November 2010 – Page 3

Wanted: new leadership

In less than a month the transition between terms will be complete and presumably the Maryland Republican Party will have a new Chair – unless Audrey Scott decides to run again and wins. Since I don’t think that’s in her plans, it’s going to be my assumption for this argument that we will get new leadership.

Here are some of the facts on the ground awaiting whoever takes charge of the party:

The Maryland Republican Party had few victories to celebrate after this year’s election, with the only gains being one Congressional seat (Andy Harris) and a half-dozen seats in the House of Delegates. Yet Bob Ehrlich was blown out by 13 points and we lost 2 of our scant 14 seats in the Maryland Senate.
While the party is apparently not completely destitute, they lag far behind the Maryland Democratic Party in both fundraising and cash on hand.
Between 2006 and 2010 Republicans fell further behind in voter registration against the Democrats.

Some may believe that the problem lay with the previous Chair, Dr. Jim Pelura. But his lone problem seemed to be the fact that big donors decided to snap their wallets shut when he wouldn’t play ball with them, although there were some who took him to task about how he interacted with Republicans in the Maryland General Assembly. Personally, I thought he did the best job he could with what he had to work with. Once big donors decided they wanted a change, the more pliable Audrey Scott was installed as party chair.

While the donors and insiders may still be there, a number of changes have occurred in the makeup of the various Central Committees which elect the Chair, and it’s quite possible they would like to see a new face at the top – not the same old party insider. If I had a wish list, this is what I’d want in a Chair:

Someone who is acceptable to the TEA Party, which means that people too closely tied to Bob Ehrlich may not be a good fit for the party.
A good fundraiser, but one who can inspire a new set of donors to step up and replace the same contributors who seem to think their contribution gives them the right to dictate party affairs. We see how well that has worked.
Someone who respects all areas of the state, including the support for regional chairs to ensure more voices are at the leadership table. (This was Jim Pelura’s main asset, even though he was based in Anne Arundel County.)
A leader who is willing to not just call out Democrats, but members of the Republican Party who stray from the party’s principles. I don’t believe that “party is everything” when it comes to members ignoring conservative principles.
Finally, a leader who doesn’t think he or she is smarter than the voters and isn’t beholden to one personality to “save” the Maryland GOP.

Many of these same ideas guided my decision on who to pick as our local Wicomico County party leadership and I think we selected a very good team. Certainly a few egos may have been bruised, but overall we did reasonably well. I didn’t vote for all who won, but I can work with those who did and I think the other eight of us can too. There’s room for input from everyone.

There’s around four or five names already being bandied about for state party Chair, with only Maryland YR leader Mike Esteve being “officially” in as far as I know. It’s far too soon for me to make a good, informed decision about who should lead us but perhaps those who are considering it may make it official and let the party leaders throughout the state begin to decide.

Deficit Commission: tinkering around the edges

My latest for Pajamas Media…

Whether it was intentionally jumping the gun to give us a flavor of what we can expect or inadvertently leaked, a draft copy of the report from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform found its way to the New York Times and other media outlets this week. This came as a bit of a surprise since the report itself isn’t due until December, and while the draft is marked “Do Not Quote, Cite, or Release,” it appears the pundits have already disregarded the advisory.

(continued on Pajamas Media…)

Friday night videos – episode 51

Back to political stuff with this one.

The new big thing is telling the GOP what to do, although I think the voters gave them a pretty good idea. This first one comes from the group Bankrupting America.

And just as a reminder, the Center for Individual Freedom looks at the last two years.Just don’t forget this, new majority!

I really love the Republican Study Committee. They tell it like it is.

So does the Institute for Justice. You know, they use the most egregious examples but I suspect things aren’t all that different here in the People’s Republic of Maryland.

And now for something completely different…

As I say in the description, if you want to drink beer and watch this all day I guess that’s to each his or her own.

Or you could go see a band. This is the local cover band Cherrybud.

With that, another edition of FNV is in the books.

Steele draws opposition in RNC Chair race

Even after a reasonably successful midterm election cycle, current RNC Chair Michael Steele is drawing opposition for re-election from a former foe.

