Is it really a race, or hype?
As of today, we have a little under eight months before presumptive Democrat nominee (and incumbent governor) Martin O’Malley tangles with assumed Republican choice (and former governor) Bob Ehrlich. Both face primary challengers but it’s likely these two will be the guys come November.
I noted the other day that Ehrlich is closing the gap and this fact was not lost on the Rothenburg Political Report either. According to them, O’Malley is no longer “safe” but holds a “narrow advantage.”
Of course, the Maryland GOP is happy at the prospect, as party Chair Audrey Scott noted:
Governor O’Malley should be very concerned. Maryland voters are rejecting his agenda of high taxes, high spending and growing our state’s government… Marylanders are hurting under the failed leadership of Governor O’Malley, who has proven to be only accountable to party bosses and big wigs, not Maryland families. The primary responsibility of an elected official is to listen to their constituency. Governor O’Malley is deaf to the cries and concerns of Maryland citizens who are hurting from his out-of-control fiscal policies. Since Governor O’Malley has taken office nearly 100,000 Marylanders have lost their jobs and unemployment has reached a 26 year high, clearly he is not listening to what the people of Maryland need.”
In response, the Democrats are pooh-poohing Ehrlich’s chances. Noted Isaac Salazar on The OnLine State:
On page 19 of the (leaked to Politico) RNC document Steele and the RNC go through their targets in the 2010 gubernatorial elections. They seem confident about a lot of states – everything from Maine to New Mexico, Oregon to Tennessee, Michigan to Oklahoma, Wyoming to Ohio… OK, you get our point.
Noticeably absent… Maryland. In fact, Maryland was one of only three Democratic-held states the RNC is NOT targeting (New Hampshire and Arkansas being the other two).
With Bob Ehrlich an all but announced candidate for Governor, you would think he merits at least a mention? I mean, he is a former Governor, right?
It’s noteworthy this Salazar piece came out the day before Rothenburg’s analysis, and perhaps this could eventually change the RNC’s thinking. (It’s also funny the Democrats are worried about Michigan and Ohio – aren’t those incumbent Democrats doing a bang-up job on their state economies?)
The long-term horse race aspect is certainly more entertaining in a race that is pretty much cut-and-dried like Ehrlich vs. O’Malley than a divided one where several Republicans vie for a chance to become what conventional wisdom assumes will be cannon fodder for Barbara Mikulski. (Then again, conventional wisdom pretty much figured Scott Brown would never win the “Kennedy seat” either.)
So, newspapers need something to sell copies and bloggers need things to write about. While it’s good the experts feel we have a competitive race for governor, some of the undercards which are just as important (like a Jim Mathias trying to flip a longtime GOP seat to the D’s or the prospect his Delegate seat will go Republican) get all but ignored.
In those cases, less hype may make a better race. I’m looking forward to some big GOP wins come November.
A heavy heart (requiem for M.N.)
Through the grapevine I’ve found out one of the good guys in Maryland blogging passed away today.
While he blogged out of Anne Arundel County, I met Mike Netherland at the Tawes event in Crisfield two years ago, after I found out he was a fan of my site. In this we were a mutual admiration society; Mike wasn’t the most prolific blogger at his own site but he was an outspoken commenter in other venues and in all respects was a great spokesman for the conservative cause.
Most times death is unexpected, and judging by his last post Mike was looking forward to a lot more blogging. It reminds us again that we need to approach life by living it – little did Mike know that his version of “middle age” was several years ago.
In the space Mike had for his “about me” profile, he wrote in part:
Approaching middle age with not-so-quiet desperation, I find solace in my writing. I love trying to get people to think for themselves, thus I have a small but hardy band of friends who seem to tolerate me.
Hopefully he’s in a place where he can find out that he had more friends than he thought and we did a lot more than tolerate him. Perhaps he didn’t have the most well-read site but he held his little corner of Maryland’s blogosphere well and we’re all poorer for his loss.
Rest in peace, Mike.
So…how do you like the new look?
Here is the new look. I had to reduce the names of the pages to make this look good. I may yet have to tweak the order around to put my General Assembly voting records into a hierarchy and allow myself to add a few more pages as needs arise.
Some other changes I’ll have to make is reducing the size of pictures and videos so as not to crowd the first column on the right-hand side in future posts. That’s all right, just have to remember this once I do new posts (no need to go back and reinvent the wheel.)
