May 2012 – Page 4 – monoblogue

The real life of ‘Julia’

In a blatant pitch to woo female voters – presumably the base of the Democratic machine – the Obama re-election campaign came up with the “Life of Julia” concept. Poor Julia is seen suffering through a life of government dependence from age 3 when she’s enrolled in Head Start (I suppose by Julia’s unseen parents) to age 67, when she “retires comfortably” on Social Security.

Of course, this little slideshow has been unmercifully (and rightfully) parodied by Lee Stranahan into the Life of Rover, given a conservative rebuttal by the Heritage Foundation, put under a libertarian remix, and become fodder for endless Twitter shots using the #Julia hashtag, some of which are featured at the tail end of this article by Meredith Jessup in The Blaze. It seems like every time Obama tries to go viral with a hashtag, conservatives have a ton of fun with it.

My question, though, is why Obama’s so worried about the female vote. One thing the President has going for him is a fair amount of personal likability, as the First Family has been carefully scripted to appeal to women as a happy nuclear family. Granted, the Obama children are far younger than President George W. Bush’s twin daughters, but it seemed like every time one of the Bush twins misbehaved it was made into news – on the other hand, a recent Mexican trip for Obama’s older daughter Malia had its accounts scrubbed and sanitized after word got out about the 13 year old’s journey south of the border.

But women have been hard hit by the poor economy, and oftentimes the female handles the bills in the family. Whether they’re a single mom or part of the rapidly disappearing nuclear family of Mom, Dad, and two kids, women have found that over the last three years it’s been getting harder to make ends meet.

And there’s also intention behind making ‘Julia’ a single mom – you may notice that there’s no husband in the picture when she has ‘Zachary.’ (Does that sound like a focus-grouped name or what?) Of all the women who voted in 2008, it was single women who came in most heavily for Obama – a 70-29 margin. If he loses even 10 percentage points on that total, Barack Obama has to know that his re-election bid is toast. But single women haven’t been exempt from the stagnant economy, either.

In reviewing the ‘Julia’ slides, there’s also no question that the Obama campaign is playing the class envy card to the hilt, even in this example. At 17 Julia could lose her public education funding to “pay for tax cuts to millionaires,” for example. And Julia’s life is doomed if we even cut one penny from these bloated federal programs or dispense of Obamacare, as several slides warn.

But would it? What if Julia’s parents didn’t send her to Head Start but took the time to read to the child – or better yet, made the investment of time and effort to homeschool her – even as they sacrifice the tax burden of helping to support the public education they aren’t using? Chances are Julia would still be able to enroll in that college. (I’m also curious: if Julia’s going into web design, is a four-year degree even required? It seems like she could acquire those skills in a two-year associate program at a community college.)

And perhaps her parents, if they raised her right, would instill in Julia the work ethic to get her to avoid taking out thousands of dollars of student loans because she would have learned to be responsible for the results of her own education while working her way through college, along with the moral compass to wait until the right stage of life to marry Zachary’s father before they have the little rugrat. Until that point she would pay for her own contraception, thank you. (Needless to say, abstinence is free.)

That work ethic would come in handy when Julia opens her own business because she will have to work twice as hard to overcome the roadblocks in her way – not because she is a woman, but because of all the red tape an overbearing bunch of pencil pushers throw in her path. She would also have the pride to not accept work simply from the set-asides given to a female-owned business, but because she does a damn good job of it. It’s the only way she would know.

And Julia would retire comfortably because she lived a reasonable but frugal lifestyle, investing wisely in her future despite government’s best efforts to confiscate every dollar she made. Julia and her husband of over 40 years would enjoy the sunset of their lives despite never receiving a Social Security check from a bankrupt system.

But perhaps my favorite parody of Julia came from the Facebook site AttackWatch:

The Gaps of Julia

At 1 year old: Under President Obama, Julia’s posts “I hate Obama!” on her Facebook page. She is investigated by the Secret Service for threats against the President. (That’s one precocious child!)

At 16 years old: Under President Obama, Julia goes goth and changes her religious affiliation to “Wicca.”

