Month: November 2010

WCRC meeting – November 2010

For a meeting which didn’t feature a speaker, we heard an earful from one person.

But as usual, we began with the Lord’s Prayer and Pledge of Allegiance. Then we departed from tradition a little bit because there were several candidates present who wanted to say their thanks, just in time for Thanksgiving. (We didn’t get to the Treasurer’s report until about midway through the meeting and the minutes from the October meeting were inadvertantly left at home by our secretary.)

We began with newly-elected Councilman at-large Bob Culver, who thanked us for the financial and moral support and told us the new Council members had their orientation today in preparation for their swearing in the evening of December 7th. They’ll elect new officers that night and chances are we’ll have a new Council vice-president.

“I’m pretty confident this will stand.” Bob Caldwell was talking about his razor-thin two vote margin of victory. He figured David MacLeod would request the recount he’s entitled to due to the closeness of the race but it’s not likely to change the results. Bob’s a living reminder that every vote does count – if just one person had changed their mind and voted for MacLeod, we’d be awaiting a coin flip.

Charles Otto said the support the club gave “was a blessing to us” and thanked us for it. He pointed out that the budget took a turn for the worse (conveniently after the election, of course) and told us these were the “most challenging times I’ve seen in my lifetime.” But tax increases were not the answer.

Even though she didn’t win, Marty Pusey had some of the most interesting remarks.

She told us that she didn’t decide to run until a townhall meeting held by the Worcester County Americans for Prosperity and featuring Delegates Jim Mathias and Norm Conway. Marty recalled how she asked herself, especially about Conway, “is this the best we can do?” She decided running would be a “win-win” – either she would win or she’d at least make Norm Conway fight for the seat. (Perhaps she was successful since Conway didn’t have enough coattails to pull Gee Williams in.) Marty was also amazed how our message became their message at election time, as suddenly liberal-voting Democrats had a conservative message.

(And you wonder why I told her I’m starting the ‘Draft Pusey for 2014’ movement.)

Marc Kilmer chimed back in that “2010 was a lot better than 2006,” considering our record of local successes. Then he turned the floor over to newly elected WCRCC Chair Dave Parker for the Central Committee report.

First of all, those of us present received our certificates for being elected. (Unfortunately, they are signed by Martin O’Malley.)

But he may have surprised a few people by saying, “I view my job as training a younger leader (for the local party).” And if that wasn’t enough, Dave then told us, “You now have two TEA Party activists on the top of your Central Committee.”

Wait until Audrey Scott, Mary Kane, and the other establishment Republicans read that; in fact, let me repeat it:

“You now have two TEA Party activists on the top of your Central Committee.”

Dave continued by saying the TEA Party and the GOP are “working hand-in-hand” in Wicomico County. Ain’t that a beautiful thing?

The job for the rest of us was pretty simple: “we gotta educate the voters” and “hold people to the fire.”

Parker also shared his “concern” about the Victory Centers, where local candidates and supporters were disappointed to find that their intent seemed to be pushing Bob Ehrlich and Andy Harris moreso than getting local hopefuls elected. He also recounted the Rule 11 controversy for those not in the know.

Turning to the state party, Dave argued “the Chair (of the state party) has to be a fundraiser.” Unfortunately to that end, “we still can be totally ignored in Annapolis.”

Yet, with our local success of getting 6 of the 7 County Council seats (thus, holding veto power over anything Rick Pollitt does) the onus is on the GOP to do things right – if things are screwed up, “it’s our fault.”

Finally, Dave reminded us that the Lincoln Day Dinner is actually slated for Abe’s birthday, February 12, 2011 at Salisbury University.

Yes, it was a much longer Central Committee report than usual, but there was a lot to say. It more than made up for the lack of a Lower Shore Young Republican report or the many candidate campaign reports we heard in months past.

To close the affair, Marc reminded us about our Christmas Party on December 12th and Ann Suthowski brought up the Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Meeting upcoming on December 16th.

As usual, the WCRC won’t have a regular December meeting; their next gathering will be January 24, 2o11.

A slow evolution

With this week being the runup to Thanksgiving, don’t look for a whole lot of news on the MDGOP Chair front. To me, it seems like most people who wanted to get in and make a serious effort are already making the rounds and the splash they need to enter the race.