Saul Anuzis, who finished third in the balloting for the post in 2009, outlined a number of reasons he was taking on the incumbent, with the key being a “dramatic change in the way the RNC does business.” “I will be a tenacious fundraiser,” claimed Anuzis, who pointed out the RNC didn’t fund certain winnable races in several states.

But he also slammed Steele in a backhand way, saying:

My agenda is very straightforward. I have no interest in running for office. I won’t be writing a book. It is not my goal to be famous.

In fact, most RNC chairs have been relatively anonymous except to political junkies and party leaders. Of course, in the era of a 24-hour news cycle the head of a political party can become part of the backstory and Steele’s ascension was seen by many as the GOP’s answer to the election of Barack Obama as our first black President.

Yet his tenure hasn’t been without controversy on overspending and, as Anuzis claimed, the lack of fundraising on the RNC’s part.

(I)n 2010 a group of alternative organizations emerged to help fill the void created by the RNC’s shortage of resources. They found support from many RNC major donors who had lost faith in the RNC. We need these groups and their support, but they can’t be expected to replace the RNC in a presidential year. We must rebuild the trust with our party’s major donors and bring them back to the table.

Obviously the drawback to having a national body such as the RNC is that they sometimes will be forced to support candidates who may not reflect the tastes of contributors; the RNC stepped in it on several occasions by backing moderate candidates like Dede Scozzafava in New York and Charlie Crist in Florida who alienated conservatives and eventually endorsed a Democrat (in Scozzafava’s case) or made an independent run for office as Crist did. It’s why a number of former contributors opted instead to donate to these other organizations or individual candidates, and this could be a problem Anuzis won’t be able to address.

One omission from the Anuzis announcement, though, is the 800-pound gorilla the GOP has to deal with – there was no nod to the TEA Party and its influence. That could be a drawback to some who are newly minted conservative activists and would like a signal that the Republican Party isn’t going to return to its former ways.

However, Saul comes from a state where success was such that the GOP won an open governor’s seat and regained total control of their state legislature, obviously with the help of activists inside and outside the TEA Party. As we all know from bitter experience, Maryland somehow avoided the Republican tide the rest of the nation reveled in, with only scant gains in the House of Delegates to call victories.

Anuzis just wishes to be a temporary Mr. Fix-It, since he states up front he wants to only serve until a Republican is elected President and installs his or her choice to run the Republican National Committee. While there was success in this election we can always strive for better and Anuzis is likely just the first to provide the members of the RNC an alternative to keeping Michael Steele on.

Speaking of the RNC, I got an interesting call this morning from a nice young lady who was trying to see what sort of interest there was in electing former gubernatorial candidate (as in keeping the seat warm until Bob Ehrlich decided what to do) Larry Hogan as state party chair. I’m all for him running if he wants, for the more choices we have the better winner we will likely have. So far I’m only aware of two other prospective candidates: Mike Esteve, who heads the Maryland College Republicans, and Sam Hale of the Maryland Society of Patriots.

We should be treated to an interesting race; may the best person win.

Co-opting the freshmen?

Honestly, I’m not a conspiratorial sort of guy but I did find this interesting.

As one of many events geared toward the incoming freshman Republican class of the House of Representatives, the TEA Party Patriots scheduled an orientation event this weekend. Among the featured speakers will be keynoter Edwin Meese and the event is sponsored in part by reformers from local TEA Party groups as well as getting assistance from Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn along with retiring Rep. John Shadegg and his group, Constitutional Congress.

That seems like a worthy event and TPP organizers claim they’d already sunk over $100,000 into making the arrangements when they learned another event was being planned for the same time and day by the Claremont Institute. Now I don’t have a big issue with a group which claims to:

“(R)estore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. These principles are expressed most eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” To recover the founding principles in our political life means recovering a limited and accountable government that respects private property, promotes stable family life, and maintains a strong national defense.”

