Compromise in reverse

I’d like to thank Right Coast Conservative Julie Brewington for both tipping me off to a Gazette article by Erin Cox and adding her own two cents to it. In turn, I’m going to pile on.

Stemming back to her days as a candidate for state office as an unsuccessful aspirant for the District 38A seat now held by Charles Otto, Julie hasn’t exactly been all warm and fuzzy about the Maryland Republican Party. It’s understandable because, by and large, the candidates she’s fallen in behind have rarely been the preference of the state’s party establishment – a cadre I can pretty confidently claim no part of.

But the money phrase in Julie’s critique of the Gazette story is this, which she claims as an indictment of all things Republican in Maryland:

Last week, he beat out nine other Republicans for the nomination, leading his closest competitor by more than 9,600 votes. But Bongino said his plan is to run as a Republican, not as a part of the Republican Party.

I can understand the distinction because there is a difference, and while Julie demands the MDGOP “(g)et on the Bongino campaign bus instead of trying to throw him under it, or get the hell out of the way” she’s bluntly saying what I’m going to write in a more graceful and palatable manner.

You see, for the last several years we have been told that conservatives have to compromise their principles and fall in behind whoever the party brass picks out – the “more electable” candidate, if you will. And they know that, in most cases, those of us on the right side of the political line have two choices: vote for the lesser of two evils or stay home. Of course, the problem has been that the “more electable” candidate still gets his ass handed to him by somewhere between 10 and 30 points regardless of how much work is put in and how much the establishment stands behind him.

In 2012, though, it looks like the shoe is on the other foot in this statewide race. While it was a somewhat tepid backing, it seemed like those who would know better preferred Rich Douglas to be the GOP U.S. Senate candidate. Yet it was the suburban counties which seemed to propel Bongino to the nomination – he won a core area of Anne Arundel, Frederick, Howard, and Montgomery counties by 12,000 votes – and that outweighed Dan’s weakness in rural counties. Out of the ten counties which have 20,000 or fewer registered Republicans, Rich Douglas won eight of them. Queen Anne’s and Worcester counties were the two exceptions.

Yet this could be the key to Dan’s success, because rural voters aren’t exactly going to be sold on Baltimore Ben Cardin and establishment Republicans may see the formula for success in Maryland appear before their eyes. Obviously Dan needs to spell out his platform and how it would enhance the interests of rural Marylanders as well as their suburban counterparts.

However, there are going to be some very, very necessary factors in defeating Ben Cardin. First is the easy task of equating him with the career politician well past his sell-by date that he is rather than the kindly grandfather image he’ll attempt to present to voters. I liked the way we were running the primary campaign because it focused on Ben’s lack of leadership and unresponsiveness to the needs of working Maryland families rather than bashing each other.

The second is finding volunteers and money to outmaneuver the special interest funding and union thug backing Ben is sure to have. This also goes for the other eight Congressional candidates Democrats will attempt to foist upon us – for example, as populist as Sixth District Democratic nominee John Delaney may make himself out to be the fact he’s sunk seven figures of his own money into his campaign suggests otherwise. And they call Republicans the party of the rich.

Realistically, I think we can thwart the Democrats’ best efforts at gerrymandering and pick up a Congressional seat to make Maryland a 5-3 Democrat advantage. Don’t forget that Ben Cardin hasn’t run for election in six years, and a lot changes on the political landscape in that amount of time. Just like Massachusetts reclaimed the “Kennedy” seat for the people by electing Scott Brown, re-electing Ben Cardin based on the fact he has a familiar name and got into political office because his uncle stepped aside and allowed him to run for a House of Delegates seat way back in 1966 doesn’t  fly with me, and shouldn’t with other right-thinking Maryland voters. While Ben would beg to differ, he’s not entitled to the Senate seat like royalty nearly a half century later. We fought a war of independence to get away from that.

Truth be told, Republicans have a pretty good slate of candidates running this time around. I may not be a big fan of all of them, but you better mark it well that I believe they would be a far sight better representing the real interests of Free Staters than the sorry group of liberal Democrats we have, who couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag for the producers who still attempt to make an honest living in this state.

So it’s up to the Maryland Republican establishment to do what they always told us conservatives to do when a Bob Ehrlich or some other middle-of-the-road, milquetoast candidate was nominated by party faithful – shut up, donate lots of money, and get out the vote. We can impede our progress – as we have managed to do splendidly over the last decade or so –  or we can advance ourselves. It’s our choice November 6th, and Dan Bongino is leading the way at the top of the Maryland ticket. Get on the bus or get run over.

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