As you can see on the sidebar, we have somewhere around a half-dozen people who want to be Chair. But now they get the hard part of convincing a majority of the nearly 300 members of the respective Central Committees that their vision for the MDGOP is the correct one.

And it’s not just me asking (although I may be the only one who gets a vote.) You know my wish list but Richard Faulknor at Blue Ridge Forum has his own thoughts, as does Ann Corcoran at Potomac TEA Party Report. Matt Newman at Old Line Elephant interviewed Sam Hale, who is portraying himself as the TEA Party candidate, for a RedState piece.

But all these outsiders will have to crack the inner circle of the party to gain influence – while there’s a lot of new influence in the Central Committee, we still have the larger part of the group that allowed their problems to take root and grow. The ‘establishment’ will still be in force and may be another obstacle to overcome.

Blogservations

To begin with, you may have noticed the survey I had on the sidebar. I wanted to have something of local interest to test a hypothesis I had…of course, then I latched onto a statewide story and didn’t let it go. So I actually ended up with fewer Salisbury readers than I had when I started (as a percentage, anyway.) So much for my theory!

Strangely enough, the survey was about two other local bloggers who focus on local issues and would presumably have a predominantly local readership. Well, I don’t know about their percentage of local readership but I know mine is pretty good – the plurality of my readers come from Salisbury, but they indeed come from all over Maryland. By the way, I was right in the fact that most people don’t like those two bloggers (if they even know who they are.) They’ve been known to be a touch on the vicious side and it rubs people the wrong way.

But I’ve noticed of late that the Delmarva Dealings site is no longer online. G.A. has taken a hiatus before but I don’t think his site actually went offline; I think he just didn’t post. So I don’t know if he’s just taking time off or washing his hands of the situation entirely. Maybe those two rub him the wrong way too.

Anyway, he does have a political perspective that’s being missed so hopefully he’ll be back soon.

Friday night videos – episode 52

Well, this should be fun. I don’t mind collective bargaining, but now Big Labor is big business. So how do they spend their money? Certainly not on dividends.

Can you say right-to-work? Sure you can.

It’s not big business, but small business that bears the brunt of estate taxes. And they’re back with a vengeance in 2011, as this video from ALG shows.

Obama’s ‘Midterm State of Denial’ is the title of this week’s ‘Freedom Minute.’They always run a little over a minute, don’t they? But that’s okay, I don’t mind.

My friend Jane Van Ryan of API gets the hat tip for this video.

Isn’t government overreach fun? The only good job seems to be a government job.

It was sort of a slow week for videos, but I decided to do this version of FNV because I didn’t want to wait another week or two to spring this on you again. I dig this version of the song.

I’m not going to have a FNV next week (come on, it’s Thanksgiving weekend – you’ll be lucky to get a daily post) so look for the next edition in 2 weeks!

In print: Large field lining up for state GOP chair

I love it when they get the name AND the website right:

“For a party that everybody thought was kind of dead on Election Day, there’s a lot of people that sure want to lead it,” said Michael Swartz, a member of the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee who operates Monoblogue, a conservative political blog.

This is one of the lead paragraphs in a story by writer Alan Brody in the Gazette this morning. I spoke with Alan yesterday afternoon as he apparently was putting the piece to bed.

It is sort of amazing that, when you speak for almost 23 minutes (according to the timer on my cel phone), you only get a couple good quotes out of the deal. Having done a little bit of journalism myself, that aspect of the business still makes me shake my head. And certainly that’s no criticism of Alan, who I think did a nice job of selecting my money quotes; it’s just my observation on the process.

I was impressed with what young Sam Hale said on the subject of Mary Kane, which unknowingly served to bolster my point that Kane is the favorite – well, it’s hers to lose anyway.

But one point I made in my conversation with Alan is that each candidate will likely have a bloc of voters they believe they can count on – Kane is probably working from the base of Montgomery County and their 48 allotted votes, a number which dwarfs other county delegations but is just a fraction of the nearly 300 who will be voting on December 11.

This also allows me to work in a tidbit I learned from Audrey Scott’s “Message from the Chair” yesterday:

We have 131 new (county Central Committee) members and 139 returning members for a nice balance of old and new. This represents a 48% turnover, which is roughly half and an ideal situation for continuity and fresh ideas.

