WCRC meeting – August 2007

In what is hopefully a precursor to next month’s Wicomico County Republican Straw Poll, we had a full room tonight to hear our Congressman, Wayne Gilchrest, speak. But judging from the fact that I was the only “media” person present (with the possible exception of Kathy Bassett) I suppose the story of the event will come from monoblogue.

I do have to say that tonight’s meeting was the first one I ever attended with a protestor:

This gentleman wanted both Bush and Cheney impeached. The Vietnam veteran was handing out a cartoon mocking Bush for not having served in Vietnam.

I don’t know if the Congressman gave him an audience, but I do know that one attending inside and paying rapt attention as well was Dustin Mills from the Andy Harris campaign. Thus there were a few calling cards left behind.

Plenty of signs for Gilchrest's opponent but I didn't see any takers.

The same goes for Harris's literature - then again I already have some.

What may have impressed us most is that Gilchrest was there just about the time we got underway, so we only had time to do the Lord’s Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, and a runthrough of June’s meeting minutes before Gilchrest spoke.

Congressman Wayne Gilchrest speaks before the Wicomico County Republican Club, August 27, 2007.

Congressman Wayne Gilchrest speaks before the Wicomico County Republican Club, August 27, 2007.

Wayne wanted to talk about three subjects and ideally planned on devoting 10 minutes to his remarks and 40 minutes to answering questions. I think it was more like a 20 to 30 ratio as he spent a good deal of his remarks speaking on the Iraqi situation.

He started out however by discussing energy independence. Citing that the goal of Congress was to be energy independent within 20 years, he stated that the United States had already reached its peak of oil production back in 1970 and the worldwide oil situation was similar, with production expected to peak in the next decade or two. For that reason he was supportive of a bill that passed which looked for alternatives to oil and coal. (I believe he’s referring to this session’s HR 6, which he voted for in January.)

On immigration, the Congressman said that it was a “volatile, huge issue not easily solved with one piece of legislation.” On this occasion and several others while answering questions, he noted that the House had twice passed measures relating to border security but they died in the Senate. It was President Bush’s idea to combine a lot of different reforms into one omnibus bill (the one recently debated in the Senate) rather than a more incremental approach, with separate parts focusing on:

  • expanding legal immigration (stressing that was important for the Eastern Shore economy);
  • border security (both in technology and additional personnel);
  • and getting the technology to employers to instantly determine whether an applicant was legal or not.

But the bulk of his initial remarks talked about, as he put it, “what I know about Iraq.”

He began with recounting some of what we all know: after the 9/11 attacks, we retailiated first against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. While there has been some success, he did say that it’s “not like how we would want it” there.

Then Gilchrest told us about some of the other players in the region, describing Syria as a secular Islamic nation, but one that is not allied with us whereas Saudi Arabia, a nation we consider an ally, is very fundamentalist – in fact, the Saudi brand of Islam is illegal to practice in Syria. And while Iran gets a bad rap about being on the fundamentalist side, it is more religiously liberal than the Taliban was. Further, Gilchrest said we’d done both Iran and Syria a favor by getting rid of the Saddam regime.

But the mistakes he cited were many. First of all, Gilchrest alleged that the military brass in the Pentagon (as opposed to the civilian side) did not want to invade Iraq, and when forced to come up with a plan they thought 500,000 troops would be needed. At the moment we have 160,000 troops and 100,000 civilian contractors doing some military tasks, continued the Congressman.

Another error was disbanding the military and civil service because they were Ba’ath Party members and thought to be likely Saddam loyalists. So security and governance at the start was nonexistent. In his eyes, the problem in Iraq was both “political and cultural” and asserted that Iraq’s neighbors wanted there to be no instability in the region.

So, he asked rhetorically, how do we create a stable Iraq and a stable region? First of all, he stressed that no bill he’d voted for mandated a pullout date for our troops in Iraq. The bills only were to express the “sense of the Congress” and carried no weight as far as the number of troops was concerned. Gilchrest noted the current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, has quietly begun putting elements of the Iraq Study Group report he (Gates) coauthored into place, including conversations with Iraq and Syria. Unfortunately, Gilchrest opined that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki has not resolved the reconciliation issues in his own country as of yet.

Summing up his position, Gilchrest called for a policy of “strategic patience”, a process that included “conversations” with Iraq and Syria, implementing the idea floated by Virginia Sen. John Warner and beginning the “process” of withdrawal (but maintaining some military presence) and following through on other ISG recommendations. Gilchrest closed this part of the remarks by noting we can’t win with just the military. In his words, as a former grunt Marine, he’d rather see people talk than shoot to solve the problems.

