A rarity: IRS reverses course

After a number of people (including certain members of Congress, a group which likely included Andy Harris) raised the question, the Internal Revenue Service decided not to drop beyond the 2010 tax year an important research tool people like Jim Pettit and Change Maryland were using to track the inflow and outflow of income and tax filers between states. You may recall that earlier this summer Change Maryland used the IRS data to throw cold water on Martin O’Malley’s claims of Maryland’s great economic recovery, and I expanded on it to make the case that county policies could be to blame as well.

Jim was kind enough to bring this item to my attention, though. In the piece on the Tax Foundation blog, Joseph Henchman writes:

…the data is vital to seeing trends and using economic tools to measure what might have caused them. (States like California, Illinois, and Maryland have also found the data embarrassing, as it shows negative net migration year after year.)

The prospective absence was also noted in the Washington Examiner:

Americans deserve as much information as possible about how each (taxation) model is serving its citizens. It would be a shame if the IRS stopped reporting which model Americans are choosing.

The theory, of course, is that people are fleeing high-tax states like California, New York, Maryland, and Illinois (all generally run by liberal Democrats) to relocate in less punitive places such as Texas, Florida, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and even Delaware in search of a better tax climate.

As it turns out, the IRS is actually committing itself to working with the Census Bureau to, “develop additional migration statistics that take advantage of improved methods.” Obviously the proof of that will come with the release of 2011 data, which will likely see the same trends which have established themselves continuing in many cases, but may also reflect the resurgence of particular states which have taken steps to curtail government spending and focus on job creation through retaining and attracting businesses by making themselves over: in particular Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. All of those states replaced Democratic governors with Republicans.

Although there’s no guarantee Maryland would greatly improve simply by replacing Martin O’Malley with a Republican like (in alphabetical order, not necessarily order of preference) David Craig, Charles Lollar, or Blaine Young, we could perhaps at least slow things down to avoid a further train wreck. Now if the Republicans pick up 28 seats in the Maryland House of Delegates and an even dozen in the Maryland Senate – admittedly a Herculean task at the very least – then we may start to reverse the slide. I can think of a few dozen Democrats who richly deserve to be thrown out on their collective rears; unfortunately they’re in relatively safe districts because the sheeple there prefer to vote against their best interests.

But keeping that IRS data stream going can help us state our case. Let’s see how they respond now that the pressure’s been put on.

Birth of an idea

For those of who have been lurking around here awhile, you’ve probably figured out that one pet peeve of mine is seeing misspelled words on something which is intended for presentation or to get across an idea. Here’s one example I found today on Facebook.

Vet photo

Does the person’s message come across well when the key point is marred by a terribly misspelled word – “unempolyeed”? It’s all about proofreading. And this is far from the only example I’ve run across in recent weeks.

Has the butchery of the English language really progressed that far? I’ll grant that I couldn’t diagram a sentence to save my life – therefore disappointing a string of English teachers who probably tried their best to drill that knowledge into me – but more often than not I can get my point across with a minimum of grammatical issues. I do well enough at it that I am (or have been) paid to write for particular clients, and although my finished product isn’t always what I submitted (late editing and developments sometimes preclude using the items in the manner I wrote them up a day or so earlier) I’ve been counted on to contribute portions of the weekly Digest for over three years – before that, I was a more occasional contributor. That’s just part of my overall writing resume, of which monoblogue served as the foundation.

Lately I’ve been thinking about other ways to expand my sphere of influence and it occurred to me that I have seen a large number of e-mails and releases from politicians and candidates which have been dreadfully written and rife with misspellings, sentence fragments, and other problems which detract from the overall message. This occurs moreso with politicians for local and regional races than those who are serving at a higher level but as the example I linked to shows, statewide candidates are not immune.

And since my job here involves trying to get my own message across and – based on audience growth and feedback – the word seems to be getting out, perhaps there is an opportunity for me to find clients in the conservative political realm who need writing done for them. Need a press release? I’ve written a fair number of them; meanwhile I’ve also penned op-eds and short opinion pieces which have appeared in newspapers and websites all over the state and country, not to mention over 3,200 (and counting) items on this site – almost all hand-crafted with a minimum of filler.

Here’s the way I look at this. In 2014 – heck, even in 2013 in certain quarters and areas – there are hundreds of state and local offices up for grabs, and conservatives need to have someone who is versed in writing political opinion on their side in an attempt to rustle up as many votes as they possibly can. It’s about creating a positive image and mental picture of the candidate as one who is detail-oriented enough to be able to do the job in their county seat, state capital, or even Washington, D.C. And in stating this belief in this humble little venue of mine, the thought I have is: nothing ventured, nothing gained. All it’s costing me at the moment is the hour or so it took me to come up with the idea and write the pitch. (Time which included editing and proofreading, by the way.) If I can make a cottage business out of this, I would be very satisfied I know I’m doing more on my part to turn this nation in the right direction.

Everyone has a talent, and mine seems to be one of putting thoughts in a coherent, readable form. So why not try to maximize my market? If you are indeed interested, or if you can recommend me to someone who may not be familiar with my work, you can follow up via e-mail: ttownjotes (at) yahoo.com.

Or you can have something like this, which came in my e-mail today.

Pearl River

 It’s your choice: “princripal” or principles.