I don’t think the TEA Party Patriots don’t so much object to the group, either. But their roster of “insider” speakers is most troubling to them. Among those featured at the Claremont event are Chip Saltsman, Tim Powers, and keynote speaker Bill Bennett. In particular, you may recall Saltsman ran for RNC Chair two years ago and before that ran Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign in 2008. Meanwhile, Powers is also a former Deputy Director in the RNC and co-chairman of a lobbying firm while Bennett is the former Secretary of Education under President Reagan and morning talk show host. All of them have been in Washington for years, and I happen to agree that the idea behind electing this class of 2010 was to bring an outsider, reform perspective to Washington.

(Of course, DeMint, Meese, and Shadegg are also Washington insiders too. But given the choice between the two and the influence of the TEA Party Patriots who helped place many of these freshmen in Congress I’d tend to prefer they hold sway. The newbies will have to deal with lobbyists soon enough.)

The action plan sought by the TPP was to contact the newly-minted Congressmen (among them our very own Andy Harris) and make certain they go to the TPP event. Certainly I would think many of his supporters read this site and would feel that hanging with DeMint, Coburn, Shadegg, et. al. would be a much better use of time. I know they are among my favorite members of Congress.

TPP puts it this way:

Explain the differences between the two events. We need to make sure they understand that the Claremont event is not an “official” event but one put on by lobbyists, for which they are being asked to skip the TPP and Constitutional Congress event. They need to know what you, their new constituents, think about their choice, and how you’ll react if they choose to ignore the grassroots and immediately get in bed with DC lobbyists and RNC insiders.

So if you have a few spare minutes tomorrow, make your feelings known to your freshman Republican (for my friends down on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, that includes Scott Rigell too) and encourage them to dance with the ones who brung them.

Let’s not permit these greenhorns to be led down the wrong path.

(Note: apparently TPP had some personal cel numbers among the information given, so I redacted the contact information per their request. Sounds like these freshmen got the point.)

Wargotz in 2012?

Talk about your cryptic Facebook update:

Although I enjoy seeing the signage around the State, it is time to “bring them in”. We have them all down in Queen Anne’s and Talbot but if you happen to be out and about and you see sign(s), please pull them up and keep them somewhere. We may need them sometime 😉

This was Eric Wargotz last night on Facebook. (By the way, any Wargotz signs at my polling place were left in the possession of Mark McIver, I took them over to his warehouse the day after the election.)

Since his signs clearly state “U.S. Senate” one has to deduce he’s weighing his chances for 2012 against Ben Cardin.

So does he have an opportunity? Well, given the fact he has some familiarity with voters and the rudiments of a campaign team in place, I would say yes. Another advantage in his favor is that the 2012 primary will likely be in March or April, which may preclude a member of the General Assembly from running since they’d be waging a primary campaign in the midst of the session. Nor do I think Eric will have the competition from Jim Rutledge, as the indications I’ve heard point to a run for a state office rather than a federal one.

Then again, putting his family and his pocketbook through another campaign on the heels of the last one could prove detrimental in that important aspect.

Obviously this could also be a remark made in jest, or Eric may see himself as a candidate for what most likely will be an open seat in 2016. (Of course a barely incumbent Martin O’Malley could be there, too – some have whispered that Barb Mikulski will decide to retire early, just in time for the lame duck to find a new home after he’s through as governor.) However, a 2016 move would likely guarantee a stronger field against him assuming the seat opens up.

We don’t know just what the future will hold. But his was a cryptic remark worth picking up on, so I did.

And to all my veteran friends out there (a group which would include my dad), happy Veteran’s Day!

Bachmann drops leadership bid

Her remark on Facebook was short, sweet, and to the point:

It is with confidence in Jeb Hensarling’s leadership that I bring my candidacy for Republican Conference Chair to a close and proudly support him.

So Michele Bachmann won’t create the tempest in the teapot some feared in her bid for a leadership post, but those who followed her rise in prominence with the advent of the TEA Party may be disappointed. However, Jeb Hensarling of Texas (who will become Conference Chair) had a 100 ACU rating in 2009 and was formerly Chair of the Republican Study Committee, which is the primary outlet for conservative Republicans in Congress. So it’s not like the position is going to a squishy moderate.

