David Craig setting up announcement tour

Updated below.

It’s been perhaps the worst-kept secret in Maryland politics for over a year, but it appears as though David Craig will make his 2014 plans official on June 3 as he embarks on a real statewide tour, or at least one more geographically encompassing than Democrat Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown’s puny effort last week when he announced his gubernatorial plans.

Within the last couple hours, the first day of the Craig tour was laid out on Facebook: a 9 a.m. announcement from his front yard in Havre de Grace, followed by an 11:30 a.m. appearance at the Dundalk American Legion Post 38 and a 7 p.m. happy hour reception at Bulls and Bears in Hagerstown. I have it on good authority there will be a Salisbury stop on day 2 of the Craig tour, June 4, although details are probably still being finalized. On that front, I was also told by that same local Craig volunteer this would be a three-day tour, so it’s possible the local Eastern Shore event could instead be June 5.

Craig would officially enter a fairly crowded field as the Republican nomination is opened up for the first time since 2002, the year Bob Ehrlich first won his nomination over two perennial candidates. Arguably this could be the strongest gubernatorial field ever for the Maryland GOP, as the shadow of Bob Ehrlich and his three-election run as the established Republican standard-bearer allowed a number of good candidates to establish a solid local foothold while clamoring to get their chance at the brass ring.

At this point only one GOP candidate has officially filed, and Brian Vaeth – who finished dead last out of 10 would-be U.S. Senate candidates last year with 1.9% of the primary vote – probably won’t present much of a challenge to the remainder of the eventual field. While Blaine Young has been campaigning mainly to party insiders for the last several months and Ron George formally announced his plans last month, we are still awaiting official word from Charles Lollar and Dan Bongino. With the caveat that both are internet-based surveys and are not scientific, Craig has held his own in two recent preference polls on conservative websites with Bongino and Lollar, while Young lags behind. Meanwhile, Ron George performed respectably in the latest Red Maryland poll cited.

Obviously this will be a developing story, and Craig’s entry may break the dam for others to make their intentions clear. It’s likely June will also be the month Charles Lollar makes his draft campaign official while Dan Bongino has no set deadline in mind.

In Dan’s case, though, there is also the chance he could choose to bypass 2014 to concentrate on a 2016 Senate run for what could be an open seat given Barbara Mikulski’s advancing age (she would turn 80 in the summer of 2016) and declining health. In that case, much would depend on whether the GOP wrests control of the Senate (and their Appropriations Committee. which she chairs) from the Democrats. Obviously this is true of the others as well, but Bongino is the only one of the five with statewide campaign experience.

Then again, the other four will catch up on that front should they go through the primary of 2014. Look for more on the Craig front in the coming days.

Update 5/14: It appears the Eastern Shore will be served either in the evening on June 4 or on the 5th, as thus far June 4 sends Craig to an 8 a.m. breakfast in Silver Spring, the Calvert County Courthouse at noon, and the Annapolis City Dock at 3 p.m.

Update 2 5/14: Salisbury’s stop will be at the Government Center at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, June 5th.

A state party in disarray (and it’s not the MDGOP!)

I want to thank Rory McShane for bringing this to light via Facebook and allowing all of us to start our week on a grand note of schadenfreude.

It seems that the Maryland Republican Party is not the only political entity which labors under the adverse condition of being out of power and having the embarrassment of fiscal misfortune. At least we weren’t forcibly evicted from our West Street headquarters!

In fact, in reading about the issues being faced by the Alabama Democratic Party I noticed several similarities to our MDGOP party situation over the past few years, but done on steroids: a new Chair walking into a field of financial landmines and dealing with factions threatening to break apart from the party – and, in Alabama’s case, not just taking their ball and going home, but absconding with furniture, office supplies, and voter lists while adding insult to injury by redirecting donor funds. What is happening with Alabama may even border on criminality, depending on their campaign finance laws.

Stunningly enough, this situation has festered for almost a decade and a half, according to the AL.com website story, as the party initially spent itself near bankruptcy in a failed effort to enact the regressive tax called an education lottery back in 1999. (Fourteen years on, Alabama is still one of a handful of states which has no state-run lottery.) Former Party chairman Mark Kennedy last month blamed a Republican-backed 2010 initiative banning PAC-to-PAC transfers in the state for the party’s ongoing financial crisis.

Yet a quote from Kennedy could be the key to our rebirth in Maryland:

Unlike the Republicans, we just as a party have not developed the kind of broad donor base a modern political party needs and the Republicans have.

The same concept came up in our recent Chair race, as the two challengers to interim Chair Diana Waterman both pledged to go outside the traditional avenues the party has used to raise funds, whether through more internet fundraising or growing the donor base tenfold. Obviously this should be a priority for us going forward.

This story is doubly humorous to me because, up until 2010, the Democrats controlled the Alabama legislature and had done so for 136 years. But now the shoe is firmly on the other foot because the GOP owns 23 of 35 State Senate seats and 66 of 105 State House seats, as well as the Governor’s chair. Their partisan breakdown is “only” R+14, though, whereas we run in a D+30 state here. But other states have found at least some success with similar demographics.

So take heart, Maryland Republicans, because there appears to be a political party much more dysfunctional than ourselves out there. Hopefully we are working in the right direction – let’s allow the other side to do some infighting for a change.

By the way, I received a note from Collins Bailey the other day as well as confirmation from party activist Don Murphy, who’s planning on attending: the Republican Party of Virginia seeks volunteers for their state convention this coming weekend. The RPV convention site is here, and I imagine the interest in the event from Maryland is so we can begin to upgrade our convention in a similar manner.