It’s now or never, Maryland

That was the message put forth today by a number of speakers at the Salisbury stop of the “Now or Never Maryland” bus tour.

Well, I use the term ‘bus’ loosely. This looked more like an extended straight truck.

The person posing with the bus is former Senate candidate Jim Rutledge. In part he was responsible for bringing this crowd, but more on him later.

A total of eight speakers orated at the hour-long event, with AFP Maryland head Dave Schwartz acting as master of ceremonies. In his opening remarks, he reminded us that AFP has 26,000 members in Maryland among 17 chapters and stated his reason for doing this as “I want to protect the American Dream.”

Dave rattled off a laundry list of offenses by government, saying that the federal government overreached on doing the stimulus bill and bailing out Wall Street while the state government enacted the largest tax increase and worst deficits in our state’s history, not to mention creating a poor business climate.

As AFP supporters we needed to get involved – two suggestions Schwartz had were to enlist in the group’s “Freedom Phone” project or to walk your neighborhoods with door hangers (provided by AFP) and engage neighbors in political discussion.

Tim Phillips is the head of the national AFP, and here’s what he had to say.

And you thought I skipped Friday Night Videos? Nope, I just cleverly made them the story!

Local AFP head Joe Collins also said his piece, telling us that as a budding activist “I chose AFP for the voters” and that this election was time to “rebalance the scales.”

I stole Andrew Langer’s joke as he came up since there wasn’t a chicken suit in sight. (Maybe they went to the wrong location – I was a bit confused at first too.) He recalled the town hall meeting where Frank Kratovil gave his reasoning for voting for cap-and-trade as keeping the EPA from regulating it. When it was pointed out that Frank was a Congressman and could pass a law, Langer quoted him as asking, “I can do that?”

The head of the Institute for Liberty warned us to be vigilant of what the executive branch will try to do over the next two years as they face the prospect of an unfriendly Congress.

Also speaking to an AFP rally here for the second time in a month was WGMD-FM host Duke Brooks, who remarked that his liberal callers claimed they didn’t hate this country, but…there was always a “but.” They “think the country is flawed.”

It was only up to the government to provide equality of opportunity, continued Brooks, but not equality of outcome. He quoted Tony Blair’s line that the measure of a nation is how many want to get in vs. how many want to leave, and part of the reason for our success was that we had no elite ruling class.

Of the three candidates for the First District Congressional seat who were invited to speak, it’s not surprising only one showed. This is what Andy Harris had to say.

But the person I wanted to hear from came next. I actually recorded this because his biggest fan (Kim) wasn’t there to enjoy it, but it turned out so good I decided to share. Here’s Jim Rutledge.

And you wonder why there’s a push by some to write him in for the Attorney General slot thoughtlessly left unfilled by the Maryland GOP. He’s got my vote.

One elected official who spoke was Joey Gardner, who was elected earlier this year as one of Princess Anne’s Town Commissioners.

His message was simple – when he saw a need “I got involved.” We shouldn’t put any limitations on our involvement when it comes to helping the community.

While Gardner was the last speaker he wasn’t the only candidate for office people could get face time with. The entire statewide ticket of Maryland’s Constitution Party was there.

Gubernatorial candidate Eric Knowles is in the dark suit, with his running mate Michael Hargadon giving me the thumbs up next to him and U.S. Senate candidate Richard Shawver in the blue coat on the right.

Also looking on was Republican District 38A hopeful Charles Otto.

The Libertarian candidate for District 2 County Council was there as well. If you don’t know who he is, read the sign.

So it was at least a tri-partisan event, with a touch of good old-fashioned capitalism thrown in.

Something tells me this rig was at all the stops, but it didn’t look like he did a lot of business.

Believe it or not, there is yet another bus rally scheduled that I found out about last night. The RNC’s Fire Pelosi Bus Tour will stop at the Salisbury Victory Center (the old Hollywood Video at 1016 South Salisbury Boulevard) at 9:30 a.m. next Friday – featured speaker is some guy who used to be our Lieutenant Governor, Michael Steele. To RSVP, contact Patrick at (443) 736-8042 or via phefflinger (at) mdgop.org.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

3 thoughts on “It’s now or never, Maryland”

  1. Salient points from Collins speech:

    I spoke of currency policy earlier, and like it or not, currency is the grease that oils the linkage in the political machinery of today. We have to look no farther than the incredible volume of money that George Soros has put into our political system

    almost 35 million dollars into various 527 groups at last count.

    …You think those are progressive or conservative groups?

    We are still out gunned and underfunded. A foreign entity is at the gate and the only thing that is preventing the hordes from destroying this Republic are the American producers from Atlas shrugged.

    getting rid of money in politics is the long term solution, but how you do that in the short term?

    That is as elusive as nuclear disarmament, or said another way

    Who will remove money from politics first? Who will disarm first?

    Some…perhaps many…….will say that it will never happen, that it’s a fools errand to try, but if it is possible, I pray those we begin to elect today will know when the time is right to lay down those arms….and not only reign in the spending of our government, but reach a sort of political financial détente, with the scales acting to control an arms race that the American people will not win.

  2. Andy Harris the fear monger. He obviously has no idea what he would do if elected. The only thing we have to fear is fear (and Andy Harris). He will say anything to get elected. Remember when he tried to pass off the Wayne Gilchrest commercial as one against Kratovil. Remember when he lied about serving in the Gulf.

  3. I think Andy has a clear idea of what do do when elected – follow a conservative agenda well in line with the district we live in. We won’t have to fret over whether he’ll vote for things like Obamacare or cap-and-trade because we’ll know he’s a solid ‘no’ – neither are in our best interest. I don’t think there’s the 30 pieces of silver aspect with Harris like there was with ‘flip-flop’ Frank.

    You Kratovil supporters need to face the reality that what got him elected was the Obama wave, and that’s not around here this time. Kartovil=Pelosi=Obama.

Comments are closed.