[By the way, when I spoke to Andy Harris about the subject two years ago he indicated he would be part of the Republican Study Committee if elected so I presume he’ll become a member of that august body come January. Conversely, Wayne Gilchrest (and Bob Ehrlich when he was in office) were both members of the Republican Main Street Partnership – their membership roll reflects the moderate wing of the party.]

Most of the remaining drama for the House now shifts to the Energy and Commerce Committee, where Fred Upton of Michigan is in line to become Chairman. Unfortunately, this member of the RMSP draws a lot of concern about his record on energy-related issues (see pages 10-13 here, although the rest is troubling too) so his effort has drawn opposition. In this case Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking member, is term-limited (by agreement) but would be a better choice. He introduced legislation to kill the very regulations Upton championed.

Meanwhile, Bachmann still has a pretty good consolation prize: she still heads the 52-member strong House TEA Party Caucus. Its membership roster is sure to grow given the election results; hopefully Andy Harris will join that group too.

Mills gives thanks

For a guy who was a first-time candidate against a 12-year incumbent, Dustin Mills ran a good race. He thanked his supporters yesterday.

Having taken the time to reflect upon the election, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support. Although the election did not go quite as I would have liked, I am pleased with the effort put forth and I know that we worked hard. However, nothing I did would have been possible without the support of many people. They are too many to name, but they know who they are. Without my team, and those who supported me, I would never have come close to getting as many votes as I did. I also wanted to thank everyone who voted for me. I know you believe in what I had to say and I only wish we could have done more. Even though I did not win, I look forward to continuing the fight for what is right in Maryland. I will continue to work hard to make Maryland better and I hope everyone will work with me. I am humbled by your confidence in me and thank you for voting for me. Let us continue to work hard and we will make Maryland a better place!

Dustin should get around 3,800 votes when all is said and done, and that’s not bad considering he was outraised this cycle by about a 4 to 1 ratio (not to mention Cane had about $50k to play with from before) and received no PAC money, unlike his opponent who got money from the SEIU ($1,000), trial lawyers association ($500), and SEIU again ($1,000) among other groups which normally back incumbents regardless of party.

And he’s the kind of good, young conservative candidate the GOP will need in the coming years so it doesn’t seem like the loss is too discouraging to him – although I would have liked to see him break 40 percent as he did in Wicomico County where both live…it was the 25% in Dorchester that let him down.

We can only guess what redistricting may do to this district, but given the statement by Cane that this will be his last term Dustin is well-positioned to try it again in four years assuming he remains in the district once the Democrats are finished with it. (If Rudy is done, it will be interesting to see what he does with the $50k he has left.)

So I don’t see this as a goodbye, but just a breather. We didn’t pick Dustin as the top young Republican in Maryland 2 years ago to see him lie down.

Analogy

As the results of the 2010 election are placed into the book of history (remaining absentee voting counts notwithstanding) it’s obvious that the GOP received a smashing victory in most places with significant help from a vocal TEA Party movement.

But for almost every situation there is some kind of sports analogy, and this is no exception.

In 2001, the Carolina Panthers played well enough to win their first game of the season over the Minnesota Vikings. Obviously they were patting themselves on the back and figured that they had just as good of (or perhaps slightly better) chance of getting to the Super Bowl as the other 14 NFC teams (at the time.) But they lost their next game, and the next…until they lost 15 in a row to wrap up the season 1-15.

Undoubtedly it’s not the perfect analogy, but the lesson is that we can’t stop working hard for the cause of freedom based on the election results from a week ago. It’s only one victory in a long-term process.

Conservatives managed to win one house of Congress and control of a number of state legislatures (sadly, none in Maryland or Delaware.) It’s a victory we should be proud of but the other side is already laying the groundwork to make it our last victory, much like Carolina’s next opponent figured out the Panthers’ weaknesses and allowed the next fourteen opponents to see how they could be beaten.

