May 2014 – Page 2 – monoblogue

Muir Boda for County Council

If you have only one vote in the Republican primary for County Council at-large here in Wicomico County, make it count. Vote for Muir Boda.

This year’s at-large County Council election is unique in two respects: first, it features two candidates who have already served four years on County Council in John Cannon and Matt Holloway. Secondly, unless there is a strong write-in campaign, a Republican is assured of winning at least one of the two seats because the Democrats only fielded one candidate, Salisbury City Council member Laura Mitchell.

To me, Cannon and Holloway are akin to peas in a pod. Both have earned the reputation as being the moderate Republican swing votes on a Council which desperately cried out for conservative leadership. Obviously one of them has to be nominated since there are two slots, but the winner between those two is not nearly as important as making sure Muir advances to the next round.

I’ve known Muir since before he first ran for office five years ago, and he’s always impressed me as earnest, down-to-earth, and willing to work hard to solve problems. I was happy to vote for him as one of my endorsed City Council candidates in 2011 (had I lived in the city in 2009, he would have received my vote that year as well) because I believed he would add a voice of sanity to the body, and with a County Council that will feature a lot of new faces – including at least four new members since Gail Bartkovich, Bob Culver, Stevie Prettyman, and Sheree Sample-Hughes are departing for retirement or for other offices – having someone with his understanding of the working man’s perspective will be important.

Crime is Muir’s biggest issue, and for good reason: he sees it on a daily basis as part of his job. Boda is a believer in the High Point Initiative, which is being instilled by Matt Maciarello and other members of the law enforcement community, but would like to take it further with another unique idea worth considering and discussing.

As many know, Muir ran for Congress as a Libertarian in 2012, and served for several years as an officer in the Maryland Libertarian Party. One might consider him an opportunist for changing to the GOP for this election, but as for me I see this as a welcome change. We need new, younger blood in the local party and this is one opportunity to put a good, thoughtful conservative on County Council. He and District 2 candidate Marc Kilmer can be the building blocks to a conservative rebirth in Wicomico County, but the hardest step will be his getting through the primary with two opponents who certainly have more of a bankroll than Muir does.

But it can be done, with your help. Let the chips fall where they may for slot number 2, but let’s make sure Muir Boda makes the November ballot – even if you have to “bullet vote” and leave a choice blank.

Oh, and just to answer the question surely to come: this is a personal endorsement, and not one with my Central Committee hat on.

Hogan: coordination allegations “absurd and false”

This was a pretty quick response to an accusation over three years in the making. I’ll begin with fellow candidate Ron George’s perspective, which is reflected in statements within from David Craig’s campaign:

Today, the Ron George & Shelley Aloi for Maryland campaign joined the Craig-Haddaway for Maryland campaign in filling a complaint with the Maryland Board of Elections alleging illegal coordination between between Change Maryland, LLC and Larry Hogan’s various campaign committees.

“These actions by Change Maryland, LLC and Larry’s campaign committees represent an egregious breach of the public trust and utter disrespect for the law. We expect candidates for public office to hold themselves to a higher standard. These laws are designed to promote transparency,” said David Craig.

“The public should know where contributions are coming from and where they are going; It’s a matter of public trust. Furthermore, they should expect those who want to make more laws follow the laws we already have,” said Delegate Ron George.

On January 31, 2014, Change Maryland, LLC filed its most recent contributions and expense report for the period of January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2013 listing total contributions received of $145,995 while expending $213,040.

“We believe that all current and prior activities of Change Maryland, LLC appear to be directed by Larry’s campaigns and those activities should be considered part of his gubernatorial campaign for reporting purposes. With this complaint, we are asking the State Board of Elections to investigate. If the Board of Elections doesn’t, we can expect organizations in the future to skirt campaign finance laws to hide where their money comes from and where it goes. I hope the Board of Election agrees with us that the process should be transparent and uphold the integrity of law,” said Paul Ellington, campaign manager for Craig-Haddaway for Maryland.

Hogan responded, almost immediately:

“The entire premise of these allegations by two desperate campaigns is utterly absurd and patently false. Had David Craig and Ron George bothered to do even a cursory check, they would have seen that the “about” page at Change Maryland’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMaryland/info) and website (www.changemaryland.org), clearly states Paid for By Hogan-Rutherford to Change Maryland. In short, Larry Hogan for Governor owns Change Maryland and has since he became a candidate.

Unlike David Craig’s campaign which has already been found guilty and fined for violating campaign laws, our campaign has worked closely with the Maryland Board of Elections to ensure from day one that we comply fully with all state laws.”