To close on the Middle East topic, Gilchrest asserted that he was told in a briefing that there were no WMD’s transported to Syria (contradicting allegations made by an Iraqi general, Georges Sada) and also that he felt some of the troubles in the Middle East (such as Syria vs. Lebanon) originate from border disputes simmering since the days of the Ottoman Empire.

I also found it interesting that Wayne felt Iran was “quite a few years away” from having nuclear weapons. Conversely though the topic of almost all of the questions he took was not his Iraqi stance, but immigration.

To the group that was the hot-button issue. It gave Wayne a chance to rehash some of the things he’d already mentioned, although he added that amnesty was now “off the table” and steps were being taken by President Bush to crack down on so-called “sanctuary cities.” Another question that came up was why we didn’t help the home countries of illegals, and the Congressman answered that some of the strife and volatility in Latin America discouraged the investment needed to help those economies.

Gilchrest did step in it at one point in the conversation. Talking about foreign workers, he stated that employers like Mexican workers because they ”show up every day” and are hard workers. After having it pointed out to him that the statement could be construed as a knock on American workers he quickly apologized and stated he shouldn’t have said such a generalization in his remarks. (However, being in a related industry I know that it is part of the reason a lot of Mexicans get hired – they are on jobsites literally sunup to sundown and beyond. That doesn’t make hiring illegals right, though.)

On the whole, he got a reasonably positive reaction from those that were in attendance. I do have some comments to make regarding his stance on Iraq and the Long War, but for this exercise I’ll stay strictly “just the facts ma’am” and expound on my thoughts in a later post.

And that was most of the meeting as Wayne spoke for just under an hour all told, being scheduled to head out at 8:30. We did do some business afterward, though and I’ll touch on it briefly.

Obviously, our upcoming Crab Feast (September 15th) needs helpers and items to be donated to the silent auction. I donated one tonight. We also need staff to man our booth at the upcoming RiverFest on September 8th and longer-range at the Autumn Wine Festival in October. In other business, we distributed some proposed revisions to our club’s bylaws which should bring them a little more in line with the state GOP’s.

We also had a short discussion about getting behind the state adopting what are called “transparency laws”, which 19 states have adopted in an effort to allow the public a better glimpse at how their state spends their tax money. Unfortunately with the current O’Malley regime and his toadies in the General Assembly, the chances of that passing are slim and none – and Slim just left town. But we can always press as the minority party (for now.)

Obviously I didn’t write this down in my notes but I also discussed our next meeting, which is a special meeting for the Wicomico County Republican Straw Poll. Hopefully I’ll fill that room up twice as much for the event and I’m working on getting help in one way or another from the nine major GOP candidates.

There was one sad note though. For the first time in many moons, we actually lost a slight bit of ground to the Democrats in terms of registration. Guess it means I have more work to do in order to make that a one-time blip on the radar. We are the true majority in Wicomico County (based on recent election results) so we’ll change our strategy where required to gain those voters back.

WCRC Press Release – August 25, 2007

I wrote this on the club’s behalf and forwarded it to the mainstream media. Now it’s the blogosphere’s turn. For this version I deleted certain contact info, the e-mail is fine.

Starting August 27, the Wicomico County Republican Club meetings this fall are the place to be to find out the inside scoop on state and national politics from those who are there or seeking a place for themselves at the political table. You’ll also have a chance to speak out on both the upcoming Presidential and First District Congressional primary elections.

Our August 27 meeting will feature the incumbent First District Congressman Wayne Gilchrest as speaker. Wayne is sure to cover what he feels are his accomplishments in his most recent term and explain his position on the War on Terror, a stance that has sometimes put him at odds with Republican leadership in Congress as well as President Bush.

September 24 brings the club and other interested GOP observers an opportunity to have their say on the candidates vying for both President and Congress, as the club will host its first-ever Wicomico County Republican Straw Poll. Like its counterpart in Ames, Iowa, this will also be a fundraiser for the club as voters will have the chance to put their money behind their chosen candidates and buy additional votes. Speakers will represent each of the Presidential and Congressional hopefuls, giving a short presentation on the merits of their favorite sons before the task turns to selecting our county’s pre-primary choices for the two offices.

The October 22 gathering will reflect on the upcoming General Assembly Special Session as we’ve scheduled District 37B Delegate Jeannie Haddaway to address our club. It promises to be an informative look at what the Democrat majority in Maryland plans to do to our wallets from a member of the loyal opposition.

Wrapping up the fall season will be a visit from another Congressional hopeful, Dr. Andy Harris. Harris announced his bid to replace Wayne Gilchrest earlier this summer and the November 27meeting will be his chance to sell himself to the most active Republicans in Wicomico County – a volunteer and financial base he’ll need if he’s to unseat the incumbent. Since Harris also serves as a State Senator, he may also provide insight on the FY08 budget machinations of the majority Democrats in Maryland.

All of these Monday evening meetings will take place at the Chamber of Commerce Building, 144 E. Main Street in Salisbury. Social hour in all cases begins at 7 p.m. and meeting is gaveled to order at 7:30.

If you have further questions, our club’s press contact is the Second Vice President, Michael Swartz. His e-mail is ttownjotes@yahoo.com.

If the war is a “bumper sticker slogan”…

Then does this website mean the Democrats are at war? I guess so.

I have to just laugh at what these people come up with. In case you want to not feel like you need a shower after visiting a Democrat website, here are the four choices they give you to vote on. (I’m surprised these choices aren’t also in Spanish for the illegal alien vote.)

  1. “W is out – send the right wing with him”;
  2. “No Republicans left behind in DC”;
  3. “What have Republicans done for you lately?” (it has an upside-down GOP elephant);
  4. “2006 was just the beginning…more Dems in ’08”.

At least with number one they may have figured out that George W. Bush isn’t on the ballot in 2008. But they’re running against him anyway.

And with number 2 they shouldn’t complain about NCLB because they wrote most of it anyway – besides, it’s been their dream to control the educational system so they should be happy that they suckered Bush into adopting it. I know, I know, it’s never funded enough according to the Democrats.

Let me answer number 3 for them – keeping our country from another terrorist attack for almost six years comes to mind…and how about lowering our taxes and bringing about an economic boom? The question should be “What will Democrats do TO you if elected?”

For the fourth one, getting the felon vote in places like Maryland already is resulting in more Democrats in ’08 since they tend to vote that way. The trick for us on the side of good is to achieve enough turnout to outweigh their misguided votes.

The hardest part for me in coming up with bumper sticker slogans that truly reflect what the Democrats want to achieve is keeping it under 40 characters (even though they don’t with #3 and #4 if you count spaces). But I came up with a few:

  • Defeat the Republicans, Save al-Qaeda
  • Fight Fat! Dems Will Slim Your Wallet
  • Make America Like New Orleans, Vote Dem

And my personal favorite:

  • A Nanny State In 2008 – Vote Democrat

Now if I had a few more characters to play with I could do a couple other pretty good ones.

  • Vote Democrat For A Change – When We Win Change Is All You’ll Have Left
  • Vote Democrat: Because Common Sense Needs A Break Too!
  • Vote Democrat: It’s Not Enough To Only Tax The Living
  • Just Say No To The GOP, Free Prescription Drugs For All!*

Yeah, I think I could come up with a few more but it’s the weekend and I’d love to get my readers’ ideas for Democrat bumper stickers. While John Edwards might think that war is a bumper sticker slogan, a party that trivializes its ideas in such a way doesn’t prove themselves worthy of governing.

* Okay, there’s the matter of the massive tax increase that would be required, not to mention that short supply of the most effective drugs once the drug companies divest themselves of the U.S. market because it’s not profitable anymore.

(That’s a bit big for a bumper sticker, but I speak the truth don’t I?)

Freedom takes vigilance – and a little publicity

It took them a few days to find me, but apparently someone likes monoblogue because they sent me a press release.

It was a “Vigilant Freedom Media Alert”, dated August 12, 2007. They note that:

You are receiving this email newsletter because your blog has been selected on the basis of its pro-victory, patriotic content, to receive limited distribution Media Releases from the Center for Vigilant Freedom’s Blogger Outreach Program.

Sounds fair enough to me. They must read my dissent to the line that Wayne Gilchrest commonly spouts when he explains his pro-pullout votes. (By the way, Wayne is our speaker at the next WCRC meeting on August 27. Come early for a good seat.) Anyway, here’s the money part of the release:

Today, those of us who believe we must win the war on terror have an extraordinary opportunity. Freedom’s Watch has released several moving and emotional commercials to major television and radio outlets from veterans and their families – people who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

Moveon.org will talk a lot about the quitting and giving up in Iraq. But what they won’t discuss – and in truth, what they just don’t care about – is the overwhelming cost of U.S. and Iraqi lives and security if we give up too soon and lose this war. We are asking you to join us on this national media day. You can watch these heartbreaking testimonies of Iraq veterans and their families here. (Editor’s note – this wasn’t a link in the release, I just decided to make life easier on all of us. Same goes for the link below.)

Then please call 1-877-222-8001 and tell your Member of Congress that defeat is NOT an option!

We’re also asking you to help spread this message. Host these videos at your blog, and urge your readers to contact their congressmen as well. Help get the word out that victory is America’s only option!

For more information on these ads or Freedom’s Watch go to our website.

I actually heard one of their radio ads on WICO today, I think it was on during Rush’s program but it could’ve been on AM Salisbury as well. So when I noticed the press release in my monoblogue mailbox, I gathered that this is a coordinated effort of some sort.

