November 2012 – Page 2

Odds and ends number 63

Maybe sometime I’ll do one of these without the obligatory reference to Dan Bongino (who, even in this post-election hangover is being promoted as a 2014 candidate for governor) but for now I’m content to continue trading on a popular name among conservatives in the state. Call this edition of my occasional digest of quick little takes on news items a version of Murphy’s law – not the familiar old adage, but applicable if you recall that 2010 gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy was one of Dan’s initial backers. Maybe those of us who supported Murphy realized the guy knew what he was talking about?

Anyway, there was an item I wanted to quote stemming from the immediate reaction to the Great Wipeout of 2012, and it came from Delegate Justin Ready:

In particular, whether we won or lost, I have come to believe that our party and the conservative movement must make some adjustments in the way we communicate with certain voters – particularly those who do not follow the political give-and-take year-round. Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh each have around 20 million listeners, but there are more than twice that number of voters that don’t get their information from talk radio. It shouldn’t be a surprise that voters did not know or care about some of the things we all cared about.

Let me be clear – we should absolutely not retreat from our principles of limited government, lower taxes, and respect for life. But we do need to find a better way to present those values in a way that cuts through the soundbite wars and the demonizing we see from the national media. Even FOX News is not much of an ally in getting a clear, coherent message across. It’s something that every Republican elected official and activist must take seriously. (All emphasis in original.)

Well, that’s the goal I’ve had for going on seven years. I’d love to have 20 million readers for my website, too. (Selling a million copies of my book would be a definite plus as well.)

Yet there’s an underlying theme to election coverage which otherwise has the depth of a cookie sheet: the horserace aspect of polling. Certainly I like to use polling as an occasional newsmaker, but we have made the names Rasmussen, Gallup, and Zogby almost as famous as Obama and Romney. But how many people could have stated where (or if) Romney stood for “limited government, lower taxes, and respect for life?” Perhaps aside from the Hannity/Limbaugh axis, most people saw Romney as the one taking away their government check, slashing taxes on just the wealthy, and perpetuating the so-called “war on women.” It was a perception popularized by the dominant media and not countered enough in a world where neighbors don’t talk to neighbors anymore.

We’ll soon see what’s said in the state party echo chamber at the end of this month. But I’m curious to know if the cake will have the correct number, since Change Maryland has grown to 25,000 members. You may recall back in April they celebrated 12,000 with the infamous cake, so this time at Turf Valley they have twice as much to party about.

In the release celebrating the milestone, Change Maryland notes:

The only way to bring about real change in Maryland is to build a coalition of Republicans, Independents, and fiscally conservative and moderate Democrats. That is exactly what Change Maryland has been doing so effectively. It unites people of all parties to work together to bring reform, fiscal responsibility and common sense to Annapolis.

The group now has more than twice as many Facebook followers than the Maryland Democratic and Republican parties combined and more than all the potential statewide candidates added together.

I haven’t asked Larry Hogan this question, but since I know many among his group are fans it’s worth pondering why Change Maryland didn’t take a leadership role in the state’s Congressional races? While the results don’t initially appear to be all that close, would their involvement have moved the needle even a little bit?

In 2010, a simple averaging of the eight Congressional candidates’ share of the vote gives a figure of 35.46%. This time around, we declined to 33.35%. Granted, thanks to redistricting and the turnout of a presidential election vs. a gubernatorial election this is something of an apples vs. oranges comparison but the trend is in the wrong direction. It’s worth noting that the GOP share went up in four districts: the First, where the largest percentage of the state’s Republicans were packed, the Fourth and Seventh, which are majority-minority districts in which Democrats could afford to dilute their vote somewhat, and the Eighth, which along with the First gained a lot of former Sixth District voters which were drawn out of that formerly Republican district. Yet there still wasn’t enough there to unseat the Democratic incumbent.

If Change Maryland is the home of this grand coalition, one would think taking a little more of a leadership role would start tipping some of these districts. Obviously we’ll have the same issue in 2014, with the added complication of a gerrymandered state map as well.

Yet while the conservative cause is licking its wounds, there is a parting on the left as well. Maryland Juice blogger David Moon sent out an e-mail on behalf of the Demand Progress group demanding President Obama not replace Hillary Clinton at the State Department with former Congressman Howard Berman. Why?

…Internet freedom activist group Demand Progress is rallying its members to oppose Berman’s potential appointment: Berman was a leading supporter and architect of the infamous Stop Online Piracy Act — which was decried and defeated because of its Internet censorship implications — and would have great influence over global Internet policy if named Secretary of State.