Lessons from Sandy Hook

While he has a pretty good bully pulpit and a rapt audience of those he won over during his ill-fated U.S. Senate run, another thing Dan Bongino has is expertise in law enforcement and criminal study. So it was good information he passed along in a release yesterday regarding the Sandy Hook massacre:

There are simply no words appropriate to describe the tragedy at Sandy Hook.  As a father to two young daughters I can’t help but ask, “What if it were my daughters?” I am sending you this email because there are experiences and lessons I learned while working with the Secret Service that may help assist in preventing another tragedy.

In 2002, the Secret Service, in conjunction with the Department of Education, conducted a research study on school shooting incidents called the Safe School Initiative. The study sought information about the shooters’ pre-attack behaviors and communications. Their stated goal was to “identify information about a school shooting that may be identifiable or noticeable before the shooting occurs, to help inform efforts to prevent school-based attacks.” Although this email is not an appropriate forum for an exhaustive list of their conclusions I have highlighted a few of the study’s main conclusions below with a link to the complete report at the bottom.

According to the Secret Service website, the study highlights include the following:

  • School shootings are rarely impulsive acts. Rather, they are typically thought out and planned out in advance. In addition, prior to most shootings other children knew the shooting was to occur – but did not alert an adult.
  • Very few of the attackers, however, ever directed threats to their targets before the attack.
  • The study findings also revealed that there is no “profile” of a school shooter; instead, the students who carried out the attacks differed from one another in numerous ways.
  • Almost every attacker had engaged in behavior before the shooting that seriously concerned at least one adult – and for many, had concerned three or more different adults.

You can view the report here.

Obviously there’s been ten more years’ worth of data to compile since the report came out in 2002, although many of the domestic mass killings of late have occurred outside the school setting: examples include Fort Hood, the Aurora theater shooting, and the Safeway attack in Arizona where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded and six others lost their lives. Like the school incidents studied, though, there was no real common denominator involved aside from the willingness of someone to break whatever laws were required to get the point across, whether it be for religious reasons, to get even with someone for a perceived slight or wrongdoing, or acting out a drama on a stage of their own creation.

One finding in the report Bongino cites was that incidents “were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention and most were brief in duration.” Some reports of the Sandy Hook massacre indicate the shooting stopped when Adam Lanza knew he was cornered by police and chose to take the cowardly way out by killing himself. Given the fact he was the only one with a weapon in the school until police finally arrived, this seems like a logical explanation.

But that assertion brings up the old adage that “when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.” While many schools at junior high level and above have law enforcement officers who work at the school, the practice is relatively rare at the elementary level. It’s unfortunate that the Sandy Hook killings may lead to more police officers in the schools, but that may be the next step in the eyes of those who don’t mind the implied police state schools are becoming.

Maryland legislators like Delegate Mike McDermott are already working on the problem:

 

He Tweeted that last evening just before I wrote this piece. Knowing that the Annapolis majority would never go for arming teachers, this may be about as much of a middle ground as we can get in our General Assembly. I’d be inclined, though, to make arming the teachers the bill and have this in my pocket as a compromise.

Yet the clamor to do something – anything – in response to the Sandy Hook murders is a strong one. We could very easily slip and go the wrong way by enacting more gun control laws murderers like Adam Lanza will laughingly ignore as they set about their business of carnage creation; or, we can take the right approaches like I discussed the last few days. We still have a choice, but time is running out.

Announcing: the 2012 monoblogue Accountability Project

It took a little longer than I figured it would, but just in time for the 2013 session which starts in just a few weeks I have completed my annual guide to the voting records of the 188 members of the Maryland General Assembly.

There was good news and bad news from this year’s session: obviously the bad news is that a LOT of bad law passed, everything from gay marriage and expanded gambling that we had to vote on in November to usurpation of local control over planning and school funding. But the good news is that, by and large, the Maryland GOP stuck together and became relatively more conservative.

Needless to say, the trick will be figuring out a way to parlay this information into gaining seats in 2014. But those who have seats in more conservative areas but vote with the Annapolis liberal gang of O’Malley, Miller, and Busch should be on notice that we know how you voted and we’re not afraid to spread the word. Moreover, the Republicans who showed a tendency to bend over for the opposition may want to start worrying about primary opponents.

So how did this work and why did it take me so long? As I have done the previous four years, I study what bills the Maryland General Assembly contemplated over the session (including the two Special Sessions this year) and see what votes were among the most contested. You’d be surprised how many bills are passed with votes like 138-0 and 46-0, or with otherwise token opposition. Knowing I would have at least one Special Session I had to hold off and leave room for key votes there so my research couldn’t even begin until the middle of summer. Then we had this little thing called an election I had to cover. I expound a little bit more on the whole process in the introduction.

But it’s done, with the aforementioned introduction, the list of bills and why I would vote as I would (and too few did, for the most part,) the voting tallies, and – of course – legislative awards and admonishments. Feel free to browse the 19 pages and distribute it as you so desire; just give me the credit is all I ask. If you are a Maryland conservative, there’s no question in my mind this information should be close at hand. Spread the word!

The unbelievable bias

As the Sandy Hook story evolves from the accounts of the shooting to the identities of its young (and not-so-young) victims and trying to determine why it happened, one lead in the story is focusing on the first victim, Nancy Lanza, and her “fascination with guns.” (Interestingly, I speculated on that myself in a comment to my first post on Sandy Hook.)

But in making the late Mrs. Lanza out to be a gun nut, the narrative is shifted from making her out to be a helpless victim to one who was obsessed with guns, an interest which led to her demise.

Another intriguing angle comes from a statement by Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy (a Democrat) who claimed Adam Lanza was still alive when police arrived at the school and only killed himself at that point. Naturally, Malloy and several other fellow Democrats have taken this tragedy and made it into yet another call for more restrictions on gun ownership.