Background:

Before starting his campaign for governor, Larry Hogan’s team sought guidance from the State Board of Elections on whether or how Change Maryland, a 527 political organization, could interface with a campaign for governor, also a 527 political organization. The guidance received was that Hogan for Governor could purchase the assets of Change Maryland much like campaigns purchase mailing or contact lists from any other organization. Immediately upon registering as a campaign for governor, with the SBE, the campaign entered into a purchase agreement for all of Change Maryland’s assets at fair market value.

Obviously there’s the question of how they determined what “fair market value” was, but we’ve known for three years that Change Maryland could be a handy vehicle to keep Hogan’s name in circulation after his abortive 2010 campaign. The question came up on one of his first interviews as Change Maryland leader, with Maryland Reporter‘s Len Lazarick.

As far as the market value, if you look at the first Hogan financial statement the apparent “fair market value” for Change Maryland is $18,164.05, which is listed as an “asset purchase” made April 7. It was about 2 1/2 months after the campaign was formed, and the “contact list” pales in comparison to what the campaign had paid to date for mailings – for that purpose, the Hogan-Rutherford campaign spent nearly $121,000 employing a New York-based firm called SCM Associates during the initial months of its campaign. It was almost as if someone thought at the last minute, “hey, we better cover ourselves on this one.”

I’ll admit I’ve had campaign finance questions about my unusual situation of being a blogger and candidate for which I’ve sought advice from the Board of Elections, but $18,000 seems to be a lowball estimate for an organization whose 527 clearly states it churned through over $350,000 last year, raising over $140,000 by itself in a year when only one of the opposing candidates did as well.

So we have found out that the “perpetual campaign” is not just a Barack Obama phenomenon. Obviously he wasn’t going to admit it publicly, but all along many have suspected that Change Maryland was simply the lead-in to the 2014 Larry Hogan for Governor campaign – after all, why bring up a past campaign if you’re not running, as this archived Change Maryland page shows – just as any number of PACs created by particular failed candidates were formed as a way to keep their name in the limelight and (more importantly) create a donor database.

The beauty of Change Maryland, though, was that contributions to it didn’t count against a contribution limit to Hogan for Governor, and there’s little doubt that list is being mined again. In one respect, it’s a stroke of genius and perhaps there’s some sour grapes from the others about not coming up with the idea themselves. After all, we could speculate back in 2011 when Change Maryland was formed that David Craig and Charles Lollar were probably going to run in 2014, along with perhaps Brian Murphy and maybe even Michael Steele. (The entry of Ron George was a little bit more out of left field.)

These accusations, however, served to blunt the news that Hogan had reached the seed money threshold required to qualify for matching funds.

By qualifying for matching funds, the Hogan campaign is guaranteed $2.6 million immediately after the primary. The Hogan campaign has received contributions totaling over $600,000 from more than 3,000 contributors since formally entering the race in late January. By reaching the matching funds threshold, will also receive over $260,000 in Fair Campaign Finance Act matching money. In all, by qualifying for the match, the campaign says it will spend over $4 million “taking on the political establishment.”

Obviously Hogan has to win the primary to cash in, and that’s by no means certain when “undecided” has such a big share of the electorate. Classifying his opponents as desperate seems a little premature, and it may be a pretty tense couple days before the party’s unity rally slated for June 26.

I don’t think anything will come of this, but there is the potential for an October surprise if Hogan wins the primary and the Board of Elections indeed decides there’s some fire among all the smoke. I trust the other side about as far as I can throw them.

Brown’s ‘molehill’ problem

It’s not quite to the level of Senate President Mike Miller’s 2006 comments about burying Republicans upside down, but Anthony Brown showed the arrogance of the current state regime recently in a Washington Post story by John Wagner:

Brown told the crowd Thursday that he considers the primary “the bigger objective” in a state in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 2 to 1.

“We take that hill, and then we’ve got a little bit of a mole hill to take in November,” Brown said.

Larry Hogan has been trying to make fundraising hay out of Brown’s remarks:

We’ve seen a wave of support in the last 48 hours, further solidifying what we’ve known for a long time: Marylanders are sick and tired of arrogant career politicians like Brown who are more concerned with their own political goals than the wellbeing of average families and job creators. We are ready for honest leadership that is focused on the serious problems facing our state.

It’s clear that despite what he may think, Marylanders do not believe that Anthony Brown deserves a promotion to be the next governor of our great state.

Granted, it’s a little harder to define Brown as arrogant or say anything else negative about him without being possibly defined as racist or even anti-veteran since Brown served in the Army, including a stint in Iraq as a legal consultant. (The subject of the Wagner article was a new veterans’ support group backing Brown.) Given that a persistent problem facing returning veterans is finding work in the civilian workforce, one would think they would refrain from supporting a candidate who saw so many jobs and so much wealth leave the state, doing little to stop either from happening. Yet, despite that fact, many Marylanders don’t care until it affects them and if you live in the I-95 corridor the chances are pretty good that it doesn’t – or at least not enough to get riled up and vote for the opposition party.

But I contend there is a formula for success in this state, and it involves some bold new initiatives. For example, eliminating the income tax is one piece of the puzzle, but it presents a chicken-and-egg question: assuming a Republican win shows there’s a mandate for the change, one has to show there’s the prospect for a Republican win that’s broad enough to scrape off about 20-25 Democrats in the House and 8-10 in the Senate to create a workable coalition. I’ve run the numbers: splitting all the contested General Assembly races 50-50 leaves Republicans with deficits of 50-91 and 18-29 in the House of Delegates and Senate, respectively. We would have to win a vast majority of contested races to secure even a bare majority. (That can be a project for 2022, once we re-elect a governor who will draw fair districts.) In the TEA Party election of 2010, the Democrats won 62 of 101 contested House races and 20 of 28 for Senate, so 50/50 would be a huge win.

The other day I gave some turnout statistics, and they showed that gubernatorial election turnout is trending downward among all parties. As uninspiring as the current crop of Democrats appears to be, there’s somewhat of a chance that turnout among Democrats will fail to make 50% – it was under 55% in 2010 and has slipped downward for several cycles in a row. (Note also that a certain percentage of Democrats cross over in top-ticket races.) If Republicans can be excited enough to bring turnout to a level achieved in Presidential years (roughly 80%) they have a great chance of success. It’s that simple, because all the polls in the world are done based on what the pollsters believe the turnout will be on Election Day. If they assume 60% of Republicans turn out and we get 80%, that will shock the world because that predicted double-digit defeat will become a whisker-close win. And make no mistake: the media will be polling to favor their editorial slant and dispirit the opposition.

So if you couple the bold new initiatives with the explanation of why they will succeed in making the average Marylander’s life better, victory can be achieved. I’d like to come out of the ground a couple years early and see that shovel shoved right back into Mike Miller’s face. Let’s show the arrogant bastards that we can win this state, and leave that little molehill as the pile of dirt we displaced in our resurrection.

Halfway there

I was talking the other day about how some candidates were doing better financially than others, but Ron George is halfway to joining the air wars – here’s his TV debut:

They crammed a lot into thirty seconds; in fact, to me they almost talk too fast to understand it all. And while there’s a lot of time (and some expense) to get a thirty-second spot in, the harder part will be getting the money together to spread it out. Given that there will be a Democratic primary sucking up a great share of the airtime, the better bet may be hitting the cable networks in certain markets. At least that’s how I interpret this:

With every contribution of $250 or more, we can get this video in front of tens of thousands of voters across Maryland. Please also forward this email to all your family, friends and colleagues to let them know that Ron is the strong conservative candidate who can win in Maryland in 2014. Thanks again for your incredible support, and please join me in Building a New Maryland.

That may be 5-10 spots depending on location and particular venue. Granted, those spots may only reach a few hundred to couple thousand people, but hitting Fox News or Fox Business isn’t a bad play to get in front of a conservative audience.

I would expect Ron to at least get a limited run of spots, leaving Charles Lollar as the only GOP gubernatorial hopeful without major media thus far. Time is a-wastin’ for these guys.

Announcing: the 2014 monoblogue Accountability Project

For the seventh consecutive year, covering sessions since 2007, I have completed my annual guide to the voting record on key issues from the 188 members of the Maryland General Assembly.

There will also be the sidebar link I maintain for future reference.

This guide not only features the General Assembly’s voting records on specific votes in graphical form for easy comparison, but also my take on the bills they voted on this year. Some of the key votes I cover are those on the state’s budget,expanding pre-kindergarten, various fixes required due to Obamacare, and the “bathroom bill.”

I began this project in 2008 as a continuation of the former Maryland Accountability Project, which was a similar attempt to catalogue legislators’ votes that ended with the 2006 session. (Here is a cached version of its website, which is no longer active.) Over the last eight legislative years I have focused on over 200 votes by the General Assembly. Once committee votes became publicly accessible in 2010 I began adding those as well, giving me a total of more than 400 separate tallies over the life of the mAP. This year I looked at 52 separate votes – 22 floor votes and 30 committee votes, or three from each of the ten voting committees in the General Assembly.