At 18: Under President Obama, Julia realizes she’s learned more on her own than she ever has at public school and registers as a Republican voter.

At 19: Under President Obama, she realizes her Pell grants don’t cover anything but a small tuition, so she takes out student loans to supplement her income.

At 23: Under President Obama, Julia begins her career as a web designer. Despite what Obama said all those years ago, she’s still paying hundreds a month on her student loans. She makes her payments on time, but rising taxes have made it difficult to eat much more than rice, beans, and ramen. She’s happy to know she can sue for wage discrimination, except that she’s making more than her male coworker who regularly attends Occupy Wall Street meetings. Since he’s known to go into work stoned, she’s inclined to believe the pay difference is because of her performance.

At 25: Under President Obama, Julia has worked as a web designer for the past four years. She’s chosen to be responsible with her health and family planning, and doesn’t want to drain the system by using other peoples’ money for her sex life.

At 31: Under President Obama, Julia and her husband decide they’re financally secure enough to have a child. Julia wishes she could be a stay-at-home mom, but she can’t because men’s wages have been stagnant for 50 years now and they can’t live solely on her husband’s income. She slips and lets the tax payers pick up the tab for her maternity leave. Both her and her husband’s taxes go up the following year. They consider selling their house to move into a condo half the size.

At 37: Under President Obama, Julia’s son Zachary starts kindergarten. She’s there to see him off at the bus stop because she quit her job, deciding the slight bit of extra pay wasn’t worth it since taxes and highly-regulated child care costs were so high. She and her husband fight more than they’d like, but remain close. Zachary eats better than they do, they make sure of that.

At 42: Under President Obama, Julia decides to start her own at-home business to try and bring in at least a meager extra income. She finds that Obama’s tax cuts for small businesses help, but his extra excise taxes on manufacturers and healthcare and income do not. It’s not a zero-sum game; she’s losing money. She wants to help people, so she hires another worker, but has to lay him off after a year because she can’t afford the healthcare costs.

At 65: Under President Obama, Julia submits an application for Medicare. She’s eagerly granted acceptance.

At 66: Under President Obama, Julia develops a brain tumor. She submits an application to Medicare, which is denied. “Due to age,” and “See Quality of Life (QoL) Regulations” stick out through her watered eyes. She chokes and sobs. She hugs her 70 year old husband when he returns from work. They cry together, in bed, just holding each other. “We tried,” Julia whispers to her husband.

At 67: Under President Obama, Julia passes in her husband’s arms. Full of anger that his ailing wife was denied care from the Obamacare Government because of costs, he takes his wrath to Facebook. He writes, “President Obama, I can’t stand everything you’ve done!”

At 71: Under President Obama, Julia’s husband is investigated by the Secret Service for threats against the President.

President Obama has now been president for at least 67 years.

You might laugh, but the sad fact is that millions of gullible voters will lap up the Obama Kool-Aid and believe he’s only trying to help the middle class. He’s helping them, all right – helping them become poor and dependent on government handouts of some sort.

Campbell first 2010 GOP hopeful to try again

Editor’s note 5/14/2022: I have brought this home from the dead Examiner.com pages.

Candidates are still nearly a year away from being able to officially file for the 2014 state elections, but 2010 candidate for state Comptroller William Campbell revealed his intention to make another bid for the office. Campbell received 39% of the vote in 2010 against incumbent Comptroller Peter Franchot, but Franchot is among several Democrats hinted as making a bid for the brass ring of Government House as Governor Martin O’Malley cannot run for a third term.

In a statement on his personal Facebook page Campbell noted it was his intention to file “as soon as it is allowed” and will go about the business of setting up a campaign website and fundraising. He pointed out that he got his 39 percent of the vote in 2010 “with no money and no organization,” adding to this reporter that at this stage he’s “looking for volunteers to help me put together a winning team.”