Now, though, I have to figure out just how to get some of the other elements into this setup like my Site Meter and other elements. But I have nowhere to go now so this afternoon I may be able to work this out.
Do not adjust your set
Today I’m planning on playing with a new theme for my site, something a little different. So you may find a new appearance as I try to work in some of the elements I’ve built onto my site into this one.
It’s a work in progress, but I think you’ll like it. The trick will be taking the items I’ve put onto what is a pretty much dinosaur theme (Journalized Sand dates from WordPress 1.x) and attempting to fit them into a newer design with widgets. Hopefully it will be smooth but I doubt it!
Our March on Annapolis in pictures and text
Damn, that was fun!
Some say the crowd was 2,000 and some say 3,000. But considering we did this on a weeknight, outdoors, in the cold, I think this was a pretty good turnout.
It was such a big deal that the local media covered our departure!
I even had my five seconds of fame on WMDT-TV, uncredited. Maybe I’ll see if there’s a link.
More importantly, though, we had a full bus.
We arrived in Annapolis just as the sun was going down. There was a reason we arrived fairly early, and it wasn’t just so I could get a picture of the crew setting up inside the venue.
Nor was it to get the photo of this gentleman dressed for the next Revolution.
No, the reason we were early was a pleasant surprise. State Senator Harris and other GOP members of the General Assembly hosted a reception for some of those arriving at the Senate Office Building. About a dozen members gave us a rundown on the upcoming session.
Among the speakers, most noteworthy was Delegate Michael Smigiel’s call to us to look at the elected official’s term as a whole when considering them for re-election. He also pointed out the advice of Article 6 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights:
Legislators and executive officers are trustees of public; right of people to reform or establish new government. That all persons invested with the Legislative or Executive powers of Government are the Trustees of the Public, and, as such, accountable for their conduct: Wherefore, whenever the ends of Government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the People may, and of right ought, to reform the old, or establish a new Government; the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. (Emphasis mine.)
Senator Allan Kittleman continued that the protest “is not a partisan movement.” But we were “fighting for open government and accountability” and Kittleman thought the General Assembly hadn’t properly held Governor O’Malley accountable.
Delegate (and candidate for Governor) Pat McDonough chimed in that this is the time to get involved, and “the sleeping giant in America has awakened.”
Delegate Joe Boteler (a monoblogue favorite) alerted us to the fact that the budget, which was only $11 billion 14 years ago, is now $32 billion and climbing.
Finally, Delegate Steve Schuh emphasized that a “show of force” had worked before in Annapolis, citing the repeal of the “tech tax” and adoption of Jessica’s Law as examples. He also quoted Jefferson, “when government advances, freedom retreats.”
It then was time to head over to Lawyers Mall, where I ran into friends old and new. Obviously the people organizing this had little idea what to expect, least of all the weather. They did have a “snow date” picked out, but as it turned out the weather was chilly but clear and not much wind. Quite honestly, being up front where I was I stayed pretty warm.
Much as the several other TEA Parties and related events I’d attended, by and large most of the speakers weren’t your typical politicians. Rather, it seemed that the itinerary of speakers were there to represent both a sponsoring group and a different topic. A number of speakers stuck with one topic such as property taxes, the impact of government on small businesses (“the role of government is to stop punishing success”), redistricting after the 2010 Census, legislative pay and pensions, and the Tenth Amendment.
Acting as master of ceremonies was Dave Schwartz of AFP Maryland, who opened the rally by telling us to understand that government can’t solve our problems – rather, it was profit and prosperity that makes us great. He continued, “for the first time in a long time, taxpayers have a chance to take back our state.”
Speaking on behalf of the Institute for Liberty, Andrew Langer told those of us who were braving the cold that, “we have to hold government accountable – that’s why we’re here!” He announced a project called the Liberty Scorecard, which graded legislators based on their voting records. (Gee, that sounds familiar!)
While there were a number of GOP Delegates and Senators in attendance, they weren’t brought to the podium to speak. Obviously this saved time, but it also made the event less overtly political or partisan. But we did hear from one man who is running for Congress in Maryland’s Fifth Congressional District – the highly polished and passionate Charles Lollar.
Lollar told us what we already knew – 149 years of one-party rule in the Maryland General Assembly was enough! Taking shots at Democrats like Senator Harry Reid, he noted “conservatism is not a racist message” and that the 2010 elections are “about America.”