So what can you do with the information?

Well, while the mAP is by its nature reactive because it documents events which occurred in the recent past, we can learn from history. While I can count the number of legislators who have attained a perfect 100 percent rating in any given year’s legislative session(s) on one hand, the sad truth is that Maryland has far too many who score 10 percent or less year after year cluttering up the General Assembly. Our job is to learn who they are and educate the voters of that district as to why their legislators are voting against the interests of the people in the district. That’s why the bulk of the mAP is a summary of why I, as someone who favors liberty, would vote in the way I denote in the report.

On the other hand, there is a group I consider the Legislative All-Stars, those who score 90 percent or above or at least lead their legislative body if none reach 90 percent. (Sadly, this happened this year in the Senate, and that leader is among those retiring.) If the Maryland General Assembly had those legislators as a working majority we could vastly improve our state’s lot in life.

Before I conclude, I want to once again thank someone for her work, a task which perfectly complements the idea of this one but occurs during the legislative session. Elizabeth Myers (who I have interviewed before for my old TQT feature) runs Maryland Legislative Watch, which works during session to determine the merits of each bill and works to keep bad ones from ever getting out of committee. With over 2,500 bills introduced last session, dozens of volunteers are needed to keep track of them all, grade them on pro-liberty merits, and keep the heat on legislators in stopping violations of liberty from proceeding.

Moreover, they cover every vote a legislator makes during session and recently updated the site to provide this information for legislators all the way back to 2005 for Delegates and Senators. It may seem like competition but we actually work together in the respect that MLW provides a lot of raw data and I give context on key issues. The Maryland Legislative Watch data is also useful for showing just how many votes are unanimous and how much of the legislature’s time is devoted to local issues; these are the ones which incumbents generally point with pride at bringing home the bacon.

You can judge for yourselves whether legislators vote the correct way on the issues I present. I simply provide this service to Marylanders as a way of being more aware of how the sausage grinding in Annapolis turned out this year. Methinks there was something rotten in the state of Maryland, now known as the “Fee State.”

Too quiet

It’s been a strange week on the political front, because there hasn’t been a lot of news on the Republican side of things. And it may be because all hands are on deck soliciting money by Tuesday night to add to their first pre-primary report, then counting up the contributions and filling out the paperwork for a campaign finance report due right after Memorial Day.

So I found it quite the paradox that a campaign which has supposedly raised over $500,000 sent me an e-mail which told me:

As of (Thursday), our campaign to end the status quo in Annapolis is just $5,633 from reaching the matching funds threshold. When we hit that number, the money we have raised qualifies for the 12:1 match!

But wait – I thought the threshold was about $250,000. Naturally, there are some catches:

Only contributions from private individuals count, so money from business, other campaign entities, PACs, and LLCs are among those funds which cannot be used.
The limit on a matched donation is $250, so if someone donates $4,000 only the first $250 goes to the kitty.
Campaign loans do not count.

Having looked at Hogan’s first campaign statement, it was clear that many of his contributions didn’t meet those criteria, so he’s still short on attaining the match. That’s not to say that any of the other campaigns have made it either, so it essentially remains a two-man race insofar as fundraising goes. And neither of them can hold a candle to all the special interest money pouring into the Democrats’ coffers.

But when May 27 comes we’ll have a good idea where the campaigns sit financially as the campaign enters its final month. In the meantime, next week will probably be somewhat of a quiet week as people prepare for Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial beginning of summer. Surely the campaigns will be out there among the people too.

monoblogue music: “This Clumsy World” by Keith Alan Mitchell

The forthcoming release by Keith Alan Mitchell drops June 20.

After a week’s hiatus, monoblogue music is back with this forthcoming release.

From the opening notes of Keith Alan Mitchell’s upcoming solo debut called “This Clumsy World” it’s apparent that the singer-songwriter is at home in the realm of rural American music. That seems a little unusual for a songwriter based in the San Francisco Bay area, but given his Ohio roots it made a little more sense.

Yet while one would think this would mainly be an acoustic set based on the opener Been Buried, that reality is that only one other song, the final track Our Eyes, is of a similar nature. Instead, the majority of tracks have a country feel to them, particularly in the ballads Crossed That Line and Swaying. That song, the album’s longest, features backing vocals from Kathy Kennedy and seems like the song one would punch up on the jukebox just before closing time, when those looking through the beer goggles are seeking someone with whom they’d forget the world until morning.

On the other hand, the more upbeat songs like You Just Disappear or Diamond Blues show some lyrical dexterity as well. The latter is a definite toe-tapper.

A more conventional arrangement is found in Tavern Angeline, which revives the age-old theme of hanging out at the neighborhood bar, albeit with a different musical style (and without its tone of desperation) than say, Don Henley’s Sunset Grill. Mitchell sticks with a full band on the next track, The Feud, and to me that is the highlight of the collection as it reminded me of early CSNY stuff. It’s sort of a dark song, but the piano fade somehow works there as well. And The Low Way works well lyrically as a tribute to the working man.

Being a self-produced effort, though, there are a couple instances where another producer may have improved a song. This is true with Next Time and Every Every, which to my ear have some minor flaws in their arrangement. On balance, though, it’s a reasonably well-crafted collection.

I thought the choice of title was a little strange, as “clumsy” is a world seldom used in this day and age. But the title comes from the lyrics of What It Means To Soar, as Mitchell explained on his website blog:

I started crossing off ideas I didn’t care for and there right in the middle of the list remained “This Clumsy World” – a line from the chorus of “What it Means to Soar.” I have to admit, I can’t remember if I decided while I was in LA, or if I stewed on it for a while longer. But the more I thought about it, it seemed like the perfect title.

I think an album should create it’s own “world.” It should be self-contained and take the listener somewhere – and be interesting and engaging enough that you could sit in front of some speakers and have this experience of going somewhere else, hearing about someone else’s problems – real or fictional – rather than dwelling on your own, and give you a feeling. Hopefully many feelings.

But it’s also clumsy – because the world itself is an imperfect place. Things don’t often go exactly how we want them to, if ever, and rarely are they elegant. Yet it’s the imperfections that make people unique, and randomness plays a huge role in most peoples’ lives – as much as we might not want to admit that.

The album should appeal most to those who like acoustic music, although the tracks with the enhanced band tend more toward country or country-rock.

On June 20 Mitchell is planning his CD release show in San Francisco, but hasn’t laid out a tour to support the album yet. As always, I think you should listen for yourself but if you think it’s worth your effort to buy, perhaps he’ll be inclined to follow.

Update: I received an e-mail from Keith thanking me for the review, and in it he mentioned that Tavern Angelina was inspired not only by Sunset Grill (which was an uncanny coincidence because that was the song I thought of while writing the piece) but also the fictional bar the dockworkers frequented in season 2 of “The Wire.” He has a bit of a connection with the Baltimore area, as some of his family lives in Glen Burnie.

A certified entrepreneur

Last night was worth the effort. Normally I’m not one for driving a couple hours to be with people I don’t really know, but the exception was made and it leads to this post today.

The occasion: the debut of a new enterprise I have a part in, called American Certified. And they threw a nice little party to commemorate their launch.

The concept of the company is relatively unique: it serves as a clearinghouse for American-made products, making them easier to find, with the “Certified” portion being a label which not only demotes that it’s American-made, but allows consumers to shop for products based on over 100 different traits, potentially even creating specialty stores. If I wanted to buy a product from a woman-owned Republican company, they could give me a list. Yet it harnesses the power of Amazon to handle the part it does best, selling and delivering the product.

The project is the brainchild of “serial entrepreneur” and inventor Marvin Weinberger, who explained that in the past he’d had opportunities to manufacture his products overseas but resisted out of love and loyalty to America – his parents both immigrated to this country as his mother was a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto. Now he believes “I’m on the right side of history” by promoting American-made products, and he did the market research to back up this belief. As of the launch, there were 1.7 million products available, with another 8.4 million “in the pipeline,” according to Weinberger.

Nor was it an easy task, said Weinberger, as they restarted the process six times in eighteen months before finally assessing, “we cracked the code.” And so, with a virtual ribbon cutting, they were underway.

Yet the idea of locally-sourced and American products wasn’t just for show.

These shirts? American-made, “in a sweatshop-free environment.” Naturally I picked out a red one.

Where possible, the food and drink was local to the Philadelphia area as well. I enjoyed a Yuengling Light while my dessert came from here.

They insisted I take home a box, so butterscotch krimpets it was – that’s what Kim wanted.

But aside from the party itself, there are some other things we can take away from American Certified.

For starters, the company is located in an otherwise nondescript building in downtown Philadelphia.

Its location, however, functions as a business incubator called Venturef0rth, which describes itself as “10,000 square feet of 24×7 inspiration.”

Venturef0rth (and yes, it is spelled with a zero – that’s not a typo) takes one floor of this building, and the guest list for American Certified’s party was dotted with entrepreneurs from some of the other entities within wishing them success. As a place to work, it’s definitely a little off the wall, as signs like these dot the workspace.

But take a look again at the photo up top. Wouldn’t a politician dream about having that sort of crowd? [And as I was saying to an entrepreneur (and potential future writing client) the party should be run like a political event – start at 6, begin the spiel at 7. That’s just about how Marvin did it, and he was done by 7:30 or so.] It was mainly younger people, diverse in gender and ethnicity, and many of them were dreaming about making their success the old-fashioned way, through hard work. I wouldn’t doubt Venturef0rth is occupied during a lot of typical non-working hours.

I alluded to this a few days ago, but the portion of the AC site where I come in is now up. This is how one of my posts looks via my camera.

The actual page, which I decided to call the Sausage Grinder, is here. Now you’ll notice that these articles aren’t retreads of what you read here, and for the most part that is how they will remain. While there is a political element to the concept, I think it’s best to leave the two separate since the Sausage Grinder will focus mainly on national issues affecting “made in America” while monoblogue will stay primarily state-based. (Doesn’t mean I won’t link from here, though.) I was told that my work is the template the other bloggers, which appear to be a pretty diverse lot, are encouraged to follow. Mine is considered the “trade” blog, while the others look at reshoring, consumerism, and agriculture from their standpoints.

In order to make money, those among the millions who don’t mind paying a premium for American-made products – although as the market grows, the premium may well disappear – are the target audience for American Certified. I’m glad to be in on the ground floor because I think entrepreneurship and hard work should remain American traits.

Shorebird of the Week – May 15, 2014

Owner of perhaps the most torrid Shorebird bat and riding a 14-game hitting streak, Mike Yastrzemski is trying to make his own path to the big leagues – comparisons to his Hall-of-Fame grandfather Carl are too obvious to make. That connection and the inherent pressure may have been why Mike passed up an opportunity to play in the Boston system out of high school in favor of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee – far enough away from his Massachusetts home to let Mike blaze his own trail.

Indeed, Mike has been drafted three times – Boston drafted him in the 36th round as a high school senior in 2009, Seattle tried three years later in the 30th round, and finally Baltimore grabbed Yastrzemski in the 14th round last year and sent him to Aberdeen, where he hit .273/3/25/.781 OPS in 57 games. These were nowhere near the numbers the elder Yaz put up in a mercurial two-season minor league career before making his MLB debut in 1961 and becoming a fixture in Beantown for the next 23 seasons, but they were good enough to merit the promotion to Delmarva and the 23-year-old is raking thus far.

Through last night, Mike was batting .299/3/18/.867 OPS and leading the team in several offensive categories, perhaps just a tick better than the season he had in 2013 with the IronBirds. While he mainly played center field with Aberdeen, though, Mike has moved over to right field for the Shorebirds and as such has picked up five outfield assists.

While he’s a slight bit older than league average because he played four seasons in college, Mike is still doing well enough that he could make the SAL All-Star team and, more importantly, move up to Frederick by season’s end. (Three former Shorebirds – Glynn Davis, Lucas Herbst, and Brenden Webb – are tearing up the Carolina League at the moment, though.) So far the younger Yaz has proven himself a solid player for the Shorebirds, and those skills can surely translate up the ladder.

“You make less, government takes more.”

We haven’t heard a whole lot from gubernatorial candidate Ron George lately. Certainly part of the problem was a lack of campaign money to get his message out, complicated by this side job he had of being a Delegate during the session. (According to the Maryland Legislative Watch website, out of all the votes available Ron was absent for just one – albeit an important one for SB134 – on January 28. Heather Mizeur also was out one day, March 13, and missed a total of eight votes. Both should be commended for that attendance record despite the crimp it certainly put in campaigning.)

But all along George has maintained perhaps the most comprehensive platform, and to be quite honest Ron’s impressed me in the race as one of the work horses as opposed to one of the show horses.

So it was nice to see the succinct line I quoted as the title as the lede to a recent release from George:

You make less, government takes more. That is Martin O’Malley’s economic model. News broke this morning that the number of state employees making over $100,000 grew in the last year alone by 20% (Maryland Reporter, May 13, 2014). This follows a trend that O’Malley started in 2007 at the start of the recession. As the recession began, other governors such as Tim Kaine cut their administration’s payrolls and budgets, but Martin O’Malley drastically increased the pay to his staff. Over the course of an eight year recession, he has increased government spending by 36%! In his first five years alone, O’Malley decreased the private sector by a net of 73,000 jobs, yet government grew by 26,500 jobs. I know. I was there on the front lines. As your next governor, it is a trend I plan to stop.

Help me build a new Maryland. One that stops the taking and starts the growing. While others running sat wishing someday to be governor, I rolled up my sleeves, got in the fight, exposed waste, won battles for secure drivers licenses, a tech tax repeal, lower boat excise tax, and helped kill 240 of the 320 taxes proposed.

The latter portion alluded to his eight years in the General Assembly. Unfortunately, Ron missed an opportunity: it’s “O’Malley/Brown.” Have to tie those two together since they are essentially peas in a pod.

But all this – and more – is true of Maryland over the last eight years; moreover, it’s not just a fiscal phenomenon. Government in Annapolis has taken our local control of zoning matters, threatened counties which, in their belief, don’t spend enough on education – talk about bullying! – restricted our Second Amendment freedom, increased the surveillance state, and placed an unneeded moratorium on a viable and vital development for portions of our state. Would all of this have happened under an Ehrlich/name your 2010 Republican successor administration? Perhaps, but I doubt it.

And Ron must be raising a little bit of money as he retained a young man new to the region as his Communications Director. As he is a graduate of the University of Toledo, I would wager Casey Cheap is familiar with my birthplace, so that immediately piqued my interest. Perhaps a George-driven economy could bring a few more from the Midwest?

I also noticed one more thing about the George release:

Each donor will receive a call from me personally.

It seems like the “smile and dial” should really be on the soliciting end, but it appears Ron is taking a page out of the Dan Bongino playbook and calling to thank individual donors. While he’s free to call me anytime anyway, let me say that if you think Ron has a good message he could certainly use the financial support. It’s not like he’s built up thousands of Facebook likes from a vague message of “change” without a ton of substance behind it.

Coming from behind?

Hey, what do you know? After saying my piece yesterday I got an internal poll. (Well, actually Jeff Quinton got it, but I can use it to make my point.) I did receive the presser which alerted me to the fact that Larry Hogan was polled to be within striking distance of Anthony Brown.

One other aspect of the Wilson Perkins Allen internal poll that I thought interesting was the “blind ballot test” question (page 2 here), where an ersatz candidate with Hogan’s background leads a Brown stand-in by a 45-44 margin. Yet, as Quinton points out, we don’t have the crosstabs or other information to correlate with the actual electorate. Using a 2010 turnout model – which may well be overstating Democrat turnout this time around and underestimating the GOP’s – and cross-referencing it to current partisan registration gives a model reflected below:

Democrats – 2,055.678 (55.2%) x 54.84% = 1,127,334, or 56.1% of electorate
Republicans – 952,320 (25.6%) x 62.45% = 594,724, or 29.6% of electorate
unaffiliated/others – 716,830 (19.2%) x ~ 40% = 286,732, or 14.3% of electorate

2,008,790 voters means first to a million wins. But the polling should reflect these numbers on a partisan basis; in fact I would be inclined to add a couple points to the GOP column so we really are punching a little beyond our weight. O’Malley fatigue may keep some Democrats home and motivate the Republicans.

Also remember that the rerun of Bob Ehrlich for a third time may have kept a few GOP stalwarts home, just as the 1998 rematch between Ellen Sauerbrey and Parris Glendening was far less exciting than the 1994 version. 1994 was a wave year for the GOP, and there are some signs 2014 may be the same if the GOP doesn’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as it has done before. Certainly turnout was better on all fronts in 1994: that year 64.93% of Republicans, 60.98% of Democrats, and 46.34% of “declines” turned out. Democratic turnout has slumped 8.37% from its 1998 peak, while Republicans have dropped 4.99% from their 2002 high-water mark in gubernatorial elections. Strictly unaffiliated voters have dropped off 8.35% from their 1994 high point.

For Republicans, turning out at 2002 levels could mean an extra 50,000 votes and perhaps that would swing some local races.

While playing with the numbers is fun for any candidate, there is that minor detail of getting past the GOP primary, and the poll doesn’t indicate whether Hogan remains in the GOP lead. Reputable polls so far have shown that Mr. Undecided is the clear favorite, but it’s impossible for him to win here in Maryland so someone else will have to prevail. It’s likely that whoever wins will not have a majority in the race, so he will have a lot of fences to mend.

But while Hogan and his cohorts have been speaking on the economy – and rightfully so – a close second in importance to many voters is education. This is why what David Craig had to say yesterday at Townhall.com was important. An excerpt:

If (former GM executive turned author) Bob Lutz is a car guy, then you can call me an “education guy.” I spent 34 years in Maryland’s public schools as a teacher and an assistant principal. My career started as our nation was on top, coming off an age when we sent men to the moon and returned them safely to the earth. There were no waivers, no Common Core, no ‘No Child Left Behind,’ and no U.S. Department of Education.

What I had back then, and what Governor Pence needs now, and what my home state of Maryland urgently needs, is to give control to teachers in the classroom. Maryland has rushed head first to adopt every federal program in the last several years including Obamacare, Common Core and EPA stormwater regulations, to name a few. The results are always the same – poor execution, millions of dollars wasted and excessive regulation and taxes.

Here is a simple message to anyone concerned about making education work for students and not education bureaucrats. Let teacher’s (sic) teach, let them do their job.

Nobody will ever capture a child’s imagination in the classroom from Washington D.C. Common Core is bean counters and bureaucrats run amok. They will destroy our education system. No amount of tinkering or re-branding will ever fix it. End it and return control of the classroom to teachers and local school boards.

Craig is perceptive enough to sense the concern that Indiana is adopting Common Core under another name. Yet the question sure to come up in any debate is how we would do without the federal grant money. I can also guarantee Craig will be painted as heartless and out-of-touch if he questions the wisdom of expanding pre-kindergarten, even with its dubious benefits.

Try as some might, education is not a one-size-fits-all commodity. What works well for Dylan in Maryland may not do the trick for Amy in California. And while I’ve had some thoughts in the past about education I still think are worth pursuing, we have to backtrack from where we’re at in order to get pointed in that right direction. The next generation is all we have at stake.

Pork in the Park 2014 in pictures and text

As I pointed out on Saturday, I talked about the music before the event, which was unusual for me. It was also unusual for us to go to Pork in the Park on Friday night, as I think I only have maybe one time before. But we had our reasons, and it turned out to be a good experience.

It didn’t turn out to be the rainy Saturday we all feared, but I found the crowds were much more manageable on Friday. For example, here was a shot of the food court as we arrived about 7:00.

One thing I found was that the change in date from its usual late April timeslot to Mother’s Day weekend probably affected competitor and vendor turnout. In 2013 there were over 100 competitors, but just 40 or so this year. So there were only a couple of non-local places actually selling ribs in the food court. Nothing against the locals, but I can have theirs any time.

I tried the Texas Rib Rangers on the right, which really didn’t have a line by the time we ate. Kim went with this outlet – maybe it was because Hess BBQ had all these trophies. (This photo shows about half, actually.)

I’m actually getting ahead of myself, though, because we didn’t eat until probably 8:30 or so. Initially we wandered around the grounds, getting a few photos of things we thought interesting like the rides.

They were tucked in alongside the judges’ tent, which invited business for next year.

I decided not to be too nosy and snap photos of the inside. To me it’s more appealing to wander around the competitors area with open eyes – and nostrils.

I don’t think I smelled THAT smell, though.

Some people believed they had a serious problem.

This group was an instant favorite with me, rocking the Gadsden flag.

And what barbecue festival is complete without beer?

This was in a good spot, in between the food court and the stage and not far from the porta-potties.

We walked back to get our food just in time for this spectacle.

I realize this is a shallow pond but where are their lifejackets? These guys almost capsized a couple times, but they lit the center bonfire and several other smaller ones.

So we went back and finally got our food. Here’s what I had.

Aside from the last couple, I thought the ribs were just okay and not great. The last two were done just right and I liked their sauce, but overall I have had better there – one batch from a Florida-based vendor who didn’t show and another victimized by the food court fiasco a couple years back. Now those were good North Carolina-style ribs.

By the time we finished eating, the food court was mainly deserted.

But the pond reflecting the lights was pretty. We were actually walking back to the stage to get my shots for the Weekend of Local Rock post when I took this.

My last shot hearkens back to the early days of Pork in the Park when they featured a Sunday car show. I just liked the Stingray and we were parked a few spots away. It was a good test shot for the camera.

Honestly, I’m hoping the change to May is not a permanent one because Easter will be back to its “normal” time slot for the next few years. The drastic decline in competitors has to be traceable to the later date, although the complaints about the new $7 entry fee were loud as well. There was also a VIP tent added to the mix, but I thought that was too far away from the action to be viable.

As of this writing I don’t know if the plan will be to hold it in May again next year or go back to the likelier date of April 17-19, 2015. As long as it doesn’t snow we’ll be okay.