(snip)

According to Demand Progress executive director David Segal, “It’s outrageous that Berman’s name is even being floated for Secretary of State, where he’d play a key role in developing global Internet policy. He’s made a career of shilling for Hollywood, and Hollywood’s been leading the charge for Internet censorship here at home and abroad — backing SOPA, compelling the government to block access to scores of sites, and even having website owners extradited for posting links to Hollywood movies. It’s clear that other Internet freedom groups and tens of thousands of Internet users would mobilize to oppose his appointment.”

Of course, this group is looking at the problem as one of not being able to see the latest Hollywood movie for free – ironic when Hollywood supplied millions for the Obama campaign – but my perspective is one of maintaining Internet freedom and access for all usages and viewpoints, even ones which aren’t politically correct. However, Demand Progress stops with the civil libertarian side of the equation and doesn’t stop to consider the equally chilling effect internet taxation would have on the World Wide Web. We all know it’s a cash cow that progressives just haven’t quite figured out how to milk for their purposes yet – but that’s not going to stop them from trying.

Speaking of cash cows, now that Obama’s re-elected we’re going to hear more and more about the adoption of a carbon tax. The Competitive Enterprise Institute is suing under the Freedom of Information Act to have over 7,000 e-mails released regarding behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts to make a carbon tax palatable to conservative opposition.

While there’s some aspect of a fishing expedition here, the time it would take to search the e-mail database for the word “carbon” and place the files on disk is rather negligible. But the impact of knowing how the current and future regime is attempting to place their thumb on the scale is significant. The only carbon tax I would support is when the FairTax is paid as part of a purchase of carbon or carbon-based products, and only after the income tax is repealed.

The group also put out a five-minute treatise on economics:

The short film is based on a 1958 essay by Leonard Reed and outlines the complexities of creating a simple product. Imagine this process multiplied to create complex machinery like your car or this laptop I write on, replicated countless times a day. Certainly not all of us manufacture things, but a pencil is also a metaphor for and tool of creativity. Now I create on a laptop, but all that represents is a pencil and eraser in a more technologically advanced form. Imagine if this process came to a halt – would we stop advancing as a global society as well? Just like our certain extinction if the sun ever ceased shining, I suspect our progress would terminate as well.

I think I’ve created enough to bring this treatise to an end, so I’m going to focus my talents on another job and place a wrap on this one. Hope you enjoyed reading.

Getting older

I’m just not so much into the political thing today, and what I originally thought I would write about can wait until tomorrow without much worry.

Today I finally reached that milestone in life which most of us who are older have to face: I now have to wear bifocal glasses. (Actually, these are considered ‘progressive’ lenses, but since they haven’t taxed me or tried to take away my freedom I’ll just consider them bifocals.) When I went in for my long-overdue eye exam last week I was told I now suffer from presbyopia, which is the inability for the eye to focus on nearby objects. That sort of explained why I would have to take off my glasses to read my phone.

But this life event just made me consider that my time in the sun is rapidly passing by. Obviously I hope to have a lot of productive years ahead of me, but as a generation our time for agitation for change is dwindling fast. Many of us have seem our children grow up into young adulthood, and the world which was like the long highway stretched out limitless in front of us is now a lot shorter and quite small as seen from our rear-view mirror. It’s now our children who have the boundless vista before them.

Ever since I came to know about the writings of Newt Gingrich, I’ve tried to set my line of thinking to where we can be and what can be done about getting there in a timeframe that’s several years ahead. Most politicians have the myopia to only see to the next election, but those who are smart try to think decades down the road. I’m no politician, but my book So We May Breathe Free: Avoiding Ineptocracy is truly intended for those of my daughter’s generation; those who just came off the entrance ramp and see the vast highway before them.

Yet what have we left them to face? Unless you’ve been living under a rock since 2006, you’d know that the days of 4% unemployment, manageable inflation, and the concept of borrowing against home equity are long gone. People who once had good, full-time careers are now struggling just to make it on a couple part-time gigs; meanwhile, the skills and ambitions they once had are in a race to see which will dry up faster.

Obviously not all is bleak, as our kids also inherit a world filled with promise on a number of fronts as life has been made far easier on them in a number of respects. Yet the younger generation recently voted to make things harder for themselves and less bearable for those in my generation. I still can’t figure out how all these signs can be missed; the one thing I do know is that all of us will have to live with the results. Those few things I’ve been able to glean from my daughter lead me to believe that some of the scare tactics tossed out by the incumbent’s campaign worked on her.

To be quite honest, there is the possibility that conservatives have it all wrong and that freedom isn’t something most strive for. After all, life is much easier when all your decisions are made for you.