The number is only elected members; some counties have a few vacancies which still aren’t filled. At ‘full strength’ the number is about 290 members. Also unknown is how many ‘new’ members are returning after a hiatus; for example our Central Committee has a ‘new’ member who was previously in office during the 1990’s. My best guess is that around 100 of the newbies have those ‘fresh ideas’ Scott speaks of. Now THAT is a formidable voting bloc!

Personally, I think by the time all is said and done we will have between two and four candidates to choose from. Some of the nearly one dozen names we’re dropping right now won’t have the support they think they have once December arrives while others will say “thanks, but no thanks” in the next week or two as the Gazette story recounts Larry Hogan did. But it likely won’t be a walkover like we had with Audrey Scott being elected midstream a year ago; this one may be more like the RNC election of Michael Steele with multiple candidates and ballots.

All I know is that we’re going to have a spirited convention, which belies the perception of a party that was “kind of dead on Election Day.”

A scam raising your bills

It’s been about two years since Maryland utilities were forced to participate in the scam better known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It’s a scheme which has transferred over $139 million away from the utilities and, to some extent, into state coffers for redistribution to low-income Marylanders.

But, as an investigation by Mark Langerkvist at the New Jersey Watchdog website reveals, while progress has been made toward the stated goal of reducing carbon emissions the auction and carbon market has had little to do with it! Instead, their internal probe revealed that the carbon cap is much higher than actual usage; thus, it’s projected that the per-ton price will be far less than thought and has already plummeted to half its 2009 peak.

So why is the carbon market in a tizzy? For one thing, utilities have been relying more and more on natural gas to generate electricity. Not only did the price for natural gas become much more favorable, but natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel than coal as well – thus, lower emissions. Moreover, general demand for electricity has dropped 7% since the calculations were made. The market demanded more efficiency and businesses made do with less as a cost-saving measure.

All this seems to come as a shock to everyone except those of us with common sense. Yet I don’t see the state of Maryland saying to the utilities and other carbon allowance purchasers, “oops, sorry, you’re reaching these (artifically based) goals without our help so here’s your $139,117,061.91 back.” Instead they’re saying, “suckers!”

And since the Democrats were handily re-elected earlier this month, even that realization won’t end the open season on utilities and their ratepayers. They’ll still insist that we as a state would be better off depending on more expensive (and less reliable) ‘alternative’ sources like wind and solar power – both great ideas except the sun only shines an average of 12 hours a day (when it’s not obscured by clouds) and those days you really want to crank up the air conditioning in the summer tend to be those days where the wind’s not blowing!

(Nor need I mention that the infrastructure to move that juice around isn’t exactly handy, and we’re already staring at an issue with that over the next few years on land, not to mention underwater.)

There has been talk in the past (particularly from New Jersey) about dropping out of RGGI, and Chris Christie would likely be the only governor of the ten involved with the cajones to do so – assuming such legislation could pass since his state likes the cash just as Maryland does. (Maine and Pennsylvania have both elected Republican governors and legislatures, so they could follow suit.)

In a saner legislature, Maryland would follow suit and withdraw from this group which only seems to be effective at wealth transfer and worsening an already poor business climate. Instead, conservatives have far too few seats in the General Assembly so we know the fate of such a bill before it’s even written.

However, that doesn’t mean Maryland Republicans shouldn’t try to overturn legislation which was based on the faulty premise of so-called ‘global warming’ to begin with and which amounts to a hidden tax on utility ratepayers – even if the committee chairs lock the bill in their desk drawers. (Just get a hearing and committee vote out of it, or better yet make withdrawal a floor amendment the next time there’s an energy-related bill. Putting the Democrats on record is what counts here.)

It’s part of the truly needed reforms the state has to undertake to make it a job-friendly zone, and right now the top three issues are jobs, jobs, and jobs. Perhaps the state won’t ever cash in on the possibility of offshore oil or the natural gas that’s likely sitting below its western panhandle, but it can reverse its most egregious laws and make life a little easier for working families.

Postscript: This American Thinker piece by Jeffrey Folks is well worth the read. It nationalizes what we have done as a state.

Amedori jumps into Chair race

Update 10 a.m.: Another entrant into the race is 2010 Comptroller candidate William Campbell.

Add a Lower Shore name to the Maryland GOP Chair mix, and Mary Kane won’t be the only woman seeking the post.

