County which is mostly Wilmington and its suburbs.) And while Lee has solidly conservative credentials on the issues, he’s running in a state where Democrats have the advantage in both numbers and money.

(Once in awhile we on the Eastern Shore think out loud about what politics would be like in a greater Delaware that includes our part of Maryland. Maybe we’d be the red state of the region because Wilmington would finally be outvoted.)

Unlike some Republicans higher up the ticket, though, it’s good to know that Bill Lee and his Delaware cohorts are bringing up relevant character issues in the race. While I call it a “smear” website, there is legitimacy in questioning the selling point of your opponent. (Here on the Shore, Andy Harris similarly questions the “independence” of his Democrat opponent knowing that nearly $2 million has come from Democrats inside the Beltway. This is a similar tactic.)

So, my friends in Delaware, I haven’t forgotten you. I’m hoping that the more middle-of-the-road types won’t fall for Jack Markell’s pie-in-the-sky promises and decide to elect someone with a more conservative approach given these times we’re in.

Crossposted on That’s Elbert With An E, to reach more of my Delaware friends.

ACORN – nuts about voter fraud

I tried to be cute in the title but this group seems to continually run afoul of elections law in state after state. And it’s made a name for itself enough that I’m getting plenty of interesting items in my e-mail I thought were worth sharing.

Let me introduce you to a organization called Americans for Limited Government. They’re on the case with a nice summary of ACORN’s illegal voter registration activities throughout the country, which even briefly goes into their history. Bill Wilson, ALG head, also states:

“This appears to be a concerted, coordinated effort to elect Senator Barack Obama to be president by whatever means necessary. If law enforcement officials do not act quickly, the entire legitimacy of the 2008 election will be undermined.”

“Paul Ogden recently tabulated that over 30,000 more people than were eligible to register in Marion County/Indianapolis were somehow registered to vote. This is just a single example, but there’s something very fishy going on, and it’s got ACORN written all over it.”

Naturally, Indiana is considered a state in play so ACORN focused on that area. It’s interesting to note that they only want more voter registration in states they consider questionable for Barack Obama, so I doubt ACORN has been in Maryland much.

What’s really fishy is another item I received in my e-mail about a group called StopACORN.org. It was a solicitation to sign a petition and learn more about the group – oddly enough, I get an error message (Sorry. We can’t find “stopacorn.org”. There was a problem loading your page. Try retyping the URL in the browser address bar above or, visiting a related link below) regardless of whether I try to go directly there or through a sister site called NetRightNation. Could it be there’s some hacking going on? Wouldn’t surprise me.

(Strangely enough, the related websites all push mortgages. Can you say ‘Bailout 2.0″?)

So perhaps I’ll send off an e-mail to the person who let me know about the effort and see if he’s aware of it; meanwhile I’ll back up my site – just in case.

And before all you folks on the left side of the blogosphere get your panties in a wad, be advised that I’m all for registering new people to vote and I keep a couple new registration forms around in case I run into someone who mentions it. What I don’t like is groups like ACORN who are abusing the system for their own ends. Every voter who’s eligible should be registered, but when someone sends in 100 phony registrations it’s possible they’re cancelling your legal vote out. It’s also why I support efforts for photo ID at the polls and say NO to early (and often) voting – we have a perfectly fine absentee ballot system in place; in fact I just got through talking to a friend who sent hers in today, 26 days before Election Day. So the system works as it is, there’s no need to introduce the possibility of mischief and fraud into it.

A more spirited debate

I wish I’d been at this debate, too. At almost 1,000 words, perhaps Danny Reiter of PolitickerMD took some pointers from the monoblogue school of debate coverage. More importantly, it was a point/counterpoint exchange that accentuated the differences between the two.

Perhaps the most interesting passage was one that Kratovil made, referring to bipartisanship. Reiter notes:

“I’ve had appointments from both sides of the aisle unlike you,” said Kratovil, who claimed Harris only takes positions with a finger in the wind. “What people wanna do is say what people want to hear. That’s what my opponent consistently does.”

That might be something the DCCC would like to hear, considering their commercial dumps on Harris for being “lonely.” Doesn’t sound like “finger in the wind” to me! Maybe Frank is trying to show his “independence” by not being on the same page here? There’s a little bit of slack in that leash I suppose but it’s not going to get too far.

While I’m at it, did that $800 billion-plus bailout solve our problems or not? When Frank was at Salisbury University Monday, the answer was yes. From Sharahn Boykin’s article in the Daily Times:

Even though Kratovil opposed the initial bailout plan, he said he was happy to see Republicans and Democrats come together on the issue.

“We solved the crisis, but we don’t always do something to solve the issue,” he said.

Notice the article said, “initial bailout plan.” Was it the extra pork slathered on that changed Frank’s mind? We don’t know. Naturally, Andy Harris responded to the lack of clarity too:

“Kratovil is dead wrong. The crisis is far from solved, and the Wall Street bailout was the wrong approach” said Andy Harris. “I will go to Washington to solve the economic issues facing our nation, because there is a lot more that needs to be done.”

Added Harris campaign manager Chris Meekins:

“If you ask the mom who has to pay over $50 to fill up her minivan to take her kids to soccer practice; she won’t say the crisis is solved. If you ask a factory worker who is getting laid off at the end of the month; he won’t say the crisis is solved. If you ask a recent college graduate who is struggling to find his first job; he won’t say the crisis is solved. If you ask a retiree whose pension is shrinking daily, she won’t say it is solved. Kratovil’s statement shows he is not ready to go to Washington.”

Actually, Frank Kratovil is ready to go to Washington – whenever a special interest group or DCCC head Congressman Chris Van Hollen has a fundraiser for him, I’m sure he’ll be there.

In fairness, here’s the actual reason Kratovil showed up at SU: to talk about federal financial aid programs.

“A college education is more important now than it has ever been, if we want to compete globally we need to get rid of the barriers, make loans accessible, and lower the cost of higher education so everyone who has the desire to learn has the opportunity,” said Kratovil. “Access to safe and secure education loans should not be jeopardized by the current economic woes; education is the ultimate investment in the future and it should be treated as such.”

As disclosure, about half of my college education funding came from a loan from a local bank guaranteed by the federal government. The biggest issue I have with Frank’s stance though is a question: what barriers do we have now? Granted, I haven’t been in the education loan business for about 23 years but what are you saying? Are you trying to put even more young people in hock? Wasn’t the first loan problem faced by the federal government students not being able to pay back their loans? With a refinance I made, it took me fifteen years to pay off my student loans and the total amount I owed might pay for a semester now. I can only imagine the hardship placed on young people starting out because college is so expensive.

But perhaps college is expensive because the administrators and beancounters have figured out how to get their own hands into the federal pot, and those funds aren’t always going into the educational side. Much like public schools, administration seems to take a bigger bite of the campus budget.

The federal government also places strings on the money they give to colleges, particularly in who they choose to admit. With some exceptions (Hillsdale College in Michigan is one which comes to mind) schools gladly accept the federal largesse and tend to promote the experience rather than the education.

If you’ll pardon a brief digression, perhaps it’s time to rethink the value of a college education in our society. At the very least, it’s time to demand that they return to those educational values that carried our students for almost two centuries in America.

Returning to topic for one more point, it’s obvious Frank (and Senator Mikulski, who graced our side of the bay with her presence – maybe she reads here too?) was playing to the crowd at SU – remember his words? “What people wanna do is say what people want to hear.” Sounds like politics-as-usual to me.