But the problem with limiting risks is that rewards are limited as well. If you can succeed in life, but only as far as an outside source will allow it to happen, then you are not truly free. Those who sired my generation were wise enough to at least make a couple efforts to increase our freedom, but in the end the results were mere speed bumps on this ‘Thelma & Louise’ final stand we’re careening on. My fear is that, if we don’t do something about our government, sometime during the ascension of this generation we’re going over the cliff.

Hollywood stopped the movie in midflight, but in reality we’re going to hit bottom and when that crash comes it won’t be pretty.

A Mobbie update

Well, the results are in. I didn’t win, but I think I placed reasonably well in this popularity contest for a little ole Eastern Shore blog.

I was nominated in two categories: Best News Blog and Best Politics Blog. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot out of the Best News Blog category, so 8th of 11 isn’t too bad.

But I finished in the top 5 for Best Politics Blog behind eventual (and pretty much deserving, since Dave Wissing does a good job with it) winner Hedgehog Report, Maryland Juice, Maryland Reporter, and HoCo Rising. I’ll take it, as that’s my best finish of the three years I’ve been involved and when you consider I live well outside the Sun‘s primary circulation area fifth isn’t too bad.

Of course, there are many who pooh-pooh this whole awards thing, with the main point being that all we’re doing is helping the Baltimore Sun get more eyeballs on its website. It’s a point taken, but I look at it this way: since a large part of the Sun‘s readership is of the liberal variety, any chance I get to expose a little bit of common sense and conservative thought their way is an opportunity which should be taken advantage of. Certainly they agree more with what Maryland Juice would have to say, but perhaps some have read here and understand a little about common-sense conservatism. I’m certainly not going to complain about my readership totals in the runup to the election.

Finally, I wanted to give a shout out to my friend and fan Jackie Wellfonder, whose Raging Against the Rhetoric website scored a top 10 finish in the Best New Blog category. Certainly I wasn’t the only one voting for her!

Full results are here.

The bitter end

In my travels today for work, I came across this curious scene. Sorry it’s so dark, I took it around twilight through my car window.

The now-former Riggin's Grocery in Crisfield.

This may illustrate the key point I want to make better; it’s a close-up of the door signage.

19 jobs lost, according to the sign.

Not being a native or resident of Crisfield, I had never heard of the store until it was placed on my job board. From the looks of it, the store resembles several others I service in my outside job as it’s older and without the modern amenities you’d find in the large chain grocery stores like Giant or Food Lion. But the important sign is on the right-hand door: 19 jobs lost.

Something I notice about Crisfield in my infrequent travels there is that if I leave there in the late afternoon on most days (aside from the third Wednesday in July, which is the annual Tawes Crab and Clam Bake) there is much more traffic going into Crisfield than leaving. That tells me jobs are sort of scarce in the town, and losing another 19 is a blow a once-thriving bayside community doesn’t need.

In looking into the situation, it appears that the store was barely hanging on anyway until Sandy blew into town and put a foot or more of water into the place. And in reading their Facebook page, it appears they’ll be missed. Obviously a business that’s been around serving the community 64 years is something of a landmark, even if it was well off the beaten path.

So what drove them out of business? If I were to guess, the opening of a new Food Lion a few years back didn’t do them any favors. While the Crisfield location is smaller than most other Food Lion stores I’m familiar with, the fact that it’s a chain store and can more than compete on price makes a difference. People may have raved about the meat and deli items found at Riggin’s, but surely many more former customers were just as happy to purchase Food Lion’s products.

Yet niche stores can and do survive, even in a world of Walmarts, Food Lions, and other chains. On the other hand, even chain grocery stores can fail – just ask the hundreds who used to work at the various local Super Fresh locations where the plug was pulled. Apparently, though, the damage done by this natural disaster was too much for the little independent grocery to overcome, so the doors were shut and 19 people are now out of work.

Unfortunately, the closure doesn’t just mean the loss of jobs – presumably a flood-damaged building with no tenant and few prospects for one to move in could soon fall into disrepair. And while its location may have seemed a logical choice when the building was built in 1956 (according to tax records) it’s now too cramped for any sort of more modern retail facility.

So a portion of the Eastern Shore will mourn the loss of yet another local landmark, perhaps a victim of these difficult economic times. A booming community could handle two (or more) competing grocery stores, but Crisfield’s boom times have been a memory for many years now. Add Riggin’s to the list of fading memories of a bygone time.

The tax people cometh (again)

This should not come as a surprise since it’s tried almost every year, but the so-called Maryland Health Care for All coalition once again is pitching to raise cigarette taxes by a dollar per pack. In last year’s case, the proposed funding would go to smoking cessation programs as well as “(programs) that address childhood obesity, long-term care for seniors, and improved access to health care services for Maryland families.” All on the backs of people who choose to partake in a legal product; bear in mind a tax on cigarettes is among the most regressive out there which may explain why these bills rarely get beyond the hearing stage.