Carmen Amedori, who served in the House of Delegates from 1999-2004 representing Carroll County and had abortive runs for both U.S. Senator and lieutenant governor in the past year, is now setting her sights on the party’s top post. She joins a growing field of aspirants for the job, many of whom are campaign veterans themselves.

Carmen, who recently relocated to Ocean City, didn’t remain on a political hiatus too long after a whirlwind spring which saw her featured in two statewide races. She won a spot on the Worcester County Central Committee in September and lent her expertise to the campaign of House of Delegates candidate Marty Pusey. Pusey finished third but drew a respectable 25% of the vote in a four-person field.

Yet the former Ehrlich appointee drew fire for a withering criticism of her former boss upon joining the Murphy campaign, only to re-endorse him upon dropping out. In part, she claimed, it was to deflect blame from Brian should Ehrlich lose (as he eventually did) – “if there was going to be a loss to O’Malley, let it be Bob’s loss.” This probably won’t endear her to Bob’s strongest backers.

However, Carmen thinks she can overcome this:

We need to build this party. That means, someone like me who has African American conservative and soft Democrat friends who would go door to door to with me to help convert membership and also someone who will not be percieved by the press as someone who is so far right that we will never see light of day in Maryland. I am a strong conservative. But I do have friends on both sides and many who are attracted to my ability to communicate with everyone.

She joins a rapidly growing field that may include fellow U.S. Senate candidate Eric Wargotz along with Kane and two other less-known hopefuls who have already announced their candidacy, Mike Esteve and Sam Hale.

Is Murphy the man?

Update 2, 8 p.m.: There is a draft movement to get writer and former State Senate candidate Ron Miller to run. I also have it on good authority that another former Delegate and candidate is considering the race as well.

Update: Eric Wargotz is on record in the Washington Post as considering a bid, too.

“We need to change the mindset — the idea that Republicans can’t win here. I’m a physician. I believe there’s a cure and a diagnosis for everything.”

A published report is now saying that Brian Murphy is “hinting” that he wants to be Maryland GOP Chair. Obviously the angle presented by Sun writer Anne Linskey is one of a near-rematch between Brian Murphy and Mary Kane – technically this rematch would be true if Mike Ryman jumped into the race (and for all I know right now observing this race he just might.)

Certainly Murphy would bring a more conservative element to the chairmanship, and those of us who supported him in the gubernatorial election were reminded on November 2nd that those naysayers who said only Bob Ehrlich had a chance against Martin O’Malley were, oh, only about 14 1/2 points shy of being right. Shoot, Brian could have gotten 40 percent of the vote just by being a underfunded placeholder.

The rub for any of these “insurgent” candidates, though, is whether they can keep some of the large donors and rainmakers on board. Of course, business sense does help when it comes to running a party, but there’s no denying that a number of people and entities decided to step up and open their checkbooks the moment Audrey Scott was elected. As I reported at the time:

In the spirit of cooperation, Mike Collins of Anne Arundel County began a parade of people willing to donate to the party. All told, the impromptu effort raised $4,000 for the party coffers, which included donations from two county committees.

In thinking back, though, one could construe that effort as a little bit insulting. The party’s needs didn’t change and hopefully its principles didn’t change either, but suddenly they were worth donating to again. Will Mike Collins and his ilk again snap their wallets shut in a snit if Murphy or another non-establishment candidate (read: anyone besides Mary Kane) wins? That seems like a poor reaction to losing control of a party that, quite frankly, badly underperformed on a state level.

One who will not be running is Jim Rutledge, who announced on his Facebook page he wouldn’t be a candidate. But he had some strong words for those who were:

This is the time for bold leadership, not the time to succumb to the siren’s song of moderation, liberalization, and the club mentality of the Rockefeller republicans who have held sway over too many elements of the party in MD for too long. We in MD are being ruled not represented. Money is king and those that have it threaten to walk if they do not get their way. I say, let them walk, no let them run to their democrat friends. It is time for the ruling class to be deposed. Just look at the MD GOP website today promoting a celebration of Audrey Scott who presided over one of the worst GOP performances in the nation. After losing 2 MD Senate seats, she should have taken the honorable path and resigned immediately.

Time is short, and under pressure, taking the familiar “safe” way will be a great temptation. Take the opportunity now to buck the trends and strike for a new face on the MD GOP. The phone calls and emails having been flying and clamoring for new leadership and a new direction. The enemies of liberty abound, and we are counting on you to strike the ground for freedom now.

