Day: May 23, 2010

Two planks to question

On Wednesday I announced that Joe Ollinger had entered the race for Wicomico County Executive, with a followup post on Thursday regarding his platform. It’s a platform which dealt extensively with the subjects of fiscal responsibility and education and included two interesting planks:

  • Empower the County Executive to appoint the county’s school board, which is one of the few remaining with members appointed by the governor. Most Maryland counties have adopted an elected school board.
  • Create one county-wide law enforcement agency, consolidating the efforts of the existing Sheriff’s Department with existing municipal police forces in Salisbury, Fruitland, and Delmar.

As you may or may not know, the Wicomico County Republican Party (the one Ollinger is supposedly a part of) has made its case for electing (as opposed to appointing) the Wicomico County board of education; a case similar to one I made back in March.

Yet Ollinger is trying to shift a system which depends on input from a Governor’s office generally at odds with the people of Wicomico County and artificially rigged to reflect a majority of the party holding that office to one which would perhaps better reflect the will of the people based on who they elected County Executive but still not directly accountable to the electorate – sort of a half-step solution which combines the worst of both worlds. Perhaps it’s a plank which Joe can be made to reconsider if and when he’s elected because, while he may hold conservative educational values, it would certainly make the teachers’ union more of a player than it already is for the County Executive race – they would have a direct stake in the outcome.

As a Republican Party we believe an elected school board is the way to go and, unlike a GOP Congress which was forced to carry water for some of President Bush’s ill-considered ideas, neither our central commitee nor Republicans on County Council (or outside conservative groups like AFP) may sit quietly and allow Ollinger to proceed with his scheme.

Similarly, the fiefdoms which are the various local municipal police departments may not be willing to have themselves absorbed into the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Department. While these departments work together on a regular basis, the logistics of such a change need to be studied carefully and most likely placed on a timetable beyond the term of the County Executive – I think such a process if undertaken would take at least five years to adopt from initial planning to final outcome. There’s also the risk of alienating bargaining units like the Fraternal Order of Police and assuredly the Maryland State Police may have to have some say as well.

In truth, we may find that the assumed efficiencies in combining departments are outweighed by unforseeable costs or a lack of coverage of rural areas as municipalities would be especially cognizant of reduced patrols and complain if the crime rate increases.

I know that there are already shared resources between local law enforcement agencies, and perhaps Joe will elaborate further on the subject as the election draws near. But it’s a plank certain to draw as much attention as his educational ideas, which can be taken at face value for what they are worth. There’s little doubt who the educational lobby in this county will support so Joe needs to take his case above them and to the people.

A slow reclamation

In the wake of the emotional Obamacare debate, the President’s approval ratings sank much closer to those endured by the outgoing President Bush than the stratospheric heights polled as the era of Barack began. Looking at Rasmussen’s tracking poll, Obama reached a low of 43% approval during the weekend of the final House debate over the Senate-sponsored health care measure, and the approval index (defined by Rasmussen as the percentage strongly approving minus the percentage strongly disapproving) reached a low of -21.

Since those low points, though, the emotion of the debate over health care has subsided and Obama’s approval ratings have began their own slow recovery – back to 48% approval last week and a much healthier approval index of -10. It’s an encouraging trend for a party which just last month was left for dead in November, and perhaps shows that Republicans need to curb their enthusiasm about derailing the Obama agenda next year.

Yet one has to ask just what is different about the public’s mood now. Certainly there’s still a Tea Party element out there flexing its muscle, but Obama has adroitly focused his efforts on the one area he can be seen as populist in advocating Wall Street reform. While there’s a lot of people who dislike big government, even more have a beef with the perceived fat cats who navigate the murky waters of derivatives and other difficult-to-explain financial instruments while making handsome profits for themselves and sticking taxpayers with their losses.

Then again, it’s not easy to figure out what Congress wants to do with Wall Street either. In that respect President Obama seems to be leading in the same manner as he did with health care, standing aside while Congress debates the finer points and waiting anxiously with pen in hand for the final legislation to pass. Unlike health care, though, President Obama may be waiting in vain because of the Republicans’ newfound ability to filibuster legislation – Democrats no longer have the convenient workaround they enjoyed in goosing the system and rules to pass Obamacare.

On the other hand there are still a number of boobytraps remaining before Obama and the Democrats can survive the upcoming election with their majorities intact.

Immigration is the hotbutton issue du jour, placed there once Arizona passed a get-tough measure on illegal immigrants (which ironically is simply a rewrite of federal law at a state level.) While the President has wanted to see reform with federal law, there’s a number of Democrats who are quite squeamish about touching anything which remotely resembles amnesty. They’re mindful of the reaction back home, and for good reason.

The same goes for cap-and-trade legislation, which is a nonstarter despite the continuing Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf. President Obama wasn’t able to take advantage of the situation by showing leadership; instead he’s being chastised by some in the press for his slow reaction to the crisis.

It could be, however, that the biggest difference between the more popular Obama of late and the Obama trying to get health care reform passed is that the President doesn’t seem to be the constant presence he was during that debate. With a number of other world crises taking place, such as the financial meltdown of Greece, the news isn’t quite as focused on the President and lack of familiarity stops breeding contempt.

There’s no doubt Americans aren’t necessarily buying what President Obama is selling, but the pitchman has retreated off the stage enough to keep his record out of the limelight and regain a little of his lost popularity in the process.

Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer. This article cleared the LFS wire on May 13, which after their usual hold meant I didn’t get to post it last week.