The report that Lanza took his own life when police arrived is important to the argument against arming teachers or other school personnel, since the situation was finally defused when authorities arrived. But what if someone had been carrying a weapon?

This is something my blogger friend Bob McCarty looked at in reference to an earlier shooting in Oregon. While this story was wiped away by the Sandy Hook shooting because many more lives were lost in Connecticut, the reason fewer people were killed is actually very similar to the ending at the Connecticut school: the shooter took his own life when confronted. The difference, though, was that a civilian who was legally carrying a concealed weapon brandished his – at that point, the Clickamas shooter, knowing the party was over, took his own life.

McCarty blames an “anti-gun media bias” for ignoring that part of the story, and that bias seems to be coming out in the media coverage of the Sandy Hook shooting as well, like describing the weapon as an “assault rifle” to conjure up an image of a military-style weapon. The actual Bushmaster .223 rifle is commonly used in shooting competitions, which makes sense given Nancy Lanza’s enjoyment of shooting sports.

In the end, though, it really doesn’t matter what guns were used because one person took it upon himself to commit this heinous act. But the narrative making America out to be a trigger-happy nation is driving this push to further violate our Second Amendment rights. Don’t let the pursuit of that agenda blind you to the fact that millions of Americans own and properly use guns.

The folly of a gun ban

Besides the obvious shock and sadness regarding the Sandy Hook shooting, there is a patina of disgust that certain elements of government and their sycophants in the partisan media didn’t even wait for the bodies to cool before calling for new, stricter gun laws.

I have news for you: that’s not the solution. Before the shooter even walked out of his house, he had not only murdered his mother in cold blood but violated laws regarding unauthorized use of property. These guns weren’t his; he had taken guns belonging to his mother and legally purchased. Never mind the school was a “gun free zone,” all that gave the shooter was cold comfort he would be unopposed until he finished his rampage on his own schedule.

But Michael, you ask, why was it necessary for Nancy Lanza to have three guns? And I answer: why is it necessary to ask something which is none of your business? The question is insulting and is akin to asking why some of us own multiple cars or live in houses with more than one bathroom: some prefer the convenience of having a weapon they purchased for self-protection close at hand. If an intruder has me cornered in the garage and my gun is locked away in the bedroom it’s pretty much useless to me, isn’t it? Surely millions of American homes have multiple guns – a house I’ve lived in had a gun room with several rifles and shotguns which were taken when the previous tenant moved out. And it’s no one’s business but the owner’s.

Ironically, the city of Baltimore is doing a gun buyback program today, where those who wish to give up a piece of their Second Amendment rights receive their thirty pieces of silver in the form of a grocery gift certificate of $100. It’s popular with politicians who can claim they’re addressing the crime issue, but I’m sure criminals see it as a way to get rid of their hot guns which were used in committing a crime – just pay some dupe to bring the gun in and let them keep the $100 gift card to boot. Meanwhile, that key piece of evidence is lost and even if they somehow trace it back they catch the poor sap who brought the gun in rather than the real culprit.

There are those who point out that other nations have armed teachers or armed citizens at large and believe that stops criminals in their tracks. I think the idea of an armed citizenry has merit, but caution that it’s no panacea: obviously those at Sandy Hook were beginning a normal day and unaware that a shooter would be in their midst seconds later. The element of surprise was on his side, so there still would have been some victims regardless. Just like in the Aurora theater shooting, having more weapons present would have possibly saved some of the lives but also raised the potential of striking innocent victims given the swift reaction time required and the adrenaline rush the body naturally undergoes when danger is present. The shooter had the advantage of knowing and sighting his targets while one who is reacting has to quickly figure out where the shooter is coming from and is fortunate to strike center of mass on someone who is likely moving as he shoots before becoming a target himself. The shooter’s advantage dissipates with time, of course, but if one is uncaring for his life it doesn’t matter whether it ends by his own hand or “suicide by cop.”

Instead, it seems to me the problem is cultural at its root, but also touches on how we deal with people who have mental health issues as this shooter allegedly did. Rather than the Sandy Hook shooting, perhaps a better illustration of a purely cultural tragedy is this one, which happened earlier this week in Pennsylvania. The pictures of these accused teenagers brandishing guns or suggesting it with their gestures says a lot.

It wasn’t all that long ago that we had facilities to house people who may have needed mental help, but societal mores (and calls for government cutbacks) encouraged us to let these people walk among us. Now they comprise a significant portion of the homeless, and while most are relatively harmless you have the occasional violent exception.

We have a choice in this matter: we can put together more gun laws which will do absolutely nothing to address the problem but will make some politicians feel good (I can already see a number of Maryland General Assembly members who will write a gun-grabbing law and name it something along the lines of the Sandy Hook Law or Victoria Soto Law – anything to tug at the emotions) or we can step back, re-evaluate the situation, and try to do something which will have to start with the generation that bore the brunt of the carnage.

It’s not about bullying, or instilling a fear of guns, or anything like that. It’s promoting the idea that life is sacred, there is right and there is wrong and never the twain shall meet, and that the violence we see on television or their video games isn’t real – although it may look real in gory detail – but the reality of violence like this is that someone mourns the loss of a child, a parent, a relative, or someone else dear to them. We can and should do better at teaching these lessons, and not just have the knee-jerk reaction of blaming an inanimate object for our problems. The gun was a tool of destruction, but only a tool.

On Sandy Hook

You know that people will blame the gun. They always do.