And if it seems like only yesterday we raised the cigarette tax by a dollar a pack, you’d be somewhat right on a state level. The 2007 Special Session yielded a bill which, among many other taxes, was supposed to bring to the state treasury an extra $146 million by fiscal year 2012 (which ended this June.) That tobacco tax went into effect at the beginning of 2008, but in the FY2009-11 period, revenue turned out to be about $84 million short of projections (based on numbers from the state.) And Maryland isn’t alone in finding this out.

They’ve also found out that people will vote with their feet, whether on a small scale (it’s an easy drive from here to Virginia, with U.S. 13 passing by a number of cigarette outlets in the first few miles across the border) or a large one. State Comptroller Peter Franchot noted earlier this summer that bootleg cigarette seizures had skyrocketed over the last two years. With a difference of $1.70 a pack, the incentive is certainly there for easy money and many feel it’s worth the risk – yes, the state seized $2 million worth of cigarettes but perhaps ten times that amount made it across the border unmolested. (That doesn’t count the people who might get five or ten cartons just across the state line.) As is often the case, Maryland’s loss is Virginia’s gain.

Yet the coalition led by Maryland Health Care for All wishes to double down on this mistaken notion that people will be priced out of cigarettes. Instead, the tax will only serve as a means for those employed by the state to have their pencil-pushing jobs paid for by a group which usually doesn’t pay a whole lot in taxes. If the idea is one of taxing the poor, our state is certainly working toward nirvana between expansion of gambling, the additional sales taxes on alcohol and cigars passed last year, and the bid to increase taxes on cigarettes yet again.

As always, I have to say that I find it the utmost in hypocrisy that the state tries so hard to tell people not to smoke or drink, but depends on the usage of these legal substances to produce hundreds of millions of dollars for the state to spend. (Yet they wouldn’t legalize marijuana which, if treated like tobacco, would likely raise hundreds of millions more and as an added bonus clean out the court system of hundreds of otherwise law-abiding citizens.)

But one thing about liberal ideas in Maryland: their sponsors are nothing if not persistent. They’ll happily introduce the same bill for several years in a row and slowly gather support from the brainwashed. If another cigarette tax doesn’t pass this year, they’ll quietly try again in 2015 – 2014 is an election year so we may be spared. In the end, it eventually passes and a little more of our freedom and spare change is stolen away.

By the way, this writer doesn’t smoke and has mild asthma. But I’m not going to deny someone else the right to use a legal substance just because I don’t choose to.

Should Alex Mooney resign?

Let me note straight away that the guys at Red Maryland think so, and for some very valid reasons.

Something the Maryland GOP has seemed to lack in the time I’ve been involved is forward-looking leadership. I don’t really remember much about John Kane since his tenure was ending as mine was beginning, but there were two facets I gleaned in second-hand conversations: he was Bob Ehrlich’s handpicked candidate and he spent money like a drunken sailor – so much so that another supposed Ehrlich crony, Jim Pelura, had to take drastic action to save the MDGOP from insolvency. But when Pelura departed from the Ehrlich party line and took the party in a more conservative direction, contributor wallets snapped shut and Jim was soon the recipient of a no-confidence vote. (Losing one of two Congressional seats probably didn’t help Pelura’s cause either.)

Enter Audrey Scott, and while the MDGOP’s finances improved (albeit not to the extent she claimed they did) we still only caught a small piece of the TEA Party wave – while overall the GOP gained 63 seats in the House we only got one, and made just modest gains in the Maryland General Assembly. (Local races were fairly successful, but the state party rarely gets involved that deeply in county or municipal races.)

Scott’s year as a caretaker passed and the baton was handed to Alex Mooney after a five-person contest in the fall of 2010. Mooney came in promising to make fundraising a priority, but one convention in admitted he had a tougher time than expected filling the MDGOP coffers.

And while Alex is elected to a four-year term, in the spring of 2011 we passed a bylaws change changing the term of the Chair and executive officers to a two-year cycle, to agree more with the national party. (It becomes effective with officers elected in 2014.)

With that precedent, though, one of three things may happen: through December 1, Mooney could resign either immediately or effective as of the first of December (the date of the state convention) because the party bylaws state a vacancy in the Chair position must be filled within 60 days. In that case, First Vice Chair Diana Waterman of Queen Anne’s County takes over on an interim basis.

If not, Mooney would either have to wait until early next year or create the need for a special meeting specifically for filling the vacancy. That wouldn’t be popular among the rank-and-file and would cost the party several thousand dollars. We’d also fret about reaching a quorum.

