WCRC meeting – April 2010

After some of the craziness of March’s meeting, things returned to a fairly normal pace and routine this month.

We did the Lord’s Prayer and Pledge of Allegiance, then the minutes of both February and March were read. Following that, it was revealed that our efforts at the Salisbury Festival only netted a meager profit thanks to the “small crowd,” with the lack of steamed corn on the cob also making an impact.

A series of reports followed, beginning with the Lower Shore Young Republicans presented by Dustin Mills. Several of their members braved the poor weather to help at the Salisbury Festival and they were putting the “final touches” on the state convention, where they expected somewhere between 125 and 150 to attend.

The LSYR food drive will occur May 8th at three of the four Salisbury area Food Lion stores – confirmed are the Nanticoke Road and Snow Hill Road locations, with the other being either Tilghman Road or Fruitland.

Dustin and I split the Central Committee report; he remarked on the upcoming GOP Spring Convention in Ocean City and I on the success of the Lincoln Day Dinner with Bob Ehrlich.

We then had a number of campaign updates.

Ed Nelson commented on the Salisbury stop on Andy’s bus tour on Friday. While 30 people showed up on an early Friday morning, Nelson said the candidate was “satisfied” with the press coverage as his campaign is “gelling together.”

Dustin Mills (again) referenced the Michael James campaign for State Senate, telling us Michael was “extremely active” compared to his 2006 effort and lauding the “positive reception” Michael received at the Salisbury Festival.

Don Coffin spoke up and announced he was holding a fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rutledge on Saturday, May 22 at his farm. A recent fundraiser for Rutledge in Salisbury raised about $3,000 so there’s support here on the Eastern Shore for the candidate.

Bonnie Luna spoke on behalf of Bob Ehrlich’s campaign, recounting his kick off tour which stopped in Parsonsburg and Ocean City.

Bob McCarroll also gave us an update on his bid for office.

In other news, Dustin Mills pointed out some of the numbers behind the recent Rasmussen Poll on Maryland’s race for governor. We know that Ehrlich trails O’Malley 44-47 in his race, but Maryland is a state which gives President Obama more support than the average state and is more supportive of Obamacare. Yet Martin O’Malley has a 22 strongly approve/29 strongly disapprove, or a factor of (-7) compared to a national average for President Obama running in the negative teens. But tellingly, about half of Free Staters have a “throw the bums out” mentality when it comes to their own delegate.

We also learned that the AFP meeting Wednesday may have Delegate candidate Mike McDermott as a speaker but Michael James had to drop out – he’ll have a surrogate for the meeting.

The bulk of the meeting’s discussion centered on the club’s financial plan for the upcoming election, which eventually passed without objection. Once we finalize the slate of candidates come September the WCRC can be a huge help to local Republican candidates.

Our next meeting is May 24 and still on the docket despite her change in office sought is Carmen Amedori.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.