Since I’ll see my Congressman Monday, I don’t have to call. But to me this is part of a growing trend to spread the political word through the blogosphere. I have to admit that I wish they’d pay me for placement but then again I agree with the message and I only reach a far smaller number of people than WICO does.

This gets me to thinking about another political example. Andy Harris gets plenty of free publicity from the local blogs just by sending his press releases to maybe 4 or 5 websites. I’ve seen his stuff on Delmarva Dealings, Crabbin’, WorcesterRight, and Salisbury News as well as featured here on monoblogue. Most of the others print the release verbatim, and sometimes I do as well. But usually I’ll add my comments in.

On the whole it makes it a little easier to have content when I get items from three political campaigns who want me to post stuff, and now this outfit. Even better, I can use it as a starter for making my points if it’s a opinion I agree with, as this group seems to be.

After all, I’m also looking for free publicity and readership so this could be the start of a beneficial relationship between the CVF and I. We’re all out to spread the good word, so why not help each other along the way?

Slim pickings at best

A post today at Delmarva Dealings reminded me of something I meant to write about over the weekend. While I did a long series of posts on picking my favorite GOP Presidential candidate, the sad fact was that none of them were remotely close to perfect. Certainly all of the candidates had their high points, but there was also at least one strike against them. There’s at least one thing I don’t care for with each.

  • John McCain did well on the Long War but is completely wrong when it comes to immigration.
  • I strongly disagreed with Sam Brownback‘s energy stance and he flip-flopped on the immigration bill vote, voting aye before switching at the last minute to a no vote.
  • Fred Thompson has a lot of promise, but has yet to publicize his positions on a number of issues. I’ve also read where he’s not great on the campaign stump.
  • For the most part, I love Ron Paul‘s ideas about shrinking the size and scope of government but cannot abide his stance on the Long War.
  • The same went for Tom Tancredo, although he’s almost too hardline on immigration and has advocated for a pullout date in Iraq.
  • Mitt Romney also seemed to me as fairly weak on a number of issues, and I’m certainly not sold on his health insurance idea that was passed in Massachusetts. But in his favor is the amount of money and organization he already has and his having a large core of experience in the private sector.

And then you have the three who topped my field – but I still see issues with them as well.

  • Mike Huckabee, as noted in the YouTube video cited on Delmarva Dealings, does have a disturbing tendency to be a big-government “conservative” in the mold of President Bush.
  • Rudy Giuliani topped my field in supporting “victory” in the Long War and said the right things to me regarding the role of government. But would social conservatives vote for Rudy with his known liberalism on social issues like gay marriage and abortion? They may feel like they have no choices in ’08 and sit out.
  • And my endorsee, Duncan Hunter, was very strong on a number of issues. He topped all 10 (at the time) candidates on eminent domain, trade and job creation, and the Long War (tied with Rudy) plus was a close second on education. And he had a number of intangible issues I liked his stand on. But he polls practically zero. If he’s not elected President, I think he’d be an outstanding choice for Secretary of Defense with his grasp of those issues.

It seems to me, based on the limited exposure we have to the GOP race here in Maryland, that the best organization by far is Mitt Romney’s, but Rudy Giuliani also has some powerful allies in the hierarchy of the Maryland GOP. Again, it makes me ask the question whether the base of the GOP is that excited about a Giuliani-Romney race. We know that John McCain had the early momentum but lost it on the immigration fight and his campaign has fallen to second-tier status because of it.

Quite unfortunately, the folks on the right side of the GOP have a number of choices splitting their admiration. While Fred Thompson is becoming less and less of the great unknown, we still have Newt Gingrich sitting on the sideline debating whether to enter and shake things up. So our options aren’t really clear-cut yet.

In some ways our Congressional race has evolved the same way as there’s now two choices to appeal to conservative voters (not to mention the two Democrats who seem to be running toward the right-center on many issues). It’s starting to look like a 1992 Presidential election scenario, where Bill Clinton won with 43% of the vote because Ross Perot siphoned off 19% and denied George H.W. Bush a second term. Wayne Gilchrest may make it through the Republican primary with similar numbers.

I guess what me and a lot of GOP voters are starving for is leadership in the mold of Reagan. There’s no one out there who’s really taking it to the Democrats – instead a lot of the GOP candidates are doing the Democrats’ work for them by infighting and exposing what they consider hypocrisy on some issues. It’s especially true with the frontrunners Romney and Giuliani being attacked by the more socially conservative candidates. We’re all waiting for someone to call out the Democrats on a regular basis – saying in effect to hell with working with them, they are going to work with me and if they don’t I’ll use my bully pulpit to get them out of Congress.