I write as a citizen. I am no longer a candidate, and I am not running for the Chair. I have obligations to fulfill that will not permit me to give the job the time it will require.

The “familiar ‘safe’ way” got us drubbed by 14 1/2 points and only netted us 4 seats in the General Assembly. But in areas the state party didn’t touch nearly as much we were much more successful – look at our success here in Wicomico County where we picked up at least one (and possibly two) County Council seats and the State’s Attorney office. (Too bad we couldn’t fill the whole ballot or we may have done even better!) And I’d be willing to wager that those who run as the most conservative alternatives win easily in Salisbury’s upcoming election (which is nonpartisan.)

Maybe it’s time to listen to those who have success?

Blog note: I think I’m going to create a widget for my sidebar on the ins, outs, and maybes. Look for it later today or tomorrow.

MDGOP: the intrigue continues

Well, well, well…yesterday was an interesting day. Pretty soon we won’t be able to tell the players without a scorecard.

With the interest in taking over what I thought was an irrelevant, moribund party who was shellacked in all four statewide races (oops, three since they didn’t even have a candidate for Attorney General) now beginning to peak, the rumor mill of who’s in and who’s out is beginning to grind out a few names we might recognize.

I don’t know for sure who will end up on the ballot come December 11 in Annapolis, but this is how I understood the process as it was when I went to bed last night:

Looks like they’re in:

  • Mike Esteve (Maryland College Republicans/Baltimore TEA Party Coalition)
  • Sam Hale (Maryland Society of Patriots)

Leaning that way:

  • Mary Kane (2010 LG candidate, former Secretary of State and onetime House of Delegates candidate)

Once in, then out, but maybe in again:

  • Andrew Langer (Institute for Liberty and frequent TEA Party speaker)

The good old ‘considering it’ group that’s testing the waters beneath the surface:

  • Alex Mooney (State Senator who was defeated in 2010)
  • Eric Wargotz (U.S. Senate candidate in 2010 and outgoing Queen Anne’s County Commission president)

Thanks, but no thanks:

  • Larry Hogan (former Congressional candidate who may be positioning himself for a 2014 run)

Feel free to add changes, new names, and dropouts to the comment section. I’ll stay on the rumor mill as I work today.

Bonds, beer, and other items of local interest

I don’t use them too often, but I am on the e-mail distribution list for press releases from Wicomico County. Jim Fineran was a busy guy today since I received two, and I thought both deserved a little bit of comment.

The first one I’ll ponder is “County Scores High Marks From Wall Street’s Annual Evaluation.” One bragging point generally made by County Executive Rick Pollitt is that the bond firms love our county because they believe it’s run on sound financial footing. Of course, it’s a good thing they believe this because otherwise we’d be paying interest out the wazoo once the bill for county capital projects comes due.

And Pollitt states this again here, with a little slap at Joe Ollinger in the process.

During the recent campaign, my challenger stated that the county’s strong fiscal grades from Wall Street were a result of the Revenue Cap. However, the agencies have made it clear that our success has actually come in spite of the Revenue Cap. The following is from Moody’s Report:

RECENTLY HEALTHY FINANCIAL OPERATIONS MAY BE CONSTRAINED BY TAX REVENUE LIMITATIONS

Wicomico County has maintained a healthy financial position during recent years despite the impact of property tax revenue constraints, supported by proactive management and conservative fiscal policies and practices. (Emphasis in original.)

Yes, the election is over and Rick is back to his complaining about the revenue cap. Tell Moody’s that they don’t get a vote on changing this and it’s doubtful the five or six GOP members of County Council (depending on the election’s final outcome) are going to see it any other way. Certainly one tug-of-war likely to result next year as the budget is discussed will be whether to make up for the shortage that Pollitt voluntarily took this year when he opted not to raise the property tax rate to the constant yield rate.

Anyone with half a brain realizes that running a county and performing legitimate functions of county government costs money – the question is and will continue to be just how much can those of us living in the county afford to give when the other branches of government ask for an increasing share and costs for everything else (like gasoline and groceries) continue to add up?

Pretty soon we won’t be able to afford beer or wine, which brings me to my second press release.