As we saw in the time span from the initial TEA Parties to last Tuesday we lost some notable battles on the way, most prominently Obamacare. Certainly a number of those voting for the bill were bounced out (as were some Democrats who didn’t) but we are still stuck with the process of defunding and/or repealing the bill – assuming, of course, the new majority has the stones to try. Speaking as a loyal Republican, for the sake of our party’s future they damn well better lay everything on the line to stop the Obama agenda. After all, if a populace can be fooled once into believing “hope and change” they might just be gullible enough to fall for a similar ploy again.

I suppose the strategy now won’t necessarily involve the large gatherings like we had over the last two years (although they may well have their place; I understand there’s an effort afoot to have an opening night rally in Annapolis again like we did earlier this year) but instead may consist of more individual and small-group efforts like speaking out at the local City Council meeting or running up to Annapolis to testify on an onerous job-killing bill. The difference is that we have a little bit more of a bully pulpit and aware public; however, we have to keep them aware and not let them get discouraged when we do suffer defeats. Indeed, we may see our effort be thrown for a loss at times.

I’ve been doing this blogging thing for over 5 1/2 years now, and at times I felt like I was the lone voice in the wilderness. But this most recent campaign has instilled some confidence in me that we are moving in the right direction because people have began to stand up and take notice.

Obviously our neck of the woods is taking a little longer than most to get with the program, but I’m confident we will be pulling in the right direction no matter how those forces against us try to stack the deck in their favor. Daily we pull more people to our side, and if you figure we’ve gone from a state where Obama got 62% just two years ago to a state where his approval is only 56% and half the voters want his signature program repealed, we are making slow but steady progress.

We don’t have to win every single issue every time, but we need to win enough to become the most formidable foe out there; a group where those who oppose us do so at their own electoral peril. In Maryland we can help change the White House, wipe out some or all of the six entrenched Democrats remaining in Congress, and flip a Senate seat in two years (while keeping the two Republicans we have despite the certain redistricting to their disadvantage we’ll have to endure,) This is a tall task and most likely we can’t succeed at all ten portions; I’d settle for the ten electoral votes, flipping the Senate seat and a 4-4 split in our Congressional delegation.

On a state level, perhaps we need to take the attitude exhibited by Rush Limbaugh. I’ll say it right now: I hope Martin O’Malley fails. We may need a little chaos to shake up the establishment, and while we’re not to the point California is quite yet we may well be on our way if O’Malley continues down the path he’s on.

Too bad we don’t have a midterm election to thwart him…unfortunately we have to suffer for four more long years with the hand we’re dealt. But it sets up the chance for a strong conservative candidate to secure total victory for the GOP in 2014.

Now for Maryland Republicans who are used to the 1-15 sort of election cycle that sort of success, where we at last free the state from the shackles of total Democrat control and break a 160-year losing streak in the General Assembly, would be like winning the Super Bowl. Let’s do it!

A question for those in the know

Obviously over the last few days we’ve heard the discussion about whether Obamacare can or should be repealed or at least defunded. You know which camp I sit with, but this is a question for my readers who may have a little more awareness about the budgetary process and how Washington works. However, the question doesn’t involve Obamacare but instead involves something I presume is on the budget someplace.

Over the last two years, our less-than-illustrious President has hired a number of “czars” who didn’t need to be confirmed by Congress. Since they seem to be useless appendages on the federal payroll is it possible to defund them? And what happens to those people if they are?

I would think that their salaries and benefits (along with whatever administrative help they receive) comes out of the allocation for the Executive Branch; probably the same pot of money that is paying for Obama’s Asian trip to the tune of $200 million a day (or whatever the true figure is since there’s some dispute regarding these expenses.) Obviously there’s serious sums of money where the public hasn’t the foggiest idea where it goes, and to an outsider like me it just seems to disappear into the ether. I guess transparency and accountability were the buzzwords in vogue two short years ago but they seem to have faded into obscurity of late.

Perhaps this is a shortcoming of me as a citizen that I don’t have a great understanding of the process, but it occurs to me that we’re playing with sums unthinkable just a couple decades ago. (That “trillion” wasn’t needed until the late Reagan years.)

I also realize that getting rid of the “czars” would rank with eliminating earmarks in terms of budgetary impact. The reforms we truly need won’t come until 2013 at the earliest since it’s going to take a President and Congress with both foresight and cajones to tackle the REAL problem in the budget: entitlements.