But the more I read about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the more it occurs to me that this wasn’t a tragedy brought on by a gun, but perhaps a culture. Here are a number of items gleaned by the initial investigation:

  • The teacher, Nancy Lanza, whose classroom bore the brunt of the child victims was murdered not at her classroom, but at home.
  • After killing his mother, gunman Adam Lanza drove his mother’s car to Sandy Hook Elementary and shot the children in her classroom along with other school personnel before killing himself. (Coward.)
  • He was dressed all in black, in what some accounts describe as “fatigues.”
  • The guns involved belonged and were legally registered to Nancy Lanza. But what mother is prepared to protect herself from her own son?
  • Most interesting: Nancy Lanza and Adam’s father were divorced and he has remarried; more tellingly, the brother who was originally thought to be the gunman because Adam was carrying his identity hadn’t seen Adam “since about 2010.”

I’m not a psychologist by any stretch of the imagination, but this doesn’t sound like the typical nuclear family of “Ozzie and Harriet” days, does it? Something tells me that, in the absence of adult supervision, the young Lanza was probably fascinated by either video games or certain movies, or both.

This also got me to thinking about a pitch for a video game I heard the other day while working in a GameStop. I don’t recall the exact name of the game, but it had a mode where you could play with unlimited ammo and no loss of life – essentially being a killing machine in the form of a video game character. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that’s the game’s most popular feature, by far.

What’s most disgusting about this entire incident was the fact innocent lives were needlessly taken. As the puzzle is being pieced together, it seems to me that Adam Lanza had a long-standing grudge against the family situation he probably blamed for his lot in life. Most 20-year-old youth are spending their mornings either getting ready for college or work, not shooting their mothers and driving to her school to blast away at a kindergarten classroom and various other unfortunate souls. In 99.9% of the most extreme cases, son confronts mom, shoots her, then turns the gun on himself – still a needless tragedy but with just two victims, not 27.

It’s also been interesting to read about the neighborhood Nancy Lanza lived in, where many of her neighbors didn’t know her despite the fact she’d lived there for some time. That in itself is a sad commentary on our times.

You know, it’s funny: we hear about so-called “conflict resolution” classes in schools yet conflicts don’t end with a black eye or bloody lip anymore. Now they end up making national news with several unwitting bystanders being the chance luckless victims of a premeditated act of violence the perpetrator imagines will finally make him known, even in death.

Those who make a lot of money to talk about such things and those who just think they know the answers always seem to say to “hug your child a little tighter tonight.” Sure, that gets us through the next couple days but in a few weeks this story will be a footnote, only to be brought back to life the next time someone who thinks violence is the answer to his problems callously shoots up a mall, or a movie theater, or a restaurant, or a school. We hear about these sorts of events with depressing regularity, so much so that we’re barely surprised or shocked anymore. The Sandy Hook story is only made as poignant as it is because young children are victims.

And just as predictably as night follows day, someone will say it’s the gun’s fault. I disagree, seeing that guns were even more readily available a half-century ago and school shootings were unheard of. Instead, I blame a culture where life is cheapened to the point where young Adam Lanza thought his was worthless enough to forfeit for the cause of revenge, both on the mother he obviously felt was to blame for his issues and on everything she held dear. Sadly, that was the kindergarten class she never made it to this fateful day.

Update: One more thought. While I blame the culture of death in this nation, in the end Adam Lanza was the one who decided to pull the trigger. In the time since I wrote this, reports (and they are just reports which could be wrong) point to the suspicion that Lanza had long-standing mental issues. Still, the impact of what he experienced certainly led to his decisions.

Odds and ends number 65

Gee, this format seems familiar. I don’t know if it’s the time of year or just luck of the draw, but there have been a slew of items I’ve seen as interesting yet not necessarily worthy of a full post by themselves. So we’ll blend them all together and see how it turns out, sort of like homemade chocolate chip cookie dough.

I don’t know if this is the Maryland GOP shooting itself in the foot once again or just being inadvertently tone-deaf. But as part of an otherwise rather boilerplate formal announcement of its Pathfinders program, which “is a statewide effort to develop the party through local candidate assistance and cultivating grassroots organizations,” they selected a date for their initial seminar which happens to be the exact same day many of those conservative grassroots have a gathering in Annapolis called Turning the Tides 2013. Fortunately, Pathfinders sounds like a continuing effort by the MDGOP so those of us who were booked for Turning the Tides can catch up rather quickly.

But you would think the powers-that-be would sort of scan the political landscape before selecting a date.

The political landscape may be just a little harder to survey if the IRS doesn’t change its mind about discontinuing a “key economic metric” after compiling data for two decades. In my last odds and ends post, I talked about Jim Pettit’s opinion on this pet subject of his, but the political consultant stated his case on National Review Online this week. It made the job of Change Maryland so much easier because the proof was in the pudding and easily spotted to boot. Now we’ll have to use more anecdotal data.

Accessing our elected representative to the federal government isn’t always easy, but one gentleman did and his question is the subject of what is billed as the first “Ask Andy” segment, featuring our Congressman Andy Harris.

It’s not exactly earthshattering that Andy wants a far more fiscally conservative approach than what is being proposed – certainly I do as well. (Actually, I’d prefer an infinite amount of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increases since you can’t divide by zero.) But I can think of a lot of other interesting questions to ask Andy, one in particular being whether he’ll support John Boehner for Speaker after what Boehner did to Republicans who wouldn’t toe the mainstream party line. Somehow I don’t think that will be his next video.