Even though it’s generally after the fact, I talk about the Autumn Wine Festival and made sure to mention its baby brother the Good Beer Festival quite a bit this year, too. Obviously the group I’m associated with uses the events for political purposes given their calendar date in the midst of campaign season but I’d like to see both thrive for other reasons as well.

So I was pleased to actually see some attendance and financial numbers from each this year, for the first time in my memory. And my guesses were actually pretty good on attendance.

I recall that the prediction made by Parks and Recreation for attendance at the Good Beer Festival was 2,000 for the weekend, but the nice weather Saturday made me sure they came pretty close to that number on just that day alone. Sure enough, the event drew 1,628 that day. I also thought the Sunday crowd was about half, and indeed Sunday drew 750. Overall, they exceeded expectations by nearly 20 percent – but still suffered a small loss financially (about $1 per person.) Hopefully, the event will get more vendors to help make up the difference because otherwise I thought it was well run – the department was “ecstatic” about its future so perhaps in October 2011 we can do it again!

As for the AWF, year 8 was great as they drew 4,651 patrons and made a profit of about $24,000, mostly on the strength of the number of vendors (ticket sales made about 1/4 of the profit.) So they are set to go after a couple tough years of weather. And given the fact the AWF is now “twice its original size” it seems the Good Beer Festival is also on track to become as successful.

One thing unaccounted for insofar as the financial numbers at the festival grounds is the impact of over 7,000 visitors. Granted, there is some percentage who are local but even if just five percent come from far enough away to merit an overnight stay that packs hundreds of hotel rooms and helps keep the restaurants and gas stations in business. Just on an anecdotal basis from working a booth I notice a lot of people come here from across the bay so even if it’s a day trip we’re bringing money to the local economy. These events do well for paying for themselves and I suspect with decent weather next year the GBF will move into the black.

Finally, I wanted to point one thing out about this ‘Third Friday’ video.

I find it interesting that this video is featured on the ‘jimiretonformayor’ Youtube channel. Is that kosher with Salisbury’s campaign finance laws? I think it’s a question worth asking so I’m going to.

Honestly, I don’t mind Jim Ireton taking the time to promote this event as part of his duties but under the auspices of a campaign Youtube site I think this could be considered an in-kind contribution by the person uploading the videos (one can ask who does that and whether that’s on city time too.) Perhaps the city of Salisbury needs its own Youtube channel which can be used for these sorts of announcements.

Since I’m the burr in the saddle to a lot of people in power, why not ask this question too?

O’Malley under pressure to drive jobs out of Maryland

I don’t need to be as shrill as the people at Progressive Regressive Maryland who want to drive more jobs out of the state by adopting combined reporting for business taxation purposes.

In the category of it’s always advantageous to see what your enemy is up to, I got this advisory from them last night regarding today’s meeting of the Maryland Business Tax Reform Commission:

Gov. O’Malley’s Under Pressure from Out-of-State Corporations to Save Their Loophole to Pay NO TAX…CALL HIM NOW…to “Save, Don’t Cave on Combined Reporting; Md. Needs the Hundreds of Millions!”  

Tuesday 2:00 pm, The Maryland Business Tax Reform Commission meets to decide the fate of combined reporting, a vital tax-fairness reform Progressive Maryland has fought for as a high priority for years.

Two weeks after Maryland voters re-elected Gov. Martin O’Malley, with significant help from progressive Maryland and allies, he is under great pressure from politically powerful corporations based out-of-state, who pay NO STATE INCOME TAX, to kill the one vital reform that would close the unfair loophole that lets them get off free.

Call…and leave a message – “Don’t cave to corporate lobbyists.” 

In the past, Governor O’Malley has been a vocal supporter of combined reporting, a reform that would help create a level playing field for Maryland businesses trying to compete with big multi-state corporations and bring in hundreds of millions in lost revenue for our schools, health care, and other vital services.

But right now, corporate lobbyists are trying to get Governor O’Malley to do their bidding and stop this reform…and we hear that it might be working. O’Malley’s appointees on the commission will decide whether to follow the lead of 23 other states and recommend combined reporting to our legislature, or to cave in to corporate pressure and let it die in committee.

Taken another way, we can follow the lead of 26 other states (most of which are probably employing a much higher percentage of residents in the private sector than Maryland is) and scrap the idea of combined reporting.

