The aftermath

Tying up loose ends from the last few weeks…

As luck would have it, fellow blogger Daniel Vovak spent some of his convention seated directly in front of me so let’s see how he did in picking every state party leadership race. To refresh your memory, here are his picks in order of selection – the number in (parentheses) is the actual finish:

  • Chair: Mary Kane (2), Alex Mooney (1), Sam Hale (4), William Campbell (3), Milke Esteve (5)
  • 1st Vice-Chair: Diana Waterman (1), Moshe Starkman (2), Debbie Rey (3)
  • 2nd Vice-Chair: Larry Helminiak (1), Brandon Butler (2), Debbie Rey (3)
  • 3rd Vice-Chair: Collins Bailey (6), Patt Parker (2), Brian Griffiths (3), Matt Teffeau (-), Debbie Rey (5), Adol Owen-Williams (4), Meyer Marks (-)
  • Treasurer: Chris Rosenthal (1), Mark Uncapher (-)
  • Secretary: Nora Keenan (2), Alfred Griffin (3), John Wafer (1)

(To address the naysayers who point out the weighted results are slightly different, I’m going by the rule I favored – the ‘one man, one vote’ system. Otherwise, the four from Anne Arundel County who supported Mary Kane have more of a say than my seven Wicomico cohorts who supported Alex Mooney did – how fair is that? In the grand scheme of things, coming in third or fourth really doesn’t matter.)

Overall, if he were picking ponies Daniel would have a pretty good day at the track. He certainly nailed the trifecta in some of the undercard races.

As Daniel wrote this on Wednesday he wasn’t aware that Mark Uncapher would withdraw, and apparently Meyer Marks didn’t follow through on his stated intentions to run. Matt Teffeau suggested that he wasn’t sure where the report he was running came from. Conversely, nobody expected Eric Grannon to be entered into the 3rd Vice-Chair race; perhaps had Alex Mooney been more of a stickler Patt Parker would have won.

Of course, my personal forecast had the order of Mary Kane first and eventually Alex Mooney second – however, it’s worthy of noting that each of my updates gave Alex tighter and tighter odds. I could sense he was closing on Mary, and I was correct that she didn’t have enough support – despite her favorite status – to close the deal on the first ballot. In all candor, though, I thought Mary would lead the first ballot but perhaps she counted on Montgomery County a little too much. Alex probably sealed her fate by getting 23 of 45 first-ballot votes from there.

I also thought we would possibly have a third ballot, but when the bottom three all dropped out the die was cast. The top two combined for over 200 of the 265 first-ballot votes, though, and that left little hope for anyone in the bottom three. Mooney was familiar enough to the establishment Republicans (who didn’t want to leave the party to an unknown quantity like the three who trailed) but conservative enough to be agreeable to the TEA Party movement. He became the compromise choice I originally envisioned William Campbell being, and in about two fewer ballots.

So the page is turned and the Mooney era of the Maryland Republican Party begins. We can’t have the complaint that it’s a bastion of white males, either, since we selected a female for 1st Vice-Chair and a black man for the 3rd Vice-Chair position. I didn’t vote for everyone who won, but I think we have a solid team with which to move forward.

A couple weeks ago I wrote a line that Mark Newgent told me Friday evening he really liked: “Hunting season on Democrats and their loony liberal ideas has just begun, and there’s no bag limit.” If Alex Mooney can indeed achieve his lofty fundraising goals and keep the party united in a post-Ehrlich era, we may just have the guns at the top to start picking off targets two years hence.

Maryland Republicans, are you ready for the hunt? I’m not going to stop hunting, but now I can turn my focus to other topics like national issues and a hotly-contested local election before the General Assembly session kicks into gear. So all you fans who have come to monoblogue as a result of my coverage of this race – don’t stray too far or you might miss something good!

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

5 thoughts on “The aftermath”

  1. The easiest way to actually unite the party in the post-Ehrlich era is to reject the ideas, the goals, and the operations of the actual Ehrlich era. Yes, Ehrlich won the Governorship against an incredibly weak candidate; but he lost twice against a very strong candidate.

    That should be a strong lesson that the Ehrlich era was not a success, and the choices made in that era should not be repeated.

  2. I went by the actual number of people voting for him, not the contrived Rule 8 system. By that count Sam had 24 and William Campbell had 25.

  3. My count was 118 87 24 20 14. Sam finished 3rd. In accual votes and rule 8 votes with 59. It doesn’t matter, now just a correction. I tallyed the votes as were called by the chair since I couldn’t read the lil numbers on the big screen. Maybe they called them out wrong. But even red maryland said 3rd. Nice to meet u fri michael

  4. As I had it, Sam got 2 votes from Allegany, 2 from Baltimore County, 1 from Calvert, 1 from Carroll, 6 from Cecil (the one county he carried), 1 from Charles, 2 from Harford, 2 from Montgomery, 3 from Prince George’s, 2 from St. Mary’s, 1 from Washington, and 1 from Wicomico (mine.) My total was 24 and if you have the Rule 8 spreadsheet (in the convention program) you can do the math.

    Mark Newgent (Red Maryland) went by the “Rule 8” total, which may have pushed Sam over William Campbell because most of his votes came from three small counties: Dorchester, Prince George’s, and St. Mary’s. The weakness with Rule 8 is that a vote from Anne Arundel County is worth five Rule 8 votes whereas my vote was worth a shade over two.

    That’s why we passed the resolution dealing with the voting system and why I preferred ‘one man, one vote.’

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