And I think there’s a young conservative who agrees with me on this point about spending. Jonathan Bydlak has graced my website before, when the Coalition to Reduce Spending was formed last spring. But his op-ed (again, on National Review Online) states the biggest flaw in promises made by politicians over the last couple decades:

For years, Grover Norquist and Republicans have tried “starving the beast” of the federal government by capping taxes. While they’ve been highly successful at preventing tax increases, they have been less effective at addressing one problematic aspect of fiscal policy: the ability of the Federal Reserve and Treasury to borrow more and more to finance massive spending, as they have done under the Bush and Obama administrations. It’s simple: Borrowing today means a higher tax burden tomorrow when the debt comes due. True fiscal responsibility, then, requires us to curb spending in addition to limiting tax rates.

Imagine if instead of pledging not to raise taxes, all those politicians had pledged not to raise spending. It’s unlikely the United States would be facing massive tax increases as part of the so-called fiscal cliff. That’s why it’s important to do for spending what Norquist has done for taxes: create a means for voters to hold elected officials accountable when they break campaign promises of fiscal responsibility.

While Bydlak uses the op-ed as a means to promote his “Reject the Debt” pledge, the fact that he’s even starting this conversation is a good sign. Of course, it’s much more politically popular to refrain from raising taxes than it is to cut spending because, as with all things political, making cuts is a grand idea unless and until your particular pet program faces the budgetary meat cleaver. Even I’m realistic enough to know that certain items can’t just be axed abruptly; for example, in my book I proposed a lengthy sunset for Social Security because I knew too many people would have a rug pulled out from underneath them otherwise.

One thing the federal government should be paying more attention to, though, is the amount of time federal workers toil at furthering the agenda of their union at the expense of taxpayers like you and me. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group familiar to my readers, put out a note this week asking the Office of Personnel Management to release a study done regarding “official time”:

Federal employees spent about 3.4 million hours performing union duties while on the clock in 2011, according to an unreleased Office of Personnel Management (OPM) report made public in a November 26 Federal Times article. This amount of time, referred to as “official time,” cost the federal government $155 million. It represents an 11 percent increase in the amount of official time in 2010.

This information comes from leaks inside the administration.

Matt Patterson, a CEI Senior Fellow who covers the Big Labor beat for the free-market advocates, expounded on his findings in a post at the OpenMarket blog. It’s interesting timing considering the right-to-work controversy in Michigan. Look for a piece on that in tomorrow’s Patriot Post Digest; I wrote it yesterday.

I haven’t heard whether yet another effort to make Maryland a right-to-work state will be tried in next year’s General Assembly session, but I suspect that it will. Unfortunately, if I were to make a bet I would say Maryland would be about the last to pass such a common-sense law – then again, who would have thought Michigan would be the 24th?

Stranger things have happened.

Is this part of PlanDelaware?

While I don’t often discuss the First State on this forum, I was alerted to an important piece of upcoming regulation which may affect those who decide to flee high-tax Maryland for the greener pastures of Delaware. In looking at these proposed changes, I’m beginning to wonder if those who live in the less-densely populated portions of our neighbor to the north are enduring a “War on Rural Delaware.” Granted, Delaware is a far smaller state in population than Maryland is, but they are similar in the fact that a small number of counties, in their case just one, tend to dictate the entirety of state government.

These are the proposed septic regulations (ignore the first portion being replaced) and as I read them they seem like a full employment act for politically connected inspectors. For example, have you ever heard of having to have your system inspected every six months? Me neither, but it’s in the regulations as are other provisions pointed out by the 9/12 Delaware Patriots. Other scary clauses give the government full say as to whether you can sell your house and the right to inspect at a moment’s notice.

But you can get a waiver – if you promise in perpetuity not to subdivide into plots less than ten acres. That’s not adding much in the way of land value.

As written currently, these regulations only cover certain regions, but just like in Maryland those in Delaware should look for continuing efforts to bring more and more areas under the jurisdiction of these rules. We’ve played that game in Maryland with the protected areas around waterways in the Chesapeake Bay watershed expanding farther and farther away from their shores.

So what can be done? Well, the hour is late as this change sort of flew under the radar (as these sorts of schemes are wont to do.) The 9/12 Delaware Patriots say this:

We think you should demand a public workshop where DNREC can explain the need for these new rules and their authority to impose them.

I would go a step further and encourage conservatives in their General Assembly to take whatever steps are necessary to overturn these rules, at least the most egregious parts. It may do just as much good against Wilmington Democrats as it does here in Maryland against the I-95 corridor cabal but it may also shed some much-needed light on the process. Why is it the state’s job to stamp their blessing on the sale of my private property to a willing buyer?

So let me guess: enviroweenie Delaware liberals are going to believe I’m for dirty water? Sorry, I’m for freedom. When you can prove to me this is a significant enough problem to outweigh other documented issues with water pollution stemming from poorly-maintained urban sanitary sewer systems, then maybe we’ll talk about a prudent approach. But this set of regulations is mighty far from a prudent approach.

Our first prospective rematch

Multiple sources are now reporting that Peter Franchot is taking his hat out of the ring for the governor’s race in 2014, instead opting to run for re-election to his current Comptroller seat for a third term.

Since this will be the case, it closes off a prospective ladder step for a few General Assembly Democrats who were considering the move assuming it would be an open seat. It’s doubtful any Democrat will step out of line to challenge an incumbent, although it’s not unknown to do so. Unlike those who ran for federal seats in 2012, though, they’re not running from the cover of a safe seat because you’re only allowed to run for one office at a time.