It’s also worthy of note that the Progressive Regressive Maryland says O’Malley favors this idea. Yet he’s politically savvy enough to figure out that it’s a loser if he pushes strongly for it himself, so he has his own version of a “blue-ribbon commission” to push the blame to if they recommend the tax code change (which they will) and it passes the Democratic-controlled Maryland General Assembly (which it probably will since the next election is a safe distance away.)

And it’s a funny thing about the projected “hundreds of millions” in revenues the group claims is waiting to happen if combined reporting comes to pass. Seems like every time the state counts on revenue magically appearing thanks to a tax increase, the number comes up short – imagine that! How much of that revenue will be spent on additional unemployment benefits to help the workers tossed out of work by increasing the tax burden on certain employers?

Nor is it pointed out by our liberal friends that businesses do not pay taxes – consumers do. They’ll pass along the increased costs to their customers, making our state that much less competitive at the retail level. All around, this isn’t a smart idea to embark on such a course in a time of recession (and pretty dumb during times of plenty as well.)

So go ahead and call (410) 974-3901 – apparently it’s a line into the Governor’s office. Tell him combined reporting is a bad idea and a killer of Maryland jobs. Remind him the unemployment rate has doubled on his watch, so just because he made sure his voter base turned out doesn’t mean we the people of Maryland support making the state even more business-unfriendly.

I thought I said NEW leadership!

Despite fighting fatigue, I can still smell a rat a mile away.

Slowly but surely, people are beginning to filter into the various races for Republican Party positions. Since I last wrote I received confirmation that Maryland Society of Patriots head Sam Hale is in the race, and Larry Hogan is out. From Hogan’s Facebook page:

Many people were pushing me to run for State Party Chairman, and are dissapointed (sic) that I declined the position. I believe in the party, I’m very excited about our potential in Maryland and I do plan to stay very involved. I appreciate all the support, however, as a potential candidate in 2014, I think that it’s better for someone else to focus their energies on the state party HQ.

Fair enough. At first glance, Hale is a guy who would match most of what I’d like in a state party Chairman – but I need to learn a lot more.

But there’s another candidate who’s considering a run, and her infamous words tell you most of what you need to know:

I don’t know if we are going to see another [Republican governor of Maryland] in the next 40 years. It is a shame.”

The woman who uttered these words: Mary Kane, Bob Ehrlich’s running mate and probable darling of the establishment set. According to the Washington Post, she’s “interested” in making a run. (A tip of the hat goes to Ann Corcoran for spotting this.) Does that quote above square with this tidbit from the Post piece?

“I believe in the Republican Party, and I don’t think we should give up on this.”

It doesn’t sound like you believe in the party too strongly if you dismiss our chances of electing a governor in the next four decades! Richard Cross over at Cross Purposes does a nice job of looking at what the party achieved on a local level (although he missed Wicomico County; I took care of his oversight.)

And, just like the Bushes kept the presidency in the family after the eight-year respite of Bill Clinton, the Kanes may regain control of the Maryland Republican Party after a four-year hiatus where both Jim Pelura and Audrey Scott served as chairs – Mary’s husband John was Bob Ehrlich’s hand-picked choice to run the MDGOP from 2002-2006. Mr. Kane’s legacy is one of defeat – Ehrlich didn’t win re-election and the party all but bankrupted itself in the effort to keep him in Government House. (His tenure is part of the reason why the Maryland Republican Party needed its line of credit. Much of the remaining financial problem stemmed from a disastrous year of fundraising in 2007, with the projections likely based on the 2006 budget prepared by John Kane.)

Having only met Mary Kane briefly – most recently at her early voting campaign swing through Wicomico County – I don’t have a personal problem with her, but I can’t see her prospective tenure as being productive.

As I’ve pointed out before, the definition of insanity is to do the same thing and expect different results. If the Maryland Republican Party believes it can continue with an “establishment” person at the helm, don’t be surprised if we reach heretofore unknown lows in the next election cycle. Such a move will alienate the people the party needs most in the grassroots, and as we saw this time around a lack of grassroots support doomed the Ehrlich/Kane ticket while conservatives like Andy Harris and a number of others at the local level won with strong backing from the heretofore politically inactive.

It’s a Pyrrhic victory for the self-appointed party elite to be in charge of a sinking ship, but if conservatives allow the wrong choice to be made December 11th they’ll be kicking themselves daily for the next four years.