That’s the sort of leadership I’m thirsting for – the uncompromising, unflinching kind. I do see hints of it in Duncan Hunter but not in the frontrunners. But as usual I see myself having to pick a compromise candidate and voting more against a Democrat than for a Republican. It’s happened 3 elections in a row and there’s nothing I see at the moment to promise me the string won’t continue to four.

A day at the fair

Ok, technically it’s not a “fair”, it’s the Wicomico Home and Farm Show. But I was there today to work at the Wicomico County GOP’s table so I bummed around for awhile beforehand.

They had a car show there, so I had to get lots of pictures in.

Yes, I like classic cars. It wasn’t the largest show I’d seen, but there were some cars there that I hadn’t recalled seeing at the other car shows and festivals I frequent. They had a nice red 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 there. It’s as old as I am but in much better shape!

Delmarva's version of the Lone Ranger and his horse Silver.

I don’t recall this act from last year – of course last year I was a part of the entertainment and worked the GOP table too so I didn’t wander as much. However, he had a nice little show and would give away postcards and such for free, which I thought was a nice touch. It was fun for the kids and that was what counted. Hey, there’s many worse role models out there than the Lone Ranger.

A case where I just missed the optimum moment - but you get the idea.

The other interesting feature I saw was the jousting. My fellow MBA member Stephanie will be proud to know that I remember jousting is Maryland’s state sport. Seriously. But unlike the movie “A Knight’s Tale” there weren’t broken lances or riders knocked off the horses. These guys were pretty easy on each other.

And of course I had good food and a little ice cream too. But I actually came there to work a few hours at our Wicomico GOP table.

This year's version of our fair booth.

If you followed the link earlier, you’d notice that last year the table was brimming with items and candidates were crawling out of the woodwork to be seen. This year was much more subdued.

This is the honest truth. The only candidate whose campaign actually delivered items when I first worked the table Thursday night was Mitt Romney. I personally brought items for John McCain and Rudy Giuliani (plus some other supplemental Romney items) to place at the table, and apparently both the Andy Harris and Wayne Gilchrest camps brought things on Friday. The Harris sign was mine too, I dropped it off Friday morning. But Gilchrest had signs and some literature (a summary of stuff I’ve gotten in my e-mail) while Harris had his own campaign literature and bumper stickers. I’m told Andy was there yesterday as well. And this morning the young man working before me ended up bringing some info about Presidential hopeful Ron Paul.

But the thing that actually went over best at our table was the “Don’t Blame Me – I Voted For Ehrlich” bumper stickers. Most people ignored us but there were a few who needed voter registration cards or picked up something for a Presidential candidate. My small supply of Giuliani stuff was practically gone and some people took Romney items as well. (Meanwhile, no one took any McCain items.)

If I were to gauge the mood of the electorate at the moment, it’s hopeful but wary. I’m not sure that people really care yet, which obviously is different from last year when that primary campaign was rapidly drawing to a close then. Regardless I think having a presence at the event makes us look a little better and more active, as opposed to the Democrats who have skipped the event the last two years. And this gave us an opportunity to push our other upcoming events that make the Wicomico County Republican Club its money.

So we’ll see if the Democrats show up next year or write off Wicomico County.

I go away for a week and all hell breaks loose…

Back to live blogging again; well sort of. It’s actually Thursday afternoon as I start this for posting later this evening and I know my Shorebird of the Week post comes up tonight. So I don’t give him short shrift, check him out here and then come back to read this!

It was soooooo boring for the last 2-3 weeks before I took my break so I guess they were waiting for me to take a few days off to have all of these events happen just so I had time to digest them and make some sort of reasoned commentary. There were seven events over the last week that I think are worth commenting on and alluding to. I’m going to go more or less in chronological order.

  • “Robinson on the Radio” gets cancelled.

I know there were a few who didn’t think I came across well on the radio but geez, I feel like Typhoid Michael now. I’m a guest and ONE WEEK later the show’s axed. I wore the shirt I got one time!

Oddly enough, I missed the actual announcement since he had a guest on that, frankly, I had no interest in listening to. So I turned off the radio that Thursday about 3:10. Once I saw the blurb on the internet I made the effort to listen to his final show last Friday but my parents arrived about 3:15 or so – thus I missed the sign off.

What the situation has begat is a continuation of the flame war between John Robinson and a certain local blogger where the blogger takes great pleasure in the little parody piece that WICO played on Monday at 3:00. Meanwhile, Robinson talks about going into the web news business. Now John, if you were complaining about losing a six-figure amount of business time because of the radio show, what makes you think that doing an internet news site (even for just local events) isn’t going to cost you plenty of time when time is money? Even if you have hired a reporter as you state, there’s still work involved. I do this as a hobby and don’t do a news site, but still spend several hours a week on doing my website. Just a word to the wise as a friend.