The other gentleman who this affects is William Campbell, who ran in 2010 as the Republican nominee and has all but filed for the office again. With one of his 2010 primary opponents already bowing out and the other likely not going to run again, Franchot’s move will probably discourage others on the GOP side from running as well.

Peter has staked out a reputation as one of the more fiscally conservative members of state government. Perhaps it’s a function of the office of head beancounter, but the liberal General Assembly legislator has had his come-to-Jesus moment since moving to the Executive Branch.

In the 2010 race, the underfunded Campbell won 14 counties and picked up 39% of the vote against Franchot. It will be a tough race this time as well since Franchot has come out against several of the spendthrift decisions made by Martin O’Malley as well as opposing the Question 7 gambling issue. Campbell is certainly a qualified candidate, but it will be a tough sell to change horses at this point. It may take a Republican wave election from top to bottom to dislodge Franchot; however, if Anthony Brown is the Democratic nominee for governor we may just get one.

Data usage (a follow up to yesterday’s post)

As if on cue from yesterday, it’s more and more apparent the campaign never ends for Barack Obama. This morning I received an e-mail, which I will reprint in its entirety (except for killing the links.) It comes from Stephanie Cutter, Deputy Campaign Manager, and entitled “Help the President with one phone call.”

Again I have to ask: wasn’t the election over a month ago?

Michael —

Who will decide if your taxes increase in just 22 days? A few dozen members of the House of Representatives, that’s who.

Cutting taxes for the middle class shouldn’t be difficult, especially when Republicans claim they agree with the President on the issue. But some Republicans are still holding middle-class tax cuts hostage simply because they want to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires.

Here’s what’s going on right now: President Obama is asking Congress to move forward on a plan that would prevent 98 percent of American families from paying higher taxes next year. The Senate has passed that bill, and the President is ready to sign it — but the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives won’t even bring the bill to the floor for a vote. House Democrats have filed a petition that would force a vote if it attracts 218 signatures.

If a bill has enough votes to pass, Congress should vote on it and pass it. It’s a pretty simple proposition. And every Member of Congress who hasn’t signed on to keep taxes low for the middle class needs to hear from you.

Call your representative today and ask them to sign the petition in support of a vote. According to our records, here’s who you should call:

Representative Andy Harris
(202) 225-5311

Not your representative? Call the switchboard operator at 202-224-3121. Not sure who your representative is? Click here to look it up.

Here’s a suggestion on what to say — feel free to improvise and let your representative’s office know why you’re personally supporting the President’s plan:

“Hi, I’m Michael. As a voter from your district, I support the President’s plan to extend tax cuts for 98 percent of American families — $2,000 a year means a lot to me and to middle-class families here in Maryland. I urge Representative Harris to sign the petition forcing the House to vote on the Senate-passed bill, and to vote “yes” if it reaches the floor.”

Once you’ve called your representative’s office, please report back and let us know how it went:

http://my.barackobama.com/Report-Your-Call

Let’s get one thing straight: If your taxes go up, Republicans will have made a conscious choice to let that happen. They’ll have missed the opportunity to prevent it, just to cut taxes for the wealthy.

Republicans need to stop using the middle class as a bargaining chip. If they fail to act, a typical middle-class family of four will see a $2,200 tax hike starting in a few short weeks. Middle-class families could face some tough financial decisions simply because Republicans didn’t want to ask the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans to pay their fair share.

That’s not what President Obama and you campaigned on, and that’s not what millions of Americans voted for just one month ago.

We know we can affect change in Washington when we raise our voices together. So pick up the phone and make a call — your representative needs to hear from you.

Here’s who to call, one more time:

Representative Andy Harris
(202) 225-5311

Thanks,

Stephanie

Stephanie Cutter
Deputy Campaign Manager
Obama for America

P.S. — Don’t forget to tell us you made your voice heard. Report back here.

Now I know just enough about HTML to be dangerous, but there are a number of strings enclosed in the “Report Your Call” links: a keycode, e-mail address, zip code, medium (e-mail), a date code to report which e-mail was effective in motivating the respondent to call their Congressman, and a long series of code for the landing page. My bet is that this particular e-mail only went to supporters in Republican House districts.  And by the way, they’re also lying: there is no tax cut for millionaires, billionaires, or anyone else being proposed by the Republicans – they would just like to keep the rates exactly where they currently are. So stop lying to us, Stephanie.

Yet look at the data they gain from this e-mail response. By gathering the e-mail back they know that a) the respondent is receptive to the class warfare message, b) they cared enough to take action, which perhaps means they would be interested in further actions, and c) may have gotten a report on what was said by the Congressman in question for future opposition research background. And that’s nothing compared to the information gleaned from social media, according to this CNN report from October, 2011. Yes, Obama was perfecting his game a year before the election while Republicans were flailing about trying to find a candidate. It’s an advantage of incumbency, of course, but the GOP could have done the same.

Unfortunately, Republicans aren’t nearly as effective in putting out a similar message telling their stalwarts to call their Democratic senators and advocate for a fair approach to balancing the budget like the rest of us do – when income is tapped out, you cut the items which aren’t necessary, like so-called “stimulus” spending. Don’t threaten a nascent recovery by raising taxes on job creators – just extend the current rates for everyone like you have before.