Or he could attempt to weather the storm and stay on, but now that Roscoe Bartlett has been ousted from Congress after debating in the first place whether to run again (and leaving a lot of people twisting in the wind, including Mooney) that challenger’s seat is open. If Alex wants to campaign for it, he can’t be party chair once he files.

If Mooney decides to resign, the field for Chair would be wide open:

Would Audrey Scott accept a second caretaker term, and could she win anyway after the scorched-earth campaign between her and Nicolee Ambrose for National Committeewoman this spring?
Mary Kane was runner-up in 2010, but perhaps has the “establishment” tag that’s the kiss of death among a growing proportion of Central Committee members.
On the other hand, those who have been in the party a long time would probably not look twice at another Sam Hale candidacy; besides, he’s busy with the Maryland Society of Patriots.
William Campbell is planning a second run for Comptroller, so he would be ineligible to finish out the term.
Mike Esteve is another couple years older, but given his support of gay marriage, may not play well with the conservative base.
A couple other intriguing candidates who considered a 2010 Chair race and backed out: 2010 U.S. Senate candidate Eric Wargotz and Institute for Liberty head Andrew Langer.
Wild cards among the elected Vice-Chairs: Waterman, Larry Helminiak, and Eric Grannon.
And, of course, someone from among the hundreds in the state who might be interested. Sad to say, Daniel “The Wig Man” Vovak is no longer available.

And I thought we would have a dull, boring wake of a convention. It’s not the Maryland GOP without the long knives coming out from time to time.

Update: Fellow bloggers Richard Cross and Joe Steffen weigh in.

Revolutionary

The message is one of real change, summarized by one line:

But now that the standard-bearer has been defeated, it is time to help build a home for the Liberty voters in the Republican Party here in Maryland and nationwide. And so, the restructuring begins with us.

I think I’ve said this someplace before but I have been a Central Committee member for over 6 years now, which means this is the fourth election cycle I’ve gone through. And every one of the even-numbered year Fall Conventions I’ve gone to – the ones occurring immediately after an election – resemble a wake in most respects. The only signs of life seem to come from the “renegades” of the party who are sick of losing and top-down leadership. Count me in among that group.

We’ve been told that the insurgents can’t win, so the people at the top have asked us to back (in order) Bob Ehrlich, John McCain, Bob Ehrlich, and Mitt Romney. Based on Maryland election results that would be foul out, strikeout, strikeout caught looking, and whiff once again. 0-for-4.

So it seems to me we have two choices: accept being a permanent minority and run candidates who scurry to the so-called center the first chance they get, paying lip service to conservative principles, or selecting a candidate who paints his political canvas in bold colors, daring voters to follow his lead. Some guy named Reagan did that pretty well, as I recall. Considering the record of success we’ve had, we may as well stand on principle and present a clear choice – am I right?

Obviously this all comes with a caveat, because Patrick McGrady of Maryland Liberty PAC – the sponsor of the e-mail message – has his share of critics both inside and outside the party. Some would argue he’s not a good role model since he’s failed to win elective office (he ran for Aberdeen mayor last year and lost.) Well, that makes him just as successful as a lot of other Republicans.

From what it looks like, the idea behind the e-mail was one of infiltration, a new “Renegade Room” of sorts. The group has raised enough to have a hospitality suite at the Fall Convention, where it’s likely they’ll be joined by several would-be statewide candidates trying to line up early support.

So I’m very tempted to ignore the postmortems on a campaign season gone bad, delivered by a group who has failed to make a dent in the Democratic dominance and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into opposing several key issues. (Note well that it was mdpetitions.com, not the state party, which led the effort against Questions 4, 5, and 6. I wasn’t seeing Alex Mooney or any of the officers canvassing the state campaigning against these ill-considered laws which will now be placed into effect, to the state’s detriment; in fact, two former MDGOP Chairs were instrumental in expanding gambling via crony capitalism.) I also know there’s a group out there who would like to see all new officers put into place before 2014, and while a leadership struggle is perhaps the last thing the Maryland GOP needs – consider the case of Jim Pelura – one can argue that the future can’t get any more bleak than an election where the national candidate gets less than 40 percent in Maryland and Congressional candidates average 33.4% between the eight – a number which includes Andy Harris’s 64% of the vote. The other seven come in at less than 30 percent on average.

Since the Democratic incumbents want to rest on their so-called laurels, we will have to stop bringing knives to a gun fight. Those who know me know I don’t often mince words and right now I consider the 66.6% who voted for the status quo as someplace between sheer idiocy and a state of woeful ignorance. Maybe that violates the old rule about attracting flies with honey rather than vinegar, but a spade is a spade and I saw no reason to retain any of the seven incumbent Democrats who ran when all of their competition was better suited for Maryland.