All the while, the crowd was definitely into the message – some even had their own:
While Lollar was at the podium to help promote his run, other would-be elected officials were working the crowd. One who stopped and said hello was U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rutledge.
And we didn’t forget the roots of the protest.
Aside from AFP, another sponsor was the Campaign for Liberty.
Remember the early shot of Lawyers Mall? This is one I took later on from my spot in the crowd.
I was surprised to find out our local AFP chapter had asked a speaker to come to the rally, and her introduction made certain to point out she was a Democrat who worked for fiscal conservatism. In fact, I believe she was the only actual elected official to speak.
Debbie Campbell noted that, “until people who think like we do get on the policy side of the table, we won’t change.” She also pointed out Salisbury’s wastewater treatment debacle. Just hope that she’s not thrown out of the local Democratic Party for showing up here.
Unfortunately, coming up on the bus meant that I had to leave just a little early as the final speaker was slated to be Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. I think this gives you a pretty good flavor of how things went, though.
The overall theme of this rally was one of continuing to work on a daily basis. It’s great to be with hundreds of people of like mind but most of the hard work comes from each individual spreading the word and being an advocate for limiting government’s size and responsibility over one’s life. If each of those 2,000 to 3,000 people spreads the message daily between now and Election Day, chances are good that we’ll shock the world and succeed with a seismic shift of governance in Annapolis.
We were told that this was the very first TEA Party of 2010, so hopefully we’ve set a good tone for the rest and all that work pays off come November!
And the blog poll winner is…
It really came down to two finalists, but after trailing nearly the whole time afterthegoldrush came from behind and won my “best local blog” poll. Over 300 votes were cast and ATGR garnered precisely 50% of the vote, beating Salisbury News by 6 votes 152-146. The other six votes went to Twirling, Twirling, Twirling Towards Freedom. It appears that camp placed itself squarely behind ATGR in order to win and the strategy paid off.
While there’s no prize for winning, I suppose Ridgely Griffith can link to this post and the poll itself as proof he has the best blog in Salisbury. I’m not arguing with that sentiment considering his competition, but it is somewhat humorous that the first time ATGR and Salisbury News faced off in the opening round, Salisbury News won. Yet Joe Albero lost when it really counted.
All right, back to more serious stuff for both the blog and the poll.
2009’s influential blogs
I had such fun with this last year (including rare verbosity from Salisbury News blogger Joe Albero) that I’m doing it again this year despite the fact I declined in most categories. I do enjoy the comparison because it gives me a point of reference for improvement.
Once again, I’ll begin with the overall Maryland list. Having the target on his back didn’t hurt Albero, although there is a caveat.
Maryland’s politically influential blogs 2009
- Salisbury News (1)
- Inside Charm City (17)
- The Carroll Standard (-)
- On The Record (13)
- The Dagger (-)
- Maryland Politics Watch (9)
- Red Maryland (3)
- Pocomoke Tattler (4)
- Baltimore Reporter (14)
- monoblogue (2)
- The Sun: Maryland Politics (-)
- The Silver Spring Penguin (-)
- Delusional Duck (10)
- Annapolis Capital Punishment (19)
- The Political Octagon (-)
- Questing for Atlantis (-)
- Kevin Dayhoff (-)
- Rockville Central (-)
- Delmarva Dealings (12)
- Faster, Better… (-)
As you may have guessed, the parentheses represent a blog’s 2008 rank. I actually had a tie for 20th but Faster, Better… was ranked more times than Brian Griffiths’ site was so it grabbed the last spot and Brian had one of nine sites which fell out of last year’s Top 20 list (he was 6th) – the others being PolitickerMD (5), Charles County Cafe (7), Worcester Right (8), Free State Politics (11), Gunpowder Chronicle (15), The No BS Zone (16), Maryland Politics Today (18), and The Duck Unplugged (20). Free State Politics and The Duck Unplugged are apparently no longer active as they didn’t rank in any weekly top 20 this year, while most of the others were ranked too infrequently to remain on top.
The caveat on Salisbury News is that it built up a nearly insurmountable lead early on but Inside Charm City actually performed better in the latter half of the year. So we’ll see if Joe can make it three in a row next year.
Let’s look back at the per-post category next.
