June 2014 – Page 3

In a wringer

Oh no, here comes that big bad TEA Party again. And the Democrats are using it as a fundraiser:

I’ve been working in Virginia politics for a long time, but I’ve never seen anything like what happened tonight.

Seriously: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor just lost his primary to a Tea Party challenger. Eric Cantor — Eric. Freaking. Cantor. — is officially too moderate to win the nomination of the Republican Party. And the results are not even close!

The Tea Party isn’t just alive and well — it’s taken wholesale control of the GOP.

We’ve got to stop these guys, and here’s why: If they think that the House under Eric Cantor is too moderate, you can only imagine what Congress will look like if they win this November.

Those were the words of Mo Elleithee, DNC Communications Director. So I guess Matt Bevin and J.D. Winteregg won post-election recounts over Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, respectively, while Lindsey “Grahamnesty” Graham found a way to lose to one of a host of wannabe contenders last night. Oh wait, they didn’t?

I only wish the TEA Party had “wholesale control” of the GOP, but the facts aren’t there. Certainly we can move the needle a little to the right with Eric Cantor out, but this is hype. However, the Cantor defeat also should serve as a warning to Beltway insiders that there is a huge amount of frustration with GOP leadership right now.

The base does not – I repeat, DOES NOT – want any sort of amnesty, and they don’t want to tinker around the edges of Obamacare, they want it gone. It matters not that the House is only half the Congress because they hold the power of the purse, and there are a lot of conservatives out there who found the Republican leadership was too spineless to stand for principle on that front, as the insiders kept pushing off a confrontation until it was too late and they had zero leverage.

Unlike Mitch McConnell, whose opponent’s campaign imploded in the final weeks, or the split opposition to Boehner and Graham, there was only one challenger to Cantor and the TEA Party coalesced around Dave Brat enough to get him over the primary finish line. That seems to be the key in these races.

The real test, though, will be in November. Let’s hope the TEA Party rises to put an end to failed Washington leadership from both parties.

Polls begin to make primary more clear

Depending on how you slice the data, the June 24 primary would be a Larry Hogan victory, with the only question being the margin.

The two major Maryland media outlets polled the race earlier this month, and a summary of the results had the same approximate order of Larry Hogan, David Craig, Charles Lollar, and Ron George. But it’s worth also pointing out that the sample size between polls conducted by the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun varied widely.

The Post‘s polling data split into two parts: registered voters and likely voters. And while Hogan had a statistically sizable lead among likely voters, it practically melted away among simply registered voters. Likely voters (with a previous Post poll in February as comparison):

Larry Hogan – 35% (up from 22%)
David Craig – 19% (up from 13%)
Charles Lollar – 13% (up from 6%)
Ron George – 5% (stayed in place)

Among them, Larry Hogan finally climbed ahead of Mr. Undecided, who’s now at 20%. Out of simply registered voters, though:

Larry Hogan – 23% (up from 17%)
David Craig – 18% (up from 13%)
Charles Lollar – 12% (up from 10%)
Ron George – 8% (up from 4%)

Mr. Undecided still leads there with 25%.

What this tells me is that, for anyone but Larry Hogan to win, the campaigns need to push their GOTV effort among supporters. The Post’s sample sizes are exceedingly small – 228 registered Republicans and just 110 likely ones – leading to very high margins of error of 7.5 and 11 points, respectively. And perhaps it’s not coincidental that both Post-endorsed candidates are leading their respective races.

You may also recall that awhile back Larry Hogan touted a poll where he trailed Anthony Brown by single-digits. Unfortunately, the Post did a projected Hogan vs. Brown matchup and it came out 51-33 Brown. It’s a counter-intuitive result when you look deeper into the poll’s questions to find that Democrats want the next governor to lead the state in a different direction from Martin O’Malley by a 58-34 margin. Yet they have given Anthony Brown a significant primary lead and would presumably back him in the general election.

A few days earlier, the Baltimore Sun came out with their poll, which also showed Larry Hogan out in front. They did a similar poll in February as well.

Larry Hogan – 27% (up from 13%)
David Craig – 12% (up from 7%)
Charles Lollar – 12% (up from 5%)
Ron George – 6% (stayed in place)

Again, Mr. Undecided was the clear winner with 37%, and in the Sun‘s case both polls are of likely voters with a much more significant sample size of about 500 voters – it makes the margin of error 4.4%. Except for Ron George, who basically had to disappear from the campaign trail while the General Assembly was in session, every one of the contenders essentially doubled their support in three-plus months.