I don’t have the politician’s gift of gab, so I have to use the sharpest of words to state my case in written form. There’s a place for me in the new and improved Maryland Republican Party and the question is: who will allow me to find it?

One happy party

Lost in the post-election hangover and finger-pointing was something which could either be good news or bad news for Maryland Republicans: the Libertarian Party is assured of a place on the 2014 ballot. My friend Muir Boda provides some background:

Election results in Maryland showed positive results for Maryland Libertarians. Muir Boda, the Libertarian candidate for Congress in Maryland’s 1st District received nearly 12,000 votes at 3.8%. Even more exciting the Libertarian Candidate for President, Governor Gary Johnson, received over 21,000 votes and 1.1% of the vote. This secures ballot access for the Libertarian Party in Maryland through 2016, which will save Maryland Taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

However, I’m not sure of Boda’s interpretation of the law about 2016, as Maryland election law states on minor parties:

The political party shall retain its status as a political party through either of the following:

(i) if the political party has nominated a candidate for the highest office on the ballot in a statewide general election, and the candidate receives at least 1% of the total vote for that office, the political party shall retain its status through December 31 in the year of the next following general election; or

(ii) if the State voter registration totals, as of December 31, show that at least 1% of the State’s registered voters are affiliated with the political party, the political party shall retain its status until the next following December 31.

Unless the Maryland Libertarian Party can get to and stay at a figure of about 36,022 registered voters (they had 10,682 at last report) my reading of that law means they only have 2014 ballot access.

Boda can boast, however, that he was the leading vote-getter of the eight Libertarians who ran for Congress in Maryland as he received 3.8% of the overall vote. If extrapolated statewide, Boda and his 12,522 votes would have easily topped the actual statewide candidates (U.S. Senate hopeful Dean Ahmad and Presidential candidate Gary Johnson) because neither had topped 30,000 votes as of the last round of counting. The First District has been very libertarian-friendly over the last three cycles, with Boda and 2008-10 candidate Richard Davis getting an increasing share of votes each time. Muir has a chance at beating Davis’s 3.79% in 2010 if he can hang on to his current percentage.

So what does that mean for the Maryland GOP? Well, obviously there is a small but significant part of the electorate which is dissatisfied with the moderate establishment of the Republican party, so much so that they would “throw away” their vote on a third party. Perhaps one factor in this was the fact Andy Harris was widely expected to crush his competition so a Libertarian vote was a safe “message” vote, but I think this 1 to 4 percent of the electorate is just as important as the 3 to 5 percent of the electorate which is gay – and we certainly bent over backwards to accommodate them in this election, didn’t we? (Granted, those two groups aren’t mutually exclusive but hopefully you see the point.)

While I’m discussing my Libertarian friend, I think it’s important to bring up an article he penned for Examiner.com. In that piece, he opens:

The utter failure of the Republican Party to embrace and acknowledge the millions of people that Ron Paul had energized over the last five years not only cost Mitt Romney the election, it may very well hinder the growth of the GOP. This is the result of a political party bent on preserving the status quo and adhering to its very principles.

He goes on to allege that “Mitt Romney did not have to cheat to win the Republican nomination, but he did anyway.”

Besides the fact I think his statement on principles is perhaps not artfully worded – if not for principles, why would a political party exist? – I also think Boda’s article loses a little bit of steam in the middle when he writes about the back-and-forth between the two parties. Republicans and Democrats exist in a manner akin to the way two siblings get along, with the bickering coming to a head at election time, and unfortunately Muir falls into the trap of believing there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties.

But his opening paragraph and closing statement are fairly close to hitting the bullseye given the state of the national GOP as it relates to outsiders like the TEA Party. I’ll put it this way: given the general attitude of the mainstream media about the Republican Party, would it have hurt to follow the rules which were originally established and not shut out the Paul delegates? Yes, the convention may have served less as a Romney/Ryan coronation, but with the rules shenanigans that occurred there we had plenty of controversy anyway. I’m sure some percentage of them came around, decided to bite the bullet, and voted for Mitt Romney, but a lot of those folks didn’t vote, didn’t volunteer, and didn’t send in money.

Boda concludes:

The unfortunate truth is that Republicans had their chance to roll back regulations, reform the tax system and address other issues such as Social Security and Medicare. Yet, they became worried more about retaining power and keeping us at war than protecting our liberties.

