Mission impossible?

Consider this an open letter to the 16 or 17 Republican presidential campaign teams.

From the sound of it, we are planning to do our Wicomico County Lincoln Day Dinner in early November. Originally we wanted to get Larry Hogan as our speaker, but so did everyone else and then he announced he’s fighting stage 3 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Given the length of the course of treatment, it’s not likely he’ll be doing a great deal of traveling and public appearances during that time – however, should he decide to drop by the door is certainly open. I’m sure Larry would be gracious, even if it wasn’t his endorsee Chris Christie doing the talking.

Yet it’s always been puzzling to me as to why we in Wicomico County can’t get a better “name” speaker. After all, we are the “crossroads of Delmarva” and that has to count for something, right? Not only that, we have a wonderful venue at Salisbury University that we have used for several years – the food is always good.

So I look at this as a great chance for a presidential candidate who wants to think a little bit outside the box and perhaps swipe a few votes with some retail politics. We’re not all that far from New Hampshire and there are several attributes the schedulers may want to consider:

  • Between Maryland and Delaware there will be 54 Republican convention delegates (38 for Maryland, 16 for Delaware.) Even though Iowa and New Hampshire have a more advantageous position on the primary calendar, they only account for 53 delegates between them.
  • There is a potential audience of 102,793 Republicans within the four counties that make up the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland and Sussex County, Delaware. That doesn’t count unaffiliated and crossover Democrats who are desperate to not vote for Hillary.
  • All of them are within the Salisbury media market, and it’s not like the news in Salisbury has a lot of content. You may get wall-to-wall coverage if you show up.
  • We have a pretty good fundraising scheme in place which we used for the Patriot’s Dinner with Lt. Col. Allen West last year.
  • Lastly, not every Lincoln Day Dinner actually has a Lincoln. We do. He might even bring some Union troops along.

Generally our Lincoln Day dinner gets between 100 and 150 people – but I see no reason we couldn’t get 300 to 400 with the right candidate. The optics of a sold-out venue would be a shot in the arm for any campaign, so why not take advantage? You can’t let Donald Trump be the last one to show up at a Maryland event.

Back in 2012, the all-but-lost cause of Newt Gingrich came to Salisbury and drew plenty of regional attention, so here’s my earnest plea on behalf of the good Republicans of Delmarva: retail politics may well go a long way here. Do it while you’re still in the race this November and it may pay off in a year’s time.

Besides, isn’t the old adage “ask and you shall receive?” I’m asking nicely.

One thought on “Mission impossible?”

Comments are closed.