But it would feel good to eliminate the “czars” and whether that takes a smaller allocation to the Executive Branch or actual line-item budgeting is beyond my pay grade and scope of knowledge. But that’s why I have readers to help me figure out such matters.

Murphy speaks out

It’s about four minutes of commentary, but former gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy had the chance to discuss the recent election with Shari Elliker on WBAL Radio Friday.

There’s no doubt that Murphy paid as much attention to the election results as the rest of us did, and it’s not clear from the conversation that his campaign rhetoric about Bob Ehrlich being beatable wasn’t quite the “I told you so” in retrospect. Critics noted that Bob Ehrlich’s message was a little muddy in their postmortems.

But now is the time to look forward to what is and will be. Martin O’Malley has one more term to serve as governor, and it’s conceivable a number of state Democrats are playing the game of being coy about their 2014 plans while laying the groundwork for a run of their own for Government House. Anthony Brown, Peter Franchot, and Doug Gansler are naturally front and center in that conversation since they have ran and won statewide.

Meanwhile, the GOP side has its own contenders with Brian Murphy probably among them. (He was coy about this in his conversation with Elliker, but one has to believe he’s considering the prospect of seeking an open seat. We’ll see based on how much interaction he has with Republican and TEA Party groups in the coming months.)

But we can’t forget a couple other names.

The old guard establishment may well be represented by Larry Hogan, who began something of a placeholder run for Governor this year until Bob Ehrlich got in.

We also need to consider Charles Lollar, who was the beneficiary of a draft movement last year but was tripped up by residency requirements this time around based on when he first registered to vote in Maryland he was just a few months short of the five years required. Undaunted, he ran for Congress. Unless Democrats decide to push through a ten-year requirement to foil him again, he may well decide to run again IF he doesn’t win a Congressional seat first.

It’s going to be about message, though. With the strong probability of another set of tax increases or expansions for Maryland one has to wonder just how long it will be before the unaffiliated voters and thoughtful suburban Democrats realize that continually funneling more money to the state for fewer and poorer core services needs to come to a screeching halt and eventually be turned around. Given the slow pace of economic recovery, the prospect of a strong economy come 2014 can only be described as a crapshoot at best – people my age may recall that the Reagan recovery didn’t begin until his third year in office and if a Republican takes the White House in 2012 it may take that long to undo the Obama damage (even with a GOP House over his last two years.)

But I’m glad to see Brian Murphy hasn’t gone away. Maybe we should be hanging onto those yard signs.

An honor to be nominated…

To be honest, I completely forgot about this but some good Samaritan took a moment to nominate this site for a Mobbie (one of Maryland’s Outstanding Blogs) in an annual contest held by the Baltimore Sun. Naturally, I’m nominated in the Politics category. I guess one can vote for my site here, if not just shuffle down to the politics category and vote for me there. (The icon is on my site now.)

(Yes, I know it’s a cheap way for the Sun to build its e-mail list, but humor me on this, okay? I’d like to finish closer to the top than to the bottom and represent the Eastern Shore since mine is the only blog from around here I recognize.)

And who knows? Maybe I’ll win the category – people tell me I have talent for this writing thing and it’s a good way to be recognized.

Update: For the record, there were only 22 political entries this year. Here’s how they stacked up, and I even looked up last year’s results as they were applicable. [Those results are in (parentheses) – most nominees are new this year.]

The Hedgehog Report
Deaf Politics
Steve Charing OUTspoken
Tales of Two Cities (1)
HoCo Rising
Cross Purposes
The Mobtown Shank
monoblogue (9)
Baltimore Independent Examiner
Red Maryland (4)
Darkness Rising: Joe Steffen’s Rants and Raves (5)
Baltimore Spokes
Maryland Politics Watch (13)
PunditMom
Anthropo-con
Baltimore Criminal Justice Blogger Page Croyder
Baltimore Organ
Loud American
Oliver Willis (14)
The Sundries Shack
Annapolis Capital Punishment (2)
PG Monitor