If you take the most recent polls and combine them using the sample sizes, which gives higher weight to the larger Sun poll, you come up with these figures, which I also compare to a post I did in February:

Larry Hogan – 26.9% (14.4%)
David Craig – 14.5% (9.3%) (-12.4)
Charles Lollar – 12.0% (7.5%) (-14.9)
Ron George – 6.3% (5.1%) (-20.3)

If the undecideds fall along that line, the results would be:

Larry Hogan – 45.1%
David Craig – 24.3%
Charles Lollar – 20.1%
Ron George – 10.6%

I would say there’s a 50-50 chance that Hogan makes it to 50%, given that some who were thinking of voting for one of the bottom-tier candidates (particularly George) may decide to go with the guy leading the most-touted polls. Because Hogan’s already above the 40% mark I think that’s now a prospect, which may help the MDGOP rally behind Hogan as a nominee. Obviously that support wouldn’t be universal, but getting over 50% would be better than just a plurality for unity’s sake.

So it’s apparent that the message of “change,” no matter how vague and shallow – combined with a lot of money out of the candidate’s pocket and a dose of public financing – seems to appeal with Maryland Republicans who, at this juncture, believe Hogan is the best candidate. In order for second-place contender (based on poll average) David Craig to win, supporters of the Charles Lollar and Ron George campaigns would have to abandon that choice to throw their support behind Craig, and that’s a dubious prospect.

The return of Troopathon

As I have done for the last several years, I’m supporting Troopathon 7, which is a continuing effort by the group Move America Forward to send care packages to our troops on the front lines in the Long War. Even if you don’t necessarily support the mission and would prefer the troops come home, while they are still there we should do what we can to make their lives a little more comfortable.

The format is the same as previous events – on June 25 there will be an 8-hour internet telecast from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library featuring longtime hostess Melanie Morgan and many other conservative heavyweights in the media world. Generally they update their site regularly on the status of special guests.

You may recall that in past years I have been a member of a team of bloggers called the Hot Air Steamers – it was a solid lineup which garnered the second-highest amount of contributions in 2012. The folks at MAF have decided to retire that competition, though, and now every blogger works on his or her own to qualify for prizes in specific tiers, with the overall leader receiving an AR-15. Now you all could surprise me, but I’m not going to hold my breath that I can get to that level – just making it to the first tier would be a nice achievement. (It would take about 20 or 21 donors from this site to do so.)

So on the right-hand sidebar, just down from the political ads, you will see a icon similar to the one on the upper left of this post. If you click it you’ll go to a page where you can fill out an order form and anything purchased there is credited to my account. Once I verify all is in order (they’re West Coast-based so I’ll find out this afternoon) I’ll start the ball rolling myself, although if you want to go first by all means do so. It matters less that it accrues to me than it does assisting them.

It’s a cause I believe in and every little bit helps. And don’t forget you can watch the Troopathon online June 25 – as I recall it runs from 4 p.m. to midnight EDT. Their goal is a modest $300,000 this year so let’s see if we can help them get there.

For Governor

Every two years we hear the shopworn sentiment that “this is the most important election of our lives.” Okay, I wouldn’t go quite that far for Maryland in 2014, but the choice we have is clear: we can continue on a path where our fair state continues to become lock, stock, and barrel a ward of the federal government, conducted for the benefit of those who exist solely to suckle from the government teat, or we can turn our state around by diversifying the economy, restoring agriculture to a prominent position instead of favored environmentalist whipping boy, and making ourselves more prosperous by having government reach its grubby hands into our collective pockets less often.

I think any of the four Republicans can take steps in the right direction, but there are a large number of issues I care about and this is where Larry Hogan fails my test. His single-minded devotion to staying on an economic message is one thing, but it leaves me scratching my head about how he would govern when it came to other important issues. Even in its endorsement of Hogan for the GOP nod, the Washington Post noted that:

Given the time he’s had to plan his run, his campaign is glaringly short on policy specifics, and his views on education, health care and the environment are gauzy at best.

In other words, we just know that he wants to change Maryland. Well, so do I, and I have the little oval sticker on my car to prove it. But I’m just a writer and I’m not in charge of much of anything – he wants to run the state. Yet I’ll bet I’ve proposed more policy specifics than he has.

Another troubling aspect of a potential Hogan administration is that it would be the long-lost second term of Bob Ehrlich. Yes, Bob was a Republican governor, but he took pride in his bipartisanship, and Larry Hogan was instrumental in that because he helped to appoint all the Democrats who helped to undermine the Ehrlich term. Why is it only our side is called upon to be bipartisan?

There’s no doubt that Hogan has the best financial situation of any GOP challenger, but it came at a steep price. And why do I sense there’s a smoking gun someplace in the transition between Change Maryland – which was an outstanding foil to Martin O’Malley, bringing a lot of valuable economic data to public scrutiny – and the Hogan for Governor campaign? Obviously there was the wink and a nod from early on that Change Maryland was the vehicle for the eventual Hogan campaign but it really seems more and more like his organization was just a Potemkin village, bought and paid for out of Hogan’s back pocket.