In case you’re wondering, Senator Barbara Mikulski’s number is (202) 224-4654 and Senator Ben Cardin’s is (202) 224-4524. You can make two calls and tell them to maintain the tax rates in place and exhibit some fiscal responsibility for once – hell, tell them while you’re at it to stop bottling up the budget process and pass one for the first time in three-plus years. Try this message on for size:

“Hi, I’m Michael. As a Maryland voter, I support the common-sense plan to extend tax cuts for all American families and job creators — $2,000 a year means a lot to me and the job creation would mean a lot to Maryland. I urge my Senators to move the tax package passed by the House as well as a reasonable budget with prudent spending so all of us can continue to enjoy our current tax rates and have a measure of stability those who create jobs can count on. Don’t fall into the class envy trap Barack Obama is trying to set.”

But I didn’t get that from a Republican source; I had to make up the riff from the other side’s creation. Nor are we doing the same data mining from other organizations. For example, my AFP e-mails link back to a site called Kintera, which is probably gathering its own information for commercial purposes but not for political advocacy. Mitt Romney’s mail went back to sites like targetedvictory.com, theromneyplan.com, theromneyryanplan.com, or takeaction.wta015.com. Zac Moffatt was the digital director for the Romney campaign, so the question is: what’s he going to do with all the data he received? (It didn’t appear as if the Romney campaign collected as much information from their e-mail appeals, though, despite hiring experts in the retail field according to this NBC story.)

Somewhere there is a load of good data we can use – along with a pot of money and the usage of the alternative conservative media more and more people are gaining trust in – to push the needle back in the right direction after four-plus years of losing ground.

So let’s not just go to the same old consultants next time. We need a new approach to hopefully produce better results because 2014 and 2016 will be here before we know it and we’ve lost a lot since the middle of the last decade. It’s been 24 years since a Republican presidential candidate exceeded 51% of the vote nationwide; then again, only one Democrat (Obama in 2008) has done the same. The era of the Reaganesque landslide is over as we have a bitterly divided country in two camps: one voting for its self-interest and the other voting selfishly. To push people from one side to the other is my goal, and it should be the same for everyone else who loves liberty.

The importance of data

Fellow blogger Judy Warner, who now contributes to the Potomac Tea Party Report, tipped me off to an article on the Atlantic website; an article which provided a glimpse at perhaps the most important part of Barack Obama’s electoral victory. Obviously it’s packed with effusive praise for Obama’s campaign in general, for the Atlantic is at heart a highbrow liberal magazine.

But there’s an important point to be considered: say all you want about Obama’s wretched foreign and domestic policies, but he knew how to get re-elected despite being arguably the worst president since Jimmy Carter when it came to bungling both sides of the equation. Oh sure, we on the conservative side know that the mainstream media ran interference for him like the Chicago Bears of another era blocked for Walter Payton but in the end it was Payton who made the defense miss tackles and not easily bring him down.

The part about the Atlantic‘s piece by Alexis Madrigal which stuck out to me the most, though, was the Obama campaign’s willingness to go outside the political arena and find people who simply knew how to make the best use of the technology out there. (If only he would do the same for economics and Constitutional scholarship.) Of course, there was a symbiotic relationship between the two since I’m certain the vast majority of those who signed on were in Obama’s philosophical corner, but this is the technology edge that the Republicans swore up and down they would negate this time around. Instead, we had the well-documented and discussed crash of the ORCA system on Election Day which cemented the demise of Mitt Romney’s Presidential bid.

The orphan of Romney’s technology failure could be traced back to the fact that those who were by trade political consultants – and hence “knew how the system worked” – really didn’t know squat about the technological side of things. Ten years ago e-mail lists were golden because that was going to be the new way to reach voters. In fact, as I recall, the first rendition of Obama For Against America had a massive list of somewhere around 13 million e-mail addresses to start from (including mine.) But their technology team built up from there and integrated all sorts of data collection and outputs tailored from it.

As an example, remember the post where I related the fact they knew I hadn’t donated to the Obama campaign? The fact that they could tie together the database which had my e-mail address and the one where they had the records of who donated was seemingly beyond the capability of the Romney camp. Instead, the Romney side would send me the EXACT SAME e-mail several times – once from their campaign and then through three or four different “sponsored content” sites to whom I’m sure the Romney people paid handsomely for their list. Unfortunately, I happened to be at the very center of that Venn diagram and I’m betting that most of you reading this were too. But does a generic e-mail motivate someone to go to the polls or donate?

Once again, the key difference came down to data. Maybe I wasn’t high up on the sophistication level of the Obama people because they knew I was sort of a lurker on their e-mail list. I’d bet a dollar to a donut they knew I was a XXX Republican voter and therefore gave me the minimum of e-mail efforts; meanwhile, the uncommitted or newly registered voter (or one who bothered to fill out more information at the Obama site, unlike me) had a variety of messages tailored for him or her. You don’t honestly think the “Julia” advertising campaign or the Lena Dunham “First Time” commercial weren’t calculated to arouse a group they knew they had a maximum of potential voters within? It’s also why they promoted the false “war on women” narrative, with plenty of media help to play up unfortunate statements by U.S. Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock.

Since the Romney campaign all but ignored Maryland, let’s look at one statewide Republican campaign we contested, that of Dan Bongino. Just as a recap, Bongino began running for the U.S. Senate as a first-time candidate in the spring of 2011. He had no political experience and his main initial backing was from someone who had ran and lost badly in his first run for political office at the statewide level a year earlier in Brian Murphy. It wasn’t exactly a broad platform to begin from, and the key question in the race early on was whether 2010 GOP U.S. Senate nominee Eric Wargotz would try again. He didn’t.

But Bongino worked hard to overcome many of his disadvantages, and had the attribute of a compelling, man-bites-dog sort of story: a former Secret Service agent quits to make a seemingly quixotic U.S. Senate run in a liberal bastion of a state. Moreover, he’s young, well-spoken, and telegenic, with a rags-to-riches life story that unfortunately too few got to hear outside of the conservative echo chamber. Dan did well at nationalizing his campaign thanks to that story, and managed to win the Republican primary in April over the game but underfunded Richard Douglas and several other less qualified candidates.

Perhaps the Bongino campaign hit its peak just before Labor Day, because just as people decided to start paying attention a newcomer jumped into the race with a populist promise and millions of dollars at his disposal. Obviously this threw the Bongino campaign out of balance and too much time was spent trying to fight off the challenger on the ladder below while the guy above him had little to do but watch the other two battle it out. It was almost as if Dan had to run a second primary campaign in the midst of a general election, this time against an opponent who was much better-funded and inundated the airwaves with slick 30-second commercials beseeching people to “declare your independence.” Like it or not, the “independence” pitch was a message that worked with those who were sick of party infighting but didn’t want to bother enough to go into the details of Rob Sobhani’s pledges.

But imagine what could have been had Dan had the same sort of database and expertise used by the Obama campaign? He could have targeted his message in such a manner to counter the incumbent’s record to certain voters, rebuke the so-called “independent” to wavering supporters, and kept the money stream flowing from the die-hard element. There was no question in my mind that Dan’s message had broad appeal, and perhaps had the roles been reversed between Bongino and Sobhani to where Rob was the GOP nominee and Bongino the unaffiliated candidate, the results would have been about the same. The only difference would be that the Maryland GOP would have been embarrassed about losing to an independent candidate as well as a Democrat.

That’s not to say that there aren’t potential databases at our disposal. We have an idea of those who are most worried about illegal immigration (Question 4), and are pro-family (Question 6). Those who came out against Question 5 and Question 7 can also be construed as sympathetic to at least part of our message. Then add in all the AFP people, TEA Party participants, and fiscal conservatives we know and one can build up a little bit of a knowledge base. Of course, the key is keeping it up to date and determining relevant messaging for the situations which crop up.

A new era is dawning in politics. The old scattershot standby of sign waving doesn’t seem to be very effective anymore, even as well as Dan did it in one memorable afternoon. There were a lot of cars going by on Rockville Pike that day to be sure, but there was no way of knowing whether these were even registered voters. Maybe it’s because I don’t get a lot of Democratic campaign e-mail, or maybe there’s just not enough of a base around here to make it worthwhile, but I never hear about a Democratic sign waving unless it’s in the form of a larger protest. What few Democratic tactical e-mails I received (from the Obama campaign, naturally) had to do with person-to-person events – making phone calls from the local headquarters or having “watch parties” for various campaign events at people’s homes. The former was probably more effective for reaching out to undecided voters while the latter kept the zealots motivated to keep giving of their time and talents. And it came down to having the database to know where I lived and what events were being planned by supporters via solid communications between volunteer and campaign. Those functions were handled on a local level on the Romney side, not always well.

It has been said to me on many occasions that conservatives win on issues and that we are a center-right nation. Obviously I believe that and if anything I think we need a stronger dose of limited government.

But data is king. It’s not enough to have the registration lists and do the door-to-door and phone calls, both of which seemed to be sadly lacking in Maryland thanks to a self-defeating prophecy which states Republicans can’t win statewide elections so why bother trying? That’s a good start, but we also need to invest in the electronic end of things and, more importantly, look outside the incestuous web of political consultants who talk a good game about political IT and find those who do these things for a living. Not all of the Web and social media gurus are liberal Democrats – admittedly, most are but we have to build up a farm team there as well.

I believe we can overcome all those “demography is destiny” and “you can’t convince the minorities to vote GOP” naysayers by using the right data to send them the conservative message. We can win, but it will take hard work, a lot of prudent investment outside of the good-old-boy, inside-the-Beltway system which continues to insure us defeat after defeat, and less of a reliance on things we always thought worked before but have outlived their usefulness.

All of us movement conservatives have some sort of talent, and there are a growing number who believe mine is in analyzing information and providing it to readers in a coherent fashion. As I said in my book. I believe there’s a place for someone of my talents in a conservative, limited-government movement. Years ago I read a self-help book which said I should manage around my weaknesses so I took that to heart and play to my strengths, and mine is in gathering my thoughts and turning them into pixels on a computer screen or words on a page.

But there’s a far bigger place for those who know how to corral data and put it to use so people like me can communicate to the largest number of relevant people possible, while others who have that gift of gab and outgoing personality needed for the task are sent to knock on the right doors and dial the right phone numbers with the right message for the listener. It’s never going to be foolproof, but we have a long way to go just to be adequate.

Finally, we have to treat this like a war. Of course I don’t mean that in the sense of carnage and mayhem, but the idea of taking time off or letting someone else do the job is no more. A soldier has to be ready for anything at any time, and we have to be ready to mobilize at a moment’s notice, keeping an eye out for future elections. On that front, I’m very disappointed I’ve seen no action in my hometown and no credible candidate file to either run against our mayor or the two City Council members whose seats are up in this cycle. Nor do we have a good idea yet of who will be running locally in 2014. (In that case, though, we happen to have a number of incumbents but there are seats we’d love to contest and fill as well.)

Not all campaigns will be successful, but I think we can take a step toward eventual success in learning from our tormentors, and the Atlantic profile provides a quick case study.