Now I disagree with the specifics of this passage simply because the entire idea of a political party is “retaining power” and we were warned the battle against Islamic terror would be a long one. But in a sense Boda is correct as the last Republican president – with the help of a Republican-led Congress – worked to expand federal involvement in education (No Child Left Behind) and created another entitlement program with Medicare Part D. In the end, those will be more expensive than the oft-quoted passage by liberals about “putting two wars on a credit card.” Nor should we forget that President Bush had a plan to address Social Security, but demagoguery by Democrats and the AARP (but I repeat myself) nixed that thought.

Of course some are going to say that the idea of a competitor whose party mainly siphons votes from our side should be dismissed. But, unlike some of those in the Maryland GOP establishment, to me it’s principle over party and I’m conservative before I’m Republican. My job is to marry the two concepts together and win the battle of ideas, which in turn will lead to winning elections – even over the Libertarian candidates.

The end of a week

The other night I wrote on Facebook that I was physically and mentally spent, and I meant it – the combination of a grueling work week at my outside job and the climax of the 2012 campaign was all I could handle and then some. I still don’t feel caught up and it’s been four days since balloting ended.

But I did get to see a story in the Washington Times about Maryland being a lonely state for Republicans. I don’t know how many years in the wilderness we have to go, but I am tired of the Fall Convention immediately after an election being like a wake.

What really took the cake, though, was a comment I received on Election Day post, haranguing the conservative movement for believing the re-election of Barack Obama was about free stuff. Well, what else could it be? Oh wait, perhaps it was that whole “war on women” bullshit mixed in as well, with a healthy dose of class warfare for good measure. As she (at least I think it’s a she) notes,

Did you lose every swing state because people in those states “want stuff”, setting aside the fact that people in the red states absolutely “get stuff” in higher percentages from the federal government than people in blue states? It is this patronizing attitude that will bring down the Republican Party – you cannot possibly fathom that people who voted for the other guy might have other motivations than “they want stuff.”

I’d love to see the proof of her assertion, but I’d also love to know what motivated the other side besides the items I brought up. It certainly wasn’t Obama’s economic or job creation record.

Yet it’s worthy of note that about 10 million fewer people believed the Obama story this time; sadly, about 3 million believed Mitt Romney less than they did John McCain. To me that’s the most worrisome part. I voted for Romney even though he was far from my first choice in the primary; those who were behind him from the start generally felt that he was the most “electable.” Obviously for the second time in a row they were wrong because Mitt Romney isn’t taking the oath of office come January. We’re stuck with another four years of this nightmarish regime, which will likely be detrimental on steroids given that Obama doesn’t have to face the voters again and has more “flexibility.”

Obviously the only perfect candidate in my eyes would be me, and I’m not running for president. You’ll be lucky if I run for Central Committee again the way things are going.

In this country, though, we have to face the fact that our current path is unsustainable. The problem is anyone with that message won’t be elected (ask Ron Paul followers.) The time for a band-aid approach is long past, but here we are treating the skin blemish of jacking up taxes on the so-called wealthy when there’s a gaping financial wound of entitlement spending which won’t be addressed.

If you had that motivation and still voted for the other guy, I’m not sure I or anyone else can talk you back from that state of delusion. Recovering from that generally takes a proverbial smack upside the head by a 2×4 – just don’t be surprised when that day comes.

This should be interesting

Perhaps you’ve heard about this, but if not here you go:

The Tea Party News Network (TPNN), on the heels of their launch seven days ago, today announced remarkable growth in traffic and online viewership. For TPNN’s initial broadcast on election night, the website received over 50,000 unique visits to TPNN.com, and more than 91,000 unique viewers to the live streaming video broadcast of their election coverage. With a partnership through the Rusty Humphries Show and the Talk Radio Network, TPNN’s election coverage reached hundreds of thousands of others on over 350 radio affiliates across the nation.

“We’re overwhelmed with the response we’ve received from tea party members. We knew there was demand for an online right-of-center news outlet that focuses on tea party news, but this exceeds our expectations,” said Todd Cefaratti, the editor and founder of TPNN. “We’re now more confident than ever there’s room for political coverage that comes from a place untainted by the liberal mainstream media, provided by the tea party, for the tea party.”

“There are a lot of so-called pundits and commentators in Washington and New York saying that the tea party is now irrelevant and blaming millions of proud tea party Americans for the election results,” said Scottie Nell Hughes, news director of TPNN. “If they knew the real strength of our movement, and they would come to a different conclusion. We’ve seen the strength through the demand for TPNN and we’re humbled by the comments from viewers and reader. We vow to keep up the momentum moving in to this important new year and to hold politicians accountable to the Constitution.

So I suppose this is the TEA Party’s answer to MSNBC.

But there needs to be some context, as mainstream news outlets likely had audiences in six to eight figures. Then again, when I’ve witnessed lengthy internet broadcasts which only attract half the audience that TPNN did on Election Night, that’s fairly impressive for the internet. It may be something worth watching.