Regardless, the local blogging scene has become more contentious than its usual warlike state as a result.

  • Andy Harris makes spending and pork an issue.

I got a press release while I was away detailing how the Club For Growth has endorsed Andy Harris over the incumbent Wayne Gilchrest. Apparently, the Gilchrest camp responded in kind (I’ve not received their reply) so Chris Meekins of the Harris campaign fired back a reply this morning, which I excerpt from here:

As I read Congressman Gilchrest’s campaign statement in response to our comments on his fiscal spending record, I felt the need to clarify and reinforce some of the issues the statement addressed.

Over the course of the next weeks and months, our campaign will continue to provide objective information, including the roll call vote number, so that you can see for yourself how Gilchrest voted on ALL of the amendments offered by fiscally responsible Republicans to cut spending growth – the vast majority of which Gilchrest voted AGAINST. We applaud him for voting for two amendments to cut spending, but two out of more than a dozen is not something one should be touting as a clear record of fiscal restraint.

Also, we will discuss how, in the last month alone, Gilchrest voted for over $15 billion dollars in tax increases. And we thought the $1.5 billion in tax increases the Democrats in Maryland are proposing was a lot!

Our campaign was very surprised to see the incumbent actually vigorously defend earmarks (otherwise known as “pork”). For those who may not be aware the Office of Management and Budget defines an “earmark” as: “funds provided by the Congress for projects or programs where the congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents the merit-based or competitive allocation process, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the Executive Branch to properly manage funds.”

Members of Congress insert earmarks into much larger spending bills hoping they will be overlooked or lost in the thousands of pages. Earmarks don’t consider which company can do the best job and they take competition on price and quality completely out of the government procurement process. Basic free-market economics teach you that non-competitive contracts by the government will always increase the cost to you the taxpayer and may frequently lower the quality of the work done.

According to the Office of Management and Budget’s website, the Fiscal Year 2008 appropriation bills in the House contain over 3814 earmarks totaling $2.4 billion.

(snip)

Think about this situation. The owner of a company raises funds for a congressman’s reelection and a congressman in turn, repays him by putting an earmark for that company for millions of dollars for a noncompetitive contract into a bill. By Congress continuing to vote for earmarks, the opportunity is present for corruption to occur. But that’s the way business is done in Washington these days, it appears.

Andy Harris will continue to oppose earmarks. Andy beleives the people of the first congressional district do not want their tax dollars to reward companies who generously donate to the Democratic Party. Andy believes cleaning up the earmark process is the first step in eliminating corruption in Congress. Harris opposes out of control wasteful government spending – which is why as a state senator, he voted against six of the last nine state budgets.

Wayne Gilchrest spoke out strongly against the Washington establishment when he was first elected to office in 1990 – now he has become a part of it. We sent Wayne to change Washington – but Washington has instead, over the years, changed Wayne.

I’ll be brutally honest here. On an editorial level, it should be known that I support Andy Harris. In the interest of voter education though, I have and will place items on monoblogue from any of the five announced candidates – whether they be GOP or Democrat – because I believe that a voter should be as well-informed as possible.

The one fear I have in this race is that the conservative supporters will split and leave Gilchrest as the winner with a plurality of the vote (think Bill Clinton in 1992.) Having said that, though, later this fall I will prove that even though Gilchrest is much farther left than I like he’ll still be preferable to a Democrat in the seat.

  • Ames Straw Poll results in first GOP casualty.

And I correctly predicted who it would be. It was pretty much speculated (even by his opponents) that Mitt Romney would win the Straw Poll, so the real race was for second. That position was held by one of my top choices, Mike Huckabee. Unfortunately, my endorsed candidate, Rep. Duncan Hunter, finished near the bottom in Ames. Over the weekend, I want to delve back into this race because it’s sort of sad that no candidate is really a “perfect” candidate for me – someplace I had to make some compromises.

But maybe Hunter will do better in the upcoming Wicomico County Straw Poll on September 24. Since we notified our WCRC members about it first, I’ll spread the word here as well.

  • The Maryland GOP is broke.

At least it is if you believe the Baltimore Sun article from Saturday. That tends to happen when a party has little to no power base in a state. If this were in a deep red state like Idaho, I’m sure we’d find the Idaho Democrat party runs on a shoestring budget as well.

But a lot of the article talks about the infighting between moderates and conservatives in the party, particularly in Anne Arundel County. (Brian Griffiths and redstate.org is on that like a blanket.)

I ran for my post because of two things I believe in: one, that the Republican Party if it follows principle is the most effective tool for bringing about change in our government to lessen its power over the common citizen; and secondly, that the voters should have the final say in who best represents the Republican Party at the general election ballot box. While I may not agree with their primary choice, the voters are the ones who should make that decision, not a state party annointing a candidate and trying to throw out all would-be challengers. (Refer to Ohio Republican Party 1998 and 2006 for examples.)

So at the moment we have infighting because there is a group who believes the incumbent should be supported at all costs vs. a group I align with that thinks the people should decide whether the incumbents are worthy of another term. Obviously when it comes to the First Congressional District I don’t. But I’m certain we will come together in time for 2008 because we have bigger challenges to face, most likely she’s named Hillary Clinton and he’s named Frank Kratovil, and both are backed in Maryland by the tax-raiser Martin O’Malley.

  • Karl Rove leaves his post.

Well, now who’s the liberals going to blame when they don’t get their way? The guy is a Deputy Chief of Staff, yet they get all worked up about him. I hope Karl enjoys his family and his retirement, although having his first post-announcement interview on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show was a nice little thumb in the MSM’s eye as well.

By the way, would Rove not be a kick-ass Lincoln Day speaker next year? Hell, put him at the Red, White, and Blue Dinner and the Maryland GOP will be out of debt in no time!

  • monoblogue server issues.

Yes, I was frustrated too. As far as my server company goes, there’s never a good time to have outages but within the last three months of your server term is REALLY bad timing. I can eat a few bucks if I can be assured I’ll have more reliable service that’s not out anywhere from 2 to 14 hours at a stretch and a local person to bitch at when it does. How I moved up in the BNN Influence Rankings from #9 to #8 with the artificially lower readership is beyond me.

  • West Salisbury Little League.

I’m going to end on a positive note. Right now our fair city, for all its faults that are detailed on several other websites that I do and don’t link to, has within it one of the 16 best Little League teams in the world. Even if they don’t get to the finals these kids have nothing to hang their heads about, but I’m hoping in a week or so we’ll be glued to our TV’s watching them take on a team from some distant shore for the LLWS title.

And for the really positive note – I missed sitting here and writing monoblogue on a daily basis but the time off was worth it when I get to spend time with people like this. Yes, that’s my kid. The picture’s too big to use here so I just linked to it.

Thoughts before a few days away

Away from active blogging, that is. I’ve already set up the next several days of posts except for the Shorebird of the Week which I’ll write later tonight once the game is over. It’s not that I don’t enjoy writing posts on a daily basis but I need a few days away to do stupid stuff like see my family and relax after some pretty intense days at work.

But fear not, faithful readers, while the content may be prewritten it’s still fresh to you and I’ll still be about to moderate comments. I’ve had quite a few lately so I’m beginning to think this Congressional race is heating up. And since the Ames Straw Poll occurs this coming Saturday, the GOP presidential field may shrink by the time I return. At the moment, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani are the leaders for my endorsement, but we still have five parts to go and they get progressively more important – so a misstep by one or both of those two could open things up for another candidate.

Speaking of the Congressional race, I found out the other day that the August WCRC meeting is slated to have Congressman Gilchrest as our speaker. This will be August 27th. I know that more info will be on the WCRC website in the next few days because I just sent our webmaster the summer edition of our relaunched newsletter. (By the way, Andy Harris will also get his turn but I’m not sure we can get Joe Arminio a slot because of other upcoming events that are detailed in the newsletter.)

And there’s one other thing I wanted to get into before I spend a few days away. Lately there’s been a lot of controversy amongst the local blogging world, a little moreso than usual. Obviously we have one person who claims to be top dog with thousands of readers a day…well, good for him. I read the site once or twice a day myself, and he does a pretty decent job running around to cover some of the goings-on in town.

There was a comment this gentleman made on another blog that noted that my readership is down somewhat since he stopped linking here. While it is the case I have fewer readers than I did a couple months ago, something tells me that this is true for many websites of a political nature since we’re between political seasons. I’ll be honest though, it is down from its peak and, while I’m not ecstatic about it, I’m confident that it will come back up as the arrival of cooler weather brings people back to political mode.

I do want to bring up a few numbers though, something this other person’s not willing to do. I keep my Site Meter stats on a weekly basis and have since April of 2006. This is the evolution of readership in that time:

  • April 17, 2006 (first full week) – 229 visitors
  • August 7, 2006 (one year ago) – 480 visitors
  • January 1, 2007 – 679 visitors
  • Jauuary 15, 2007 – 1,065 visitors (first 1,000+ week)
  • April 16, 2007 – 1,829 visitors (all-time high)
  • August 6, 2007 – 1,120 visitors

So I’ve lost some readership but I assumed I would because I decided to do a tradeoff back in early June. At that time I decided I couldn’t be a true news site, in part because of time constraints and also because two or three other local bloggers were covering that territory well. Thus I shifted focus more to statewide and national issues that affect us locally. This shift probably explains the fact that while my readership is less locally it has a larger base. It may also explain why my readership’s not huge but I still rank on the list of Maryland’s most influential blog sites.

And I still think I have the BEST readers of any of the local websites because they obviously comprehend what I say and make good comments based on the arguments I make – some agree, others dissent.

So as I take a few days off enjoy what I’ve placed up for your inspection over the next week. I might be pretty fired up by the time I get back with a lot of pent-up writing to do.

The third voice in the room

Since I put up items from the incumbent and initial challenger, it’s only fair that I share something I received from Republican Congressional candidate Joe Arminio. What’s odd is this actually came to me because of my membership on the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee, not through monoblogue. But you’ll get to read it anyway – I feel that the voters should know as much about the officeseekers as possible.

Arminio bills the e-mail as “Candidates Compared” and the short piece is entitled “Send American Way Leaders To Congress.” I’ll give him points for keeping it short and making it a WordPad file I can easily clip and paste!

According to State Senator Harris, the big news is that Congressman Gilchrest has been moving away from the Republicans—away from the Right—and toward the Democrats. But this simplistic view reveals more about Harris than about the complex agenda of Gilchrest.

To make sense of the Republican primary in the First Congressional District, a vital digression is needed. There is this movement afoot to transfer all power from the American people to multinational bureaucracies and corporations. Big business is hardly all bad, but today the globalists, those who would close down the republic and subordinate us to multinational corporate elitists, and those who go along with the globalists knowingly or not, have become a strong force. The globalists and their helpers are not easy to identify; they call themselves liberals, moderates or conservatives, as always, but watch out, for they undermine the independence of America, that is, rule for, by and of the American people.

Politics is no longer one-dimensional (left-center-right); it is now two-dimensional or a matrix, that is, there is the conventional or traditional dimension—are you on the left, center or right?—and the new dimension, are you for the independence and sovereignty of the country (nationalist) or not (globalist)?

It turns out that Gilchrest advances globalist (and neoconservative) trade policy. Hence his long standing support for job-killers such as NAFTA and CAFTA. What did the 18th century economist Adam Smith and Karl Marx both say about this kind of trade? It would dissolve the nation-state. Also Gilchrest advances globalist, radical environmental policy, insofar as he champions the Delmarva Conservation Corridor. The language of the Corridor is eerily similar to the language of the UN Convention on Biodiversity, and the Convention, among other things, promotes the “global commons” at the expense of individual countries ruled by their respective peoples. The incumbent deserves praise for protecting native Chesapeake Bay oysters but his tilt toward globalist environmental notions threatening sovereignty and private property rights outweighs such good. Yet another globalist (and neoconservative) measure Gilchrest promotes is UNESCO, which, among other things, is subverting American schools and nurturing “world citizens” who are easy prey of multinational corporate interests. There is another big point about Gilchrest. Why has he been silent about the build up of a North American Union? 26 of his colleagues in the US House have found the courage to sponsor legislation opposing this foul proposed merger of the United States, Mexico and Canada. Special interests—corporations–would rule the new Union. Speaking about this North American Union, why has Harris been silent about it, too?

Harris is right that Gilchrest is breaking ranks with the GOP as a whole on such matters as Iraq, and taxes and spending. But breaking ranks on Iraq is not necessarily bad. What is certainly troubling (and not pointed out by Harris) are the votes in ’02, ’04 and ’06 that Gilchrest cast in lockstep with the GOP, which neoconservatives dominate, to raise the federal government debt by 50% from $5.8 Trillion, in 2001, to $8.9 Trillion, today. What is even more troubling is the silence of Gilchrest (and Harris) about the immediate severe threat the public and private debt is posing for the economy and how comprehensive emergency measures must be taken, lest the public suffer greatly and become more vulnerable to globalists.

On the issues of gun ownership and family values, Gilchrest has always been, in the traditional sense, left of center. But his positions on such things—and anyone else’s for that matter—ought to be related to all other positions, especially those affecting America’s independence. I may disagree with someone who is left of me on guns and the unborn. If that other fellow is not a globalist, he and I are, at the end of the day, still Americans. If I encounter someone who is a globalist, that is another matter, even if he were an avowed pro-life and 2nd Amendment man.

Harris, meanwhile, has done some good in Annapolis. But he does not bring vital clarity to this race, failing to warn us about the globalists in general and to protect us from their policies. As reflected in his campaign web site, he is silent on, among other things, the true economic plight of the country, the North American Union, present trade policy, the Delmarva Conservation Corridor and UNESCO. What is more, Harris aids the globalist (and neoconservative) agenda on immigration. Although he would bar illegals, he has said nothing about