I don’t want to elect the governor before we know what’s in him – we tried that once on a national scale and see how successful that was.

And then we have Charles Lollar, whose stance on many issues is quite appealing to me. I like the idea of eliminating the income tax in particular, but I notice in the interim he’s backed off his onetime priority of cutting out all federal grants – $10.557 billion worth in FY2015 – into Maryland’s budget.

But that’s not all he’s backed away from. On the NRA front, he blamed a lot of factors before throwing an unnamed campaign staffer under the bus. Listen, I understand Charles is for the Second Amendment and this seems fair enough to me, but some of the conspiracies I’ve heard on this issue from his staunch supporters boggle my mind.

Yet on the campaign trail he’s revealed a populist (as opposed to conservative) strain and tendency to pander to the audience in front of him. Take these two examples:

In an interview in September 2013 with Real Clear Markets, it was said about Charles that:

Lollar is opposed to the Purple Line, a $2.2 billion 16-mile rail project that even the richest Maryland residents are not prepared to pay for. It can only be built with substantial federal and state subsidies, as yet unappropriated: $900 million from Uncle Sam, $400 million from Maryland, and the rest from who knows where. The Purple Line is disliked by some residents because it would displace a popular walking and bike trail, but supported by developers because they think it would enhance the value of commercial property. Instead, Lollar favors small buses, which have high per-person pick-up rates.

Yet just a few months later at a Montgomery County transportation forum:

Of course we want better opportunities, better modes of transportation – a diverse collection of different ways to get back and forth to work. Livable, workable, playable communities where you can actually live, work, and play in the same place and have a legitimate conversation with yourself in the morning whether to walk or drive your bike to work and get there on time.

I think (the Purple Line) is absolutely doable. The question is – is it affordable? If it is, let’s push forward.

So which is it?

Now I definitely commend Charles for making the effort to go where Republicans fear to tread – even though he’s also been quoted as saying:

He said he is frustrated with “the Republican brand,” but chose to run as a Republican because his character and ideals most align with that party, he said.

As a whole, while he’s eliminated most of the missteps from his early campaign, I’m not sold on the hype that Lollar is the “only candidate who can win.” He has strong grassroots support in some areas, but very little money to get out his message, On Friday I received an e-mail from the Lollar campaign which claimed that:

We already have pledges from the Republican Governors’ Association and other outside groups to throw millions more into the race.

It’s not so much the RGA, which I would expect to remain neutral in a primary, but if those outside groups are so enamored with Charles, why aren’t they donating to get him through the primary? In a nutshell, it’s the story of the Lollar campaign: over-promise and under-deliver.

Early on, it seemed to me the choice was going to come down to David Craig or Ron George. So let’s run down an issue-by-issue comparison.

On election reform, Ron George has done more to work out issues with LLC contributions and increased the allowable individual contribution limit to a particular campaign for the next cycle. David Craig will look into voter fraud.
Both are willing to fight to overturn the law allowing illegal immigrants to have Maryland driver licenses, and Craig added his support of E-Verify.
While Craig would tweak around the edges of Obamacare, George has promised to join other GOP governors in fighting it.
Both candidates support opening up the western end of the state to fracking, but George also wants to build a single demonstration wind turbine off Ocean City as Virginia has proposed. I would let Virginia have its boondoggle.
With his background in education and opposition to Common Core, that area is perhaps Craig’s strongest. Originally Ron George was against Common Core; he still is but concedes “a repeal ain’t going to happen” in Maryland. I say that’s why we need a leader who concedes nothing. On the other hand, Ron has some good proposals to help private school students and I love his emphasis on vocational education.
Both would work to repeal 2013’s Senate Bill 281, although Craig is more vocal about supporting concealed carry.
Personally I would love to see David Craig repeal the Critical Areas Act and other overly restrictive environmental measures – as far as I’m concerned the Chesapeake Bay Foundation needs to be put in its place. I sincerely hope this is not a case of running right for the primary and tacking back to the center, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if this wasn’t a hit piece from the Sun that quoted him out of context. (This is especially true when Harford County was in ICLEI for a time.) Unfortunately, Ron George assisted in putting a lot of bad law in place during his first legislative term, but he’s also correctly noted much of the Bay’s problem lies in the silt stuck behind Conowingo Dam. He’s also refrained from supporting more recent O’Malley bills.
Craig would lean heavily on the Republican Governors Association in terms of initiative to limit government, but he would prefer to bring more of it back to the county level. George agrees, but would lean heavily on independent audits to better define government spending (and its role). Then again, David Craig would get rid of speed cameras.
Craig would center his job creation strategy on the state’s economic development office, but would also prefer each county set its own minimum wage. George’s strategy employs tax cuts on business, but also would employ regional-level planning with a focus on Baltimore City and additional incentives for manufacturing jobs in smaller cities such as Salisbury.
The two candidates differ on their taxation strategy, though. While Craig wants to eliminate the income tax (along with reducing the corporate tax), George doesn’t take it as far.

In both cases, there’s a lot to like although the strengths and weaknesses are slightly different. To be perfectly honest, it’s too bad we can’t have these two rolled into one super-candidate with the good ideas and aptitudes from both. But we each only get one vote, so I have to look at two other factors.

It’s truly unfortunate that state law prohibited Ron George from raising money during the legislative session, because it’s a law which has crippled him to this day. I’m sure he went into this with eyes open and was hoping to do better on fundraising last year before the session began, but it is what it is. With just a low five-figure amount in the bank at this juncture it’s going to be exceedingly hard for him to get a message out, although hopefully the other three losing candidates will assist the winner financially as much as possible. While he’s not in the catbird seat financially, David Craig should be in a good enough position to be competitive.

But perhaps the decision which sealed it for the man I’m endorsing was made early on. As we have seen with the current administration, the office of lieutenant governor can be useful – or it can be a hindrance. The rollout of the state health exchange proved Anthony Brown was a hindrance, and that’s why I think the early decision by David Craig to secure Jeannie Haddaway as a running mate makes the difference. Shelley Aloi is a very nice and gracious lady, but I didn’t get the sense of confidence she could handle the job when voters in Frederick rejected her mayoral bid. I just got the feeling she wasn’t Ron’s first choice, but he made the best decision he could at such a late juncture.

This campaign has been one of attrition – I’ve been a fan of Larry Hogan’s Change Maryland since its inception, and love the passion Charles Lollar brings to the stump. But in examining them over the course of the campaign, I’ve been left wanting. And if Ron George had made one or two decisions during the campaign a little differently, I may have been writing his name a few sentences from now. The overall decision was really that close, and if things work out that way I could enthusiastically support Ron as well. It reminds me of the 2012 GOP Senate race between Dan Bongino and Richard Douglas as, despite my eventual support for Bongino, I would have been quite comfortable if either had won because they both brought great assets to the table.

Two years ago, I saw David Craig as a moderate, establishment choice. Sure, in many respects he still is, but when it comes down to where he stands on the issues and the position he’s currently in, I think he could be the first of two great leaders for Maryland. 2014 is a good time to start the ball rolling on a new, improved Free State.

David Craig for Governor.

AC Week in review: June 8, 2014

Wouldn’t you know it: I begin a series only to bump it in week 2 because of MDGOP debate coverage. So this will truly be two weeks in review, but I’m sure you really don’t mind.

I begin by asking the question: can America keep making things? I found an interesting perspective on the question and added my own thoughts. But I also found that workers, STEM-based or not, should be flexible and highly-trained. (And while it doesn’t pertain directly to AC, I was pleased that one of our gubernatorial candidates has the same line of thinking.)

In order for our manufacturing economy to succeed, though, we need to have others around the world play fair. Unfortunately, not only China has been caught cheating on trade, with them and other countries threatening up to 500,000 steel jobs, but right here at home one group of American manufacturers is concerned that federal regulators unfairly have them in their crosshairs as well.

Longtime readers know as well that I’m excited about America’s ongoing energy boom, and in this case I look at how manufacturing can benefit, with a little help from regulators. And while the EPA is trying to do away with the coal industry through onerous regulations, Congress on the other hand is trying to rein in that body run amok with accountability and transparency.

I’m sure in the next couple days – since the unemployment rate is always released on a Friday, for weekend analysis – we will get spin on it, but this is another pre-launch piece I wrote last month on May’s unemployment numbers.

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On the first Friday of this month, analysts cheered the new low unemployment number of 6.3 percent, a low not seen in nearly six years. Moreover, the economy added 288,000 jobs – although that news was tempered by a labor force participation drop of more than 800,000 workers.

Yet out of those 288,000 jobs, just 12,000 were added in the manufacturing sector. That was “surprisingly weak,” according to Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) president Scott Paul. The AAM, an advocacy group backed mainly by the United Steelworkers union, contends that 5.8 million jobs could eventually be created by stopping currency manipulation by China, citing a recent Economic Policy Institute report which called the practice the “primary cause” of our trade deficit.

On a similar front, economist Chad Mowbray, who writes for the Shopfloor blog for the National Association of Manufacturers, detailed a number of “nagging challenges” for American manufacturers, leading off with the weak 0.1% first quarter GDP growth announced last week. (Editor’s note: that number has since been revised to a negative 1 percent growth.) Mowbray added that high marginal tax rates and uncertainty about health care costs could be factoring into the slow market growth.