Election Day 2012 in pictures and text

To be honest, the picture part of this will be pretty lean. But here’s one of all the signage lined up along Glen Avenue:

Signage along Glen Avenue.

This Election Day was a little unusual because I had to work – in previous years I was able to use a vacation day but my outside job is extremely busy this time of year. So I didn’t get to my assigned polling place (which happens to also be my voting location) until about 2:30.

As I noted on Facebook, the Obama representative was already there.

Obama's empty chair in full force.

It is worth noting that in the time I was there I had only a few campaigners keep me company: one from the Bongino campaign who was there throughout, one volunteer representing the Maryland Marriage Alliance who was there about 3/4 of the time (and had also been there in the morning), a Democratic operative who was there for perhaps a couple hours, and at the tail end this guy:

Libertarian candidate Muir Boda.

Truthfully, by the time Muir got there I’m not sure it did much good, nor did about half of the 130 or so palm cards I had regarding the ballot questions. But he did get almost 4% of the vote, in line with previous LP candidates here.

One thing I noticed about this polling place – perhaps as opposed to the Delmarva Evangelistic Church where I had worked a couple times before and perhaps due to early voting – was that business just died after 6 p.m. or so. Once the rush of people coming from work subsided, we had little to do but talk among ourselves.

According to the state Board of Elections, just about 32,000 people came to vote on Election Day in Wicomico County after around 6,400 took advantage of early voting. So only about 1 in 6 voters decided to vote early here, but I think part of that was the crowd who used to come after 6 previously.

One thing I have heard in the post-election discussion, though, is how bad the turnout was nationwide compared to 2008. Barack Obama lost about 10 million votes overall while Mitt Romney failed to meet John McCain’s total by a couple million votes. Give or take, about 12 million people sat this one out and the question is why. But that’s one for another day and perhaps another analyst.

What I knew, though, was when I arrived at Republican headquarters to watch the votes be counted I could tell the mood wasn’t joyous. It simply didn’t have the sound of a victory celebration, and most likely it’s because so many of us were sure and assured that Mitt Romney would pick up about 52% of the vote. Instead, it seems like Rasmussen, the group out in Colorado whose economic math forecast a Romney victory, and even the Redskin Rule were all wrong.

Instead, the evening was a disaster for conservatives in Maryland and elsewhere:

Despite the thought that Romney could outperform John McCain, the final totals once again reflected a 62-37 landslide for Obama. Instead of losing by 25.4% Romney lost by 25.1%, meaning that we’ll catch up by the 2264 election.
The good news: Ben Cardin only got 55% again. Unfortunately he won by 28 points over Dan Bongino. But even with upstart candidate Rob Sobhani taking away more votes from Dan than Ben, it’s likely the final margin would have been comparable to the 2010 U.S. Senate race between Barb Mikulski and Eric Wargotz had Sobhani saved his millions.
All the time and effort getting signatures to place various ballot issues on the docket seems to have gone for naught as all three of those efforts passed. The closest ballot issue was Question 6 but the destruction of traditional marriage still passed with 51.9% of the vote.
Far from taking advantage of the Democrats having to defend 23 of 33 Senate seats up for grabs, the GOP lost 2 seats in the chamber and now sit at a 45-55 disadvantage. While poorly considered remarks by Republicans Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana were played up in the media, they somehow failed to notice the holes in the record of Elizabeth Warren (a.k.a. “Fauxcahontas”) of Massachusetts, who won.
Black conservatives took a hit as well: Allen West is trailing his Democratic opponent pending absentee ballots and Mia Love lost narrowly in Utah. While the House stays in GOP hands, the margin will decrease slightly so Obama had some minor coattails.

So what do we do? Well, on that I have to ponder some more. I just know I left the GOP party once Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were called because those were the linchpins of Romney’s strategy. And it will forever be debated locally whether the Maryland GOP’s insistence on helping elsewhere may have hurt the cause of local officials, but given the large margins of defeat it likely would have made no difference.

I’ve said before that Election Day is my Super Bowl and right now I have an idea of how those who were on the wrong side of the blowouts common during the 1980s and 1990s felt in the days afterward. I have a low opinion of many in my adopted home state who eschew logic and rational thought for free stuff and feelgood policies which will be detrimental in the long run.

But there is always hope and another election coming around the corner. The work has already started for that one.

Radio silence

My mom always told me that if you didn’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything. So until things sink in a little more from the events of yesterday, I’ll refrain from comment.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I worked a long day at my outside job and still have my freelance work to do, either.

I did take a precious few photos yesterday from my campaigning outside the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center and I’ll expound on them tomorrow, when I’m in a better mood.