Grasping at straws

Over the weekend Montgomery County Republicans held their annual convention and as part of the proceedings they held a straw poll of 2014 gubernatorial candidates. It fell to the winner to deliver the results.

Charles Lollar was declared the decisive winner of a straw poll taken of Montgomery County Republican activists and Central Committee members at the annual Republican county convention held (Saturday) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Lollar won with 40% of the vote, followed by Ron George (24%), Larry Hogan (23%), and David Craig (13%). Hogan was the only gubernatorial candidate not in attendance.

(snip)

“Every time our critics count the Lollar campaign out, our supporters count us in. These results demonstrate the solid grassroots support we have, not only in Montgomery County, but all across the state.”

“The people who voted in the MCGOP convention straw poll have sent a clear message across Maryland: when given a choice, they want Charles Lollar to be the next governor of this state. I am extremely grateful for their confidence and support and look forward to continuing to surprise those who underestimate us.”

Granted, we went through a 2012 campaign where one of the contenders won straw poll after straw poll but generally failed to crack double-digits when actual voters spoke. Nor is there any escaping the fact Lollar started the year with less than $6,000 in the bank – an amount Anthony Brown probably gets in his sleep from a special interest donor. Even the idea of eliminating a revenue source worth $8.5 billion to the state raised eyebrows at “Maryland’s premier blog of conservative and Republican politics,” where they cited a disbelieving Washington Post.

But, out of all the states. at least Maryland’s governor has the whip hand in making this happen because he writes the budget. It’s also worth pointing out the lack of specifics; for example, if the tax is phased out over four years the state need only cut $2-3 billion in spending annually and increased economic activity would make up some of the difference. As I note below, there’s not a whole lot of specifics yet on what any of the candidates will do when they assess the state’s financial situation.

Yet there’s a guy out there who has made the runup to his campaign all about the number of tax increases enacted by the current governor. So where was he Saturday? Wait, we have that answer:

Hogan was the only gubernatorial candidate not in attendance.

Interesting – wasn’t there a lot of scuttlebutt a few months ago about another candidate missing a number of key events? Are those crickets I’m hearing now?

I can understand skipping the January 16 Republican debate (to which Hogan was invited) because he wasn’t officially a candidate, but Larry also passed on the Second Amendment rally in Annapolis (as did Lollar, but Charles spoke to the 2013 rendition.) It just seems to me a strange pattern of behavior for a guy trying to establish a GOP campaign. Yet Hogan’s biggest supporters even mocked Lollar’s straw poll victory as a highlight of a “thoroughly hapless” campaign. It is what it is: obviously they’re not charter members of the Charles Lollar fan club.

Now I’m not here to question Larry’s sincerity, but I would feel a little better if GOP voters could base our decision on more specifics on priorities than just the easy promise to repeal the rain tax and to take public financing. (In Hogan’s radio interview with Jackie Wellfonder last week his decision to accept public financing was the prime topic of discussion, which I found disappointing.) Maybe Larry won’t be into the social issues, but I still would love to know how he stands on the Second Amendment, budgetary priorities, dealing with illegal aliens, educational choice, and so forth. All of his cohorts have answered at least some of the tough questions, so I can’t give Larry a pass just because he has a social media network of 77,000 people.

Originally I was going to do an update to my dossiers around the first of February, but I think it’s prudent to hold off until after the filing deadline just to make sure Lollar and Ron George are still in the race, and hopefully to get a little more information out of Larry Hogan.

And now for something completely different: Today I’m filing for re-election to the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee, so last night (if you didn’t notice) I put my authority line back in place. I’ll be on the June 24 ballot.

3 thoughts on “Grasping at straws”

  1. Lollar also spoke at the smaller gun rally in January of this year, so of the 4 in the last two years, he’s been at 3.

    I think as well that if we just accept Red Maryland is the Larry Hogan Communications division it’ll be easier for everyone.

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