Maryland’s politically influential blogs 2009 (per-post)
- Insane Baltimore (-)
- Brian Griffiths (3)
- Maryland On My Mind (8)
- Baltimore Reporter (20)
- What A Smell? (-)
- Gunpowder Chronicle (-)
- monoblogue (1)
- Legum’s New Line (-)
- gaithersblog.net (-)
- The Carroll Standard (-)
- Faster, Better… (-)
- Annapolis Politics (11)
- Questing For Atlantis (16)
- Beltway Progressive (18)
- The Political Octagon (-)
- The No BS Zone (6)
- Red Maryland (-)
- Kevin Dayhoff (-)
- Howard County Maryland Blog (9)
- Pocomoke Tattler (2)
As you can see, half the field turned over in what was the wildest subcategory – it was nothing to have a contender jump several spots in one week by being listed while others ahead of it weren’t. Only three of last year’s top 10 maintained a similar ranking and #4 Salisbury News fell completely out of the top 20 along with #5 O’Malley Watch, among others.
Then we get to my favorite subcategory – a few weeks down in the lower half of the top 10 cost me in the end.
Maryland’s politically influential blogs 2009 (conservative)
- Red Maryland (2)
- The Carroll Standard (-)
- monoblogue (1)
- Brian Griffiths (3)
- Baltimore Reporter (7)
- Faster, Better… (-)
- Kevin Dayhoff (8)
- What A Smell? (18)
- Questing For Atlantis (11)
- Delmarva Dealings (4)
- Gunpowder Chronicle (5)
- The Political Octagon (16)
- Worcester Right (6)
- Baltimore History Examiner (13)
- The Hedgehog Report (14)
- PG Politics (-)
- Annapolis Politics (15)
- Maryland Conservatarian (17)
- Gory Prince George’s (-)
- Howard County Maryland Blog (19)
Once again, I had a tie for 20th and Howard County Maryland Blog was listed in more weeks than Maryland Chesapeake Blog.
As you can see, given the limited universe there wasn’t much turnover. Just four new finishers means four fell out: The No BS Zone (9), Pillage Idiot (10), Anne Arundel Maryland Politics (12), and Maryland Chesapeake Blog (20). The top 8 all stayed in the rankings someplace.
The same goes for liberal blogs – their numbers only gained three and lost two, so they only get a top 10.
Maryland’s politically influential blogs 2009 (liberal)
- Annapolis Capital Punishment (3)
- Maryland Politics Watch (1)
- Just Up The Pike (2)
- Maryland On My Mind (5)
- Legum’s New Line (-)
- Insane Baltimore (10)
- Beltway Progressive (9)
- Duck Duck Goose (6)
- Two Sentz (-)
- WB&A Blog (fka Crablaw) (4)
Legum’s New Line and Two Sentz ejected Lost On The Shore and The Duck Unplugged from the top 10, but that doesn’t say much. WB&A Blog only made the rankings three times to garner a top 10 spot. But the top 6 finishers were pretty regular contenders.
Because I split up the Delmarva rankings from last year, using the “official” Top 20 will provide a lot of turnover. Many of those who were ranked in 2008 aren’t even active anymore.
Delmarva’s politically influential blogs 2009
- Salisbury News (1)
- Delaware Liberal (8)
- Two Sentz (19)
- Fix Red Clay (16)
- Delmar DustPan (5)
- Delaware Way (14)
- fingerpost (-)
- Citizens For Greater Centreville (-)
- Red Maryland (-)
- Delmarva Dealings (9)
- Pocomoke Tattler (3)
- monoblogue (4)
- Tobinville (-)
- The Pocomoke Public Eye (-)
- Delawarepolitics.net (-)
- Maryland Libertarians (-)
- The Colossus of Rhodey (-)
- Nanticoke Blues (-)
- The Balloon Man (-)
- Up A Creek In Lower Slower Delaware (-)
With this being the first full year of Delmarva rankings, there’s not likely to be such turnover in 2010 and this is probably a more fair assessment based on regular placement in the rankings.
Obviously I enjoyed being the lead dog in many of these categories last year so this year was a little disappointing. But I take solace in the fact that I put together the best website I could while serving several other masters like Red County, Liberty Features Syndicate, and the Patriot Post.
I had a lot of good comments last year so have at it. And Happy New Year!
All apologies
Some of you may have noticed my posting over the weekend was sporadic, and I feel I owe you an explanation.
When I go out of town for business or family reasons, I prefer to prewrite posts a few days in advance so there’s always fresh content on at least a daily basis. (It also makes it harder to guess when I’m away.)