In all these cases, policymakers in Washington are at loggerheads on how to proceed. A bill to deal with the currency manipulation was introduced last year and has bipartisan support, but mainly from Democrats. Unfortunately, that side seems to be placing more time and effort into trying to increase the minimum wage, which is a political nonstarter and is thought by many, including the nonpartisan CBO, to be a job killer. Republicans seem to be content with introducing bills to tweak around the edges on both tax reform and health care, but know there’s little chance of them advancing through the Senate, particularly six months before the midterm elections.

The situation, then, remains a challenging one. If, as some analysts have cited, the weather played a factor in slow economic growth, that excuse will dissipate in the summer sun. The question of whether the May jobs report was a mirage or portends better things is important, but there’s little doubt that if the manufacturing sector lags behind any recovery it will impede our progress going forward.

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It’s been a busy week, but I’ll keep monitoring the manufacturing market.

The $6 million man

Yesterday this gem came to my attention via my inbox. It’s from Ken Timmerman, who’s the running mate of gubernatorial candidate Charles Lollar.

You may have heard Charles say it: if elections in Maryland were only about the money, Michael Steele would be our U.S. Senator.

He outraised Ben Cardin by a good margin in 2006 – and lost.

Political commentators were making the same mistake today in the news reports about this candidate qualifying for public financing, and that candidate not.

Here’s the dirty secret about public financing in Maryland: it actually handicaps a campaign in the general election.

That’s right. Any Republican campaign for governor that accepts public financing will be limited in how much they can raise and spend.

Don’t believe what some candidates are telling you about their ability to get millions of dollars from these public funds – which they absurdly claim are not taxpayer dollars.

Here is the truth: any campaign that accepts public funds is limited to total spending of $2,586,124.21 – and that amount includes so-called matching funds they get from the taxpayer.

Don’t take my word for it: click here to read the rules on public financing from the State Board of Elections.

Bob Ehrlich raised over $10 million in 2006 – and still lost.

We expect will raise $6 million for the general election, and probably more.

Because we have run a lean campaign, leveraging the sweat equity of our volunteer army over the past 18 months, we expect to do much more than other campaigns with less money.

We already have pledges from the Republican Governors’ Association and other outside groups to throw millions more into the race – money that will not be available to a candidate limited to the $2.6 million spending cap imposed by the state as a condition to receive public financing.

I hope I’ve been clear enough in explaining this. A candidate who accepts publc (sic) financing will lose in November because of that hard spending cap, which includes money spent by associated groups.

Charles and I need your help now to win the June 24 primary, because we know we can win in November.

We can win in November because we have been laying the groundwork these past 18 months in Democrat strongholds – something none of our Republican competitors have not done.

You can’t start reaching out to Democrats after the primary and expect them to listen. We have already built those relationships, and have Democrats for Lollar in Baltimore City, the Eastern shore, and in Prince Georges and Montgomery counties. Some of these groups are campaigning for us openly, and some of them waiting until after the primary to support us.

So, don’t believe the hype. Join us for the real deal.

I probably didn’t need to add the final half-dozen paragraphs, particularly with the misspelling and glaring double negative (proofreading is your friend!) but my reading of the law confirms what Ken says – regardless of what others may say, this is the expenditure limit. The seed money certification also reads:

Furthermore, we certify that we will not expend in either the primary or the general election an amount in excess of the maximum spending limitation set forth by Election Law Article §15-105.

The prescribed amount was originally 30 cents for every resident in the state, but adjusted for inflation works out to the $2.6 million or so. However, the hook that could save Hogan is this line:

A gubernatorial ticket that accepts a public contribution from the Fund for an election…

Let’s say Hogan accepts the $275,000 he’s eligible for in the primary and wins. As I read it, the cycle begins anew with the general election because they’re considered separate entities. If he doesn’t take a dollar once the general election cycle begins one reading of the law would suggest that he has no spending limit. It’s an issue which would probably be dragged into court, sapping resources from Hogan at a time when he’s trying to challenge a well-funded Democrat (unless fellow public finance participant Heather Mizeur somehow secures that nomination.)

In any case, it would only make a further mockery of the public financing system which is enriching a heretofore primarily self-funded campaign. But I also want to turn my attention to the fundraising prowess Timmerman claims – if only Charles can get through the primary.

This may seem like a stupid question, but if there are outside groups willing to fork over that much money wouldn’t you think they could spare a half-million to get Charles through the primary? After all, I get e-mail every day touting a challenger here, a TEA Party favorite there…granted, these are generally for seats in Congress but would it not be a feather in someone’s camp to upset the establishment and elect a black conservative governor in Maryland? Yet I haven’t seen those appeals or that funding – perhaps it’s lost with Ben Carson’s endorsement. (On that note, if Carson endorsed Lollar’s health care plan, as Charles has claimed, wouldn’t you think it would be a prominent issue on his campaign site?)

Having said all that, if Charles loses on June 24 I hope he’s front and center at the June 26 unity dinner promising to continue spreading the message in those minority areas about the benefits of conservatism. It’s the one asset he’s brought to the campaign, and the trick is to make it a transferable one. Timmerman pointed this out about Michael Steele who, despite the racial component, still lost badly in minority-dominated areas to a white Democrat. (Steele only received about 7,000 more votes in Prince George’s County – his home territory – than Bob Ehrlich did. Both were swamped there by lopsided margins.)

All of us know we need to do better in those areas to have a chance to elect Republicans, but I’m also sure the Democrats will do what they do best and play the race card. Lollar’s outreach has to be the beginning of a process spanning several election cycles, and not the end.

monoblogue music: Matt Townsend and the Wonder of the World (self-titled)

A self-titled effort from this North Carolina-based artist, Matt Townsend and the Wonder of the World reminds the listener a lot of Bob Dylan. A lot.

This isn’t to say that Matt should run out and begin his own tribute band, but it’s the first impression one gets upon firing up this release and dropping the first song, Seventh Story. But fortunately for this listener, it’s really only the voice which is reminiscent of Bob Dylan because Matt forges his own musical direction, albeit with a few fits and starts.

After the country-tinged opener, Townsend shifts gears a little bit with the harmonies and additional instrumentation of Carry On. That song, along with the following Hollow City Streets (Free Me to My Soul), seems to have the most complex instrumentation of the nine songs on the full-length release. Overall, these songs are unusually long for the genre of music as the album runs nearly 47 minutes. Based on that fact alone, real fans will find a lot to love.

Lovers of ballads will certainly enjoy the fourth song of the set, Wind Without The Rain. Another relatively simple song is Desire Like A Lion, the subject of this video.

The organ-based melody of Love I’m Coming Home may also be a good choice.

One unusual thing I noticed about some of Townsend’s songs is how they build up through additional instrumentation. As an example, listen to the closing song, Gratitude In Being, or The Garden Where the Grass Forever Grows. Although the former features an odd transition near the end of the song and the latter seemed a touch disjointed to me, the technique of adding instruments as the song goes is used to good effect nonetheless.

For those who prefer something in a more conventional vein, the middle song Takin’ A Moment would do them quite well.

This album came about in an unusual way, with a primary source of income being crowdfunding. Although Matt didn’t reach his stated goal, he apparently did well enough to get this far. It’s also worth noting that Townsend finds music to be a lifesaver.

Creating music for me has been literally a life saving enterprise. Writing songs and playing music has helped me survive some of the darkest times of my life. I am so grateful to be able to do it at all, because there was a time when I couldn’t.

As a whole, I would say Matt did a fine job, with my one musical quibble being an overly prominent bass drum in the mix. But the musicians, playing instruments up to and including a musical saw featured on a number of tracks, did a nice job bringing the project to life.

And since Townsend lives in Asheville, North Carolina “by way of Burlington, Vermont,” he indeed tours the area on occasion. Among a number of stops in North Carolina and Vermont, Matt has a show slated for September 4 at the Treehouse in Washington, D.C. So if you would like to find out what he’s all about in the days before his first full-length CD is released June 23, listen for yourself. With the musical roots of this region it should be fertile ground for Matt.

A good message, but who will see it?

Do you trust your government? Ron George doesn’t.

It’s an interesting commercial, although given the cuts and canned applause it’s obvious the spot was done in a studio.

But look at the message it conveys. We all know the government rarely deserves our trust in this day and age, and Maryland is a prime example. The waste and fraud run rampant in this state, and decades of one-party rule encourages the spigot to remain full-on. We all know this.

So it was interesting that the question was teed up for him in such a way. The commercial is a “genuine fake” in the sense that it wasn’t recorded at the original debate at which Ron uttered those words, but restating it in the better setting is somewhat creative. Unlike the Larry Hogan radio commercial where I found the message is somewhat cluttered by the crowd noise (because it was recorded live) this works rather effectively.

Of course, the question is who will get to see it? Needless to say, I’m giving Ron a little bit of earned media from this but I’ll bet I’m one of the few bloggers who will because others are backing other candidates. With only a modest amount in the bank and no prospect for public financing, the buy will probably be a limited, cable-only buy – if there’s any commercial space left available between the plethora of state and local candidates who may be in their own primary battles around the major media markets.

Now there is a little bit of good news – in my opinion, the audio from the ad can work as a radio ad as well, with a little bit of work and addition of a spoken authority line. It’s a money-saving measure and by all accounts Ron desperately needs to get the most bang for his bucks.

Shorebird of the Week – June 5, 2014

A year ago today, Chance Sisco was on the verge of a decision – go to college at the University of Oregon or play professional baseball. A newly-minted graduate of Santiago High School in Corona, California, Chance certainly had to figure his name would be called in the MLB draft, and the Orioles did so in the second round. Obviously they made him enough of an offer to entice him to play pro.

So a year later, after tearing up the Gulf Coast League with a gaudy .371/1/11/.938 OPS in 31 games and getting the opportunity to play a couple games with Aberdeen, where he went 1-for-5, Chance is a Shorebird. At just 19 years of age, starting the season with players 2-3 years older in Aberdeen would have been a solid leap forward for the youngster but instead he’s jumped all the way up to primary catcher with a Delmarva team which boasts one of the best pitching staffs in the South Atlantic League, and he doesn’t appear to be overmatched. You find interesting splits on the Baseball-Reference site and one of those is batter statistics against older/younger pitchers – Sisco has yet to face a pitcher younger than he this season in the SAL.

The Shorebird numbers are very good – hitting .273/2/16/.706 OPS is quite solid for a catcher, particularly on a team which has seen its share of catchers who struggle to keep their average above the Mendoza line. And out of a draft where the Orioles selected three high school catchers in the first six rounds, Sisco has established himself as the cream of the crop. (All three Shorebird catchers so far this season were in the same 2013 draft class – Sisco in the second round, Alex Murphy in the sixth, and Austin Wynns in round 10.)

Naturally there are some things to work on, particularly since Chance is a converted shortstop. And after a nearly even ratio of walks to strikeouts in the GCL, Sisco now has a 36/9 K/BB ratio, which shows how much better the pitching is. Chance also missed a couple weeks early on due to injury.

But after several lean years, the Oriole organization catching stockpile seems to be improving rapidly and Chance’s name will be in the conversation about prospects sooner rather than later.

A pre-primary crop failure for two GOP candidates

I know those involved in one of the two campaigns involved were optimistic about making the deadline, but the Washington Post is reporting that neither Ron George nor David Craig collected enough “seed money” to qualify for public financing before the June 3 primary deadline. Because of that, Larry Hogan will pick up an additional $275,000 monetary advantage over his fellow contenders, and that’s big when the three others combined don’t have $275,000 in the bank between them right now:

Charles Lollar – $17,999.87
Ron George – $28,943.61 (includes $18,000 in loans)
David Craig – $144,058.54

Conversely, Hogan has $389,206.92 in the bank, an account which includes $500,000 in loans to himself and over $100,000 in additional in-kind contributions, donations from related LLC entities, and so forth from his personal coffers. But he spent enough on fundraising to secure the $258,642 in seed money to qualify for public financing.

There’s no question that this will help Hogan, who had burned through $342,007.24 in the preceding six weeks before financial reports were due last month. The Hogan campaign announced a fortnight-long bus tour yesterday, and the extra money can make this a two-pronged final push for him between television ads and the bus tour. Even with all that, Larry should comfortably remain short of the $2.6 million primary limit imposed by public financing.

Of course, each campaign is going to spin this different ways – for example, Lollar’s running mate Ken Timmerman touts the campaign’s “grass roots army”:

You see, other candidates plan expensive advertising campaigns, with air-dropped TV and radio spots that tell you nothing about their character or their plans.

Charles and I are proud to fight at the grassroots, where we are already preparing the way for victory in November by working with Democrats who share our concerns over the future of this state and who share our conservative values and non-partisan solutions.

It’s a nice sentiment, but time after time I’ve watched the candidate who raises the most walk away with the nomination or election over the others who pretend grassroots can carry them. In a local election grassroots goes a long way, but it’s hard to gather that many volunteers to effectively spread a message like media can for a statewide bid. Of the four, Charles was the only one eschewing public financing but his fundraising totals have always trailed the pack regardless.

For their part, George and Craig have (and rightfully so) questioned the extent of collaboration and coordination between Change Maryland and Hogan’s campaign. I’m concerned about the timeline between the January 21 official announcement (remember, the one which was snowed out) and the February 3 beginning of Hogan campaign records. What did Change Maryland spend money on in the interim?

Of the remaining candidates, Craig probably has enough money to adequately compete in the primary but would have to get cracking on seed money collections for the general election, for which he has until September 15 to qualify. But losing out on an extra $15,000 or so a day until the primary could be a damaging blow for those who were hoping to take advantage of the former checkoff.

The grand tour

In previous years I’ve told you about a number of bus tours – everything from national and regional tours sponsored by the TEA Party Express and Americans for Prosperity to the jaunts which opened two of the four gubernatorial campaigns.

But this time the tour will serve as the coda to a primary campaign that the sponsor hopes is a prelude to bigger things in November. Over 14 days Larry Hogan’s campaign will be bussing it around the state. Here’s the regional itinerary; individual stops will surely be made public in the 24 to 48 hours beforehand.

Sunday, June 8 – Edgewater, MD – Hogan-Rutherford Picnic, Camp Letts: 2PM-5PM, 4003 Camp Letts Rd Edgewater, MD
Monday, June 9 – Montgomery County
Tuesday, June 10 – Somerset, Worcester Counties
Wednesday, June 11 – Dorchester, Talbot, Queen Anne’s Counties
Thursday, June 12 – Anne Arundel County
Friday, June 13 – Harford County
Saturday, June 14 – St. Mary’s, Calvert Counties
Sunday, June 15 – Washington, Frederick Counties
Monday, June 16 – Howard, Carroll Counties
Tuesday, June 17 – Cecil, Kent, Caroline Counties
Wednesday, June 18 – Wicomico County
Thursday, June 19 – Baltimore City, Baltimore County
Friday, June 20 – Charles, Prince George’s County
Saturday, June 21 – Allegany County
Sunday, June 22 – Garrett County

Obviously we don’t know what the content of the individual stops will be, but it looks like June 18 will be our lucky day here. Most likely it will give Larry the opportunity to go through his well-rehearsed ideas about “jobs, the middle class, and restoring our economy.” In fact, that’s about what he said:

Boyd and I are excited to kick off our Change Maryland bus tour on June 8 at Camp Letts in my home town of Edgewater. Our grassroots campaign to bring fiscal restraint, roll back taxes and clean up Annapolis continues to gather momentum as we approach the June 24 Republican primary. The tour will enable us to revisit communities across our state and engage voters who have had little voice during seven years of one-party rule.

I did see an interesting note about the picnic I thought worth sharing:

Media: The Camp Letts picnic is open to credentialed media; to register contact Hannah Marr (at her contact info.)

The Hogan camp has a reputation of not being particularly enamored with bloggers, although Red Maryland may be an exception. It may be only perception, but that sort of statement might just reinforce the stereotype. It’s probable the Democratic campaigns are already sending someone out for “gotcha” moments at public Republican events like this bus tour, so critical bloggers may not make a difference anyway.

But if you want one last chance to judge Larry Hogan in person and not base your decision on thirty-second commercials, here you go. Just make sure the bus has a Maryland plate.

That’s the idea, guys!

I don’t often get praise from the quarters of Red Maryland these days, so I was surprised to see their kind words about my monoblogue Accountability Project last week. They cited it in analyzing the Senate District 4 race between David Brinkley and Michael Hough. As it turns out, I used that race as an example of why it’s needed in certain primaries when I wrote my summary for the mAP.

So let me extend those remarks with a little more research I did. While I’ve done the mAP for seven years, I had never established an average score by party – until I decided to figure it out for 2014 the other night. So when you look at a ballot with a Republican and a Democrat on it – particularly if the Democrat has tried his or her best to convince you they have a streak of conservatism in them – remember these numbers.

On the average, Democrats in the Senate score 8.77 on a 100-point scale while their GOP counterparts average 56.75 – and this year was really, really bad for GOP senators.

In the House, Democrats average just 7.40 while Republicans average a more respectable 71.86. In most years, it’s about where the Senate would be.

So on 25 issues, which I score at 4 points apiece, the average Republican will vote the correct way somewhere between 12 and 16 more times. Granted, there are exceptions, and as a percentage of the vote both parties do somewhat better than their numbers because my overall scores deduct for absences and ducking votes. In general, a Republican gets about 18 to 23 of my 25 votes right.

Here’s another example I could have used from southern Maryland. In District 27C, current Delegate Mark Fisher is paired up with former Delegate Sue Kullen. Since my records now go back eight years, I can (and did) add to my scoresheet her lifetime score of 4, compared to Fisher’s lifetime mark of 84. Out of 25 issues, it’s likely Fisher would vote correctly 20 more times than Kullen would and that makes a huge difference.

In my District 38, the Senate race is between Democrat incumbent Jim Mathias (lifetime Senate score of 28) and Delegate Mike McDermott, with a lifetime 85 score in the House. Who would be better to represent a conservative district?

If you look at the mAP, I have several other examples where comparisons can be made. The point is that there can be a significant difference between candidates, even within their own party. For those with primary decisions to make, my guide can be a useful tool in studying the record of incumbents and working out some general election matchups – even if your candidates have no record, the average “generic” Democrat or Republican should provide a good indicator of how they’ll do.