Assuming Campbell finds the support he desires, the statewide Republican dance card is already beginning to fill out nicely. A gubernatorial run for Harford County Executive David Craig is probably one of Maryland’s worst-kept secrets; also in the mix is Larry Hogan, who ran briefly in 2010 before yielding to the candidacy of former Governor Bob Ehrlich. Hogan’s Change Maryland group recently celebrated its 12,000th member, which in Facebook terms put him ahead of both the Maryland Democratic and Republican parties combined.

Unlike the 2010 election, where Senator Barbara Mikulski retained her seat over Republican Eric Wargotz, and this year’s contest where Senator Ben Cardin faces a spirited campaign from GOP nominee Dan Bongino, the 2014 election won’t have a statewide federal race. Republicans are hoping for a repeat of the last time this scenario occurred, which was the 2002 election. Depending on how Mitt Romney fares in Maryland and nationwide, the table could be set for a similar success in two years and Campbell apparently wants to get an early start.

A redistricting contrarian

Editor’s note 5/14/2022: I have brought this home from the dead Examiner.com pages.

My debut article as the Eastern Shore Political Buzz Examiner…

While most state Republicans were dead-set against the Congressional redistricting perpetrated by Governor Martin O’Malley and a hand-selected group of appointees last fall, the new lines still went into effect for this year’s elections. Key among the changes was an effort to make the Sixth Congressional District into a Democratic seat by realigning it southward into Montgomery County and excising Frederick and Carroll counties from the district, which once straddled the border with Pennsylvania. Those voters were divided among a number of other districts, primarily the First and Eighth Congressional districts.

Because of this blatant political posturing by the majority party, the MDPetitions group decided to feature a petition against the redistricting law, which passed in a Special Session last year, along with another drive to overturn the same-sex marriage law signed by Governor O’Malley earlier this year.

A Central Committee member from Montgomery County maintains the redistricting petition takes away from “expending our energies and resources to re-elect Congressman (Roscoe) Bartlett in the new 6th District and to elect Ken Timmerman in the new 8th District.”

More importantly, the letter John Midlen circulated at the recent state GOP Convention reveals Timmerman is against the redistricting petition, which puts him at odds with the state party.

According to Midlen’s letter, Timmerman points out that the revised 8th District is only barely a Democratic district, with just more than 50 percent registered Democrats and the remainder Republicans and unaffiliated voters. It’s a departure from the previous Eighth District, which stemmed from the attempt by majority Democrats a decade ago to pack the bulk of Maryland’s Republican voters into two Congressional districts, then represented by Bartlett and former Congressman Wayne Gilchrest of the Eastern Shore.

That strategy changed a 4-4 delegation split as recently as the 2000 election to a 6-2 Democratic edge in 2002 and a 7-1 bulge from 2008 to 2010, a term when Democrat Frank Kratovil won the First District after a bitter GOP primary.

Midlen also points out that, even if the petition drive is successful and district lines are changed, it’s likely that Democrats will come up with a system just as devious for 2014. One piece of evidence which suggests this would be the case was the manner in which several GOP Delegates were lumped together in new House of Delegates districts for the 2014 election – unlike the Congressional districts, the state legislative districts aren’t subject to referendum because no action was taken by the General Assembly. By law, the Governor’s lines became valid if a different map wasn’t passed by the General Assembly within the session’s first 45 days.

Obviously a lot can change in 10 years’ time, but the significance of the 2000 redistricting and the immediate gain of two Congressional seats by Democrats in 2002 – an election where Republicans gained eight seats nationwide – shows Maryland Democrats are trying to stack the deck even more in their favor in a state where they only enjoy about a 2:1 registration advantage over Republicans.

The question answered in November will be whether they overreached by weakening a number of other Democrat-friendly districts in order to gain the Bartlett seat.

Shorebird of the Week – May 3, 2012

Trent Howard makes his Delmarva debut in the April 3 exhibition against Salisbury University.

While the starters have grabbed all the attention from a Shorebird pitching staff that’s near the top of the league, the fact that several starters are on a fairly strict inning limit makes long relief a valuable position to be in. Trent Howard is an example.

Take Monday’s 4-1 Shorebird win as a case study. While starter Dylan Bundy grabbed the headlines with a superb four-inning performance, the game came down to an excellent five-inning stint from Howard. He got the win while scattering six hits and allowing one run; more importantly he gave the rest of the bullpen a breather after a Sunday doubleheader.

Howard hails from Hammond, Indiana by way of Central Michigan University. The former Chippewa was a 7th round pick in last year’s draft by the Orioles and pitched well enough at Aberdeen (3-2, 3.48 ERA with a 1.23 WHIP, fanning 45 while walking 14 in 41 1/3 innings) to merit a promotion. And while Trent isn’t a member of the rotation, 3 of his last 4 outings have backed up Dylan Bundy’s starts, making him sort of a shadow member of the starting six.

Obviously the Orioles liked something about the 22-year-old lefty and have chosen to place him in situations where he pitches multiple innings per outing. Presumably if Howard can stay healthy and other expected events take place, he can move into the starting rotation easily enough. By season’s end he may be one of the better pitchers in the SAL based on the 2-0 record, 1.86 ERA and 1.19 WHIP he’s compiled thus far.

He won’t make you forget that guy he tends to back up, but in his own right Howard has a chance to be a solid lefty starter as he works up the Orioles system.

Resurrection

A couple years ago I spent several months moving back and forth between writing this site and working on two Examiner pages. But once I got a fairly regular gig at Pajamas Media (now PJ Media) I stopped working on the Examiner page – my last post there came in October, 2010. In the seven months the page was active I did about 90 posts, so about one every other day on the average.

Well, the Examiner folks have wanted me to come back and I think it’s time to do so. However, I am likely going to change from working on the Baltimore site to working on the Washington, D.C. site. It’s sort of a clunky title, but unless there’s a last minute change I don’t know about I will be the Eastern Maryland Political Buzz Examiner. (There was – it’s now Eastern Shore Political Buzz Examiner, which I like even better.) I look at it this way – to me, anything east of Washington, D.C. is fair game and Annapolis is east of our nation’s capital. (Technically, the title is based on where I live since Salisbury isn’t an Examiner base city.)

So why return now? Well, my audience is now larger and this gives me the opportunity to broaden my exposure still farther and hopefully make a little bit of coin while I’m at it. And since we have a number of great political races on this end of the state I think I can fill a political coverage need for those readers. Similarly to how I handle PJ Media stories, the initial headlines will be here.

And that’s not to say I’m not looking at or for other opportunities. But the words I say about economic development also apply to a great extent in the writing business: if you don’t grow, you die. The idea in this world is to maximize exposure in order to build a brand audience. I’ve noticed in the last couple years that Facebook promotion helped my readership jump as did more frequent usage of Twitter. But these techniques can only go so far, and the great advantage of having a vast body of work on local and state politics is the opportunity to drive new readers to my archives by proper linking to my relevant content here on monoblogue. It can be a win-win for both readers and myself.

Like I said when I first started with Examiner, I have a hard time sometimes expressing gratitude to those who support me – certainly there are a few who have been fans of my writing since its humble beginnings. So thanks to everyone who has taken the time to drop by my corner of the blogosphere, and once I get re-established on Examiner you can bookmark the other page as well. But I’ll still be here, too.

Odds and ends number 49

Let me just say up top that this occasional look at items which can be covered in a paragraph or three will also serve to clean up some of the loose ends remaining after our Spring Convention over the weekend.

In my first installment on the proceedings, I mentioned that the group Change Maryland has 12,000 members – although their cake maker wanted to grow them tenfold. But something I didn’t realize is that the number of those liking the group on Facebook is larger than those who like the state Democratic and Republican parties combined, and also more than those who like Anthony Brown, Peter Franchot, or Doug Gansler. Coincidentally, these are three of the top contenders for the 2014 Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

And Larry Hogan told me the group appeals to a broad cross-section of voters, drawing interest from Democrats and unaffiliated voters as well as Republicans. I was hoping to get a more formalized sit-down with him before the Executive Committee meeting, but we will have to do it another time.

Continue reading “Odds and ends number 49”