Last week I upgraded my site to WordPress 2.9 and found there’s a major flaw in the software which affects post scheduling. I can set a post to go at a particular time but once the moment arrives the post remains in the queue, unpublished. And since I was away with family who only had limited dialup computer access this made it difficult to keep up my site properly. When you’re expecting posts to come up for four consecutive days away and they don’t pop up, you’re not a happy camper.
Apparently WordPress is working on this but I’ll have to wait until version 2.9.1 gets its beta testing and release to fix the bug. It can’t come soon enough.
And now for something completely different.
The final poll is now set for my semi-mythical “best blog” competition: it turns out to be a first-round rematch of sorts with an additional opening round winner thrown in for good measure.
Twirling, Twirling, Twirling Towards Freedom overwhelmingly won the second semifinal with a new record 72 votes (65 percent), with Salisbury News garnering 27 (25%) to be the top second-place votegetter. But afterthegoldrush won the first semifinal and gets added to the final field. I think that sets up a father-daughter competition so we’ll see if Joe Albero’s site takes advantage of a split loyalty vote.
The voting takes place through next week, so vote early and often for your favorite!
A tale of two polls
The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform is having their annual tongue-in-cheek poll to decide which lawsuit filed this year was the most egregious abuser of the legal system. You can go to the facesoflawsuitabuse.org site to vote for yourself. My choice was the illegal immigrant suing the rancher, but several others are worthy of consideration – so far the illegal immigrant suit is winning with 35% of the vote.
Speaking of winners, overnight the first semifinal of my local blog poll closed up and the results were a surprise!
afterthegoldrush, which barely squeaked into the semifinals as a wildcard and #6 seed (out of 6), blew away the field by garnering 52% of the vote, with Delmar DustPan (#4 seed as a first-round winner) putting itself in the position for the wildcard with 35 percent. The original #1 seed, Alive in the Chesapeake, ended up with just 13% of the vote.
The second semifinal will feature first round winners Twirling, Twirling, Twirling Towards Freedom and Salisbury News along with wildcard Right Coast Girl. It will be over by Christmas Day and the finals will be picked up next week.
Poll update 4
Well, we are through the first-round competitions, and astute readers yesterday would have noticed that Delmar DustPan garnered 50% of the vote to advance, defeating Views of a Salisbury Grinch (32%) and Eastern Shore Libertarians (18%) in the closest of the four first-round competitions.
So the semifinals are set, with the four first-round winners (Salisbury News, Twirling Twirling Twirling Towards Freedom, Alive in the Chesapeake, and Delmar DustPan) being joined by two wild cards, those two being the two best second place finishers. Right Coast Girl (30 votes/41% in its competition) and afterthegoldrush (23 votes/39% in its first-round battle) were the top two runners-up and advanced. The fields were reset into seedings (1 thru 6) and worked to be as even as possible without a rematch (in other words, the two runners-up were not placed with their round winner.) The first semifinal features the #1, #4, and #6 seeds while the second has #2,#3, and #5 seeds.
The two winners and one wildcard will advance to the finals, to be held during the week after Christmas.
Poll update 3
Another poll, another winner advances. Alive in the Chesapeake moves on along with previous round winners Twirling, Twirling, Twirling Towards Freedom and Salisbury News. They’ll join the winner of the next round and two second-place finisher wild cards in the semifinals next week.
AitC captured a record 42 votes in the contest (58%) but needed most of them to stave off Right Coast Girl, which had 30 votes for 41 percent. Delmarva Dealings brought up the rear with just one supporter.
I’ll set up the final first-round battle shortly.
Poll update 2
This is fun to watch. For some reason my 2nd poll didn’t close when intended, but the overall result didn’t change. Twirling, Twirling, Twirling Toward Freedom won the 2nd round with 33 votes (63%) and moves on, with Salisbury Soapbox coming in second by grabbing 19 votes (36%) and On Your Side having just one lone supporter.
This round should be quite interesting as the draw placed two of Joe Albero’s contributors up against the other of two blogs suggested to me by the creator of afterthegoldrush – Twirling won its round and afterthegoldrush is in good position to advance as a wild-card. They’re all good, well-read blogs so vote early and often.
Please note that the opinions expressed on monoblogue are not necessarily those of the Wicomico County Republican Party Central Committee, of which I'm a member. (But they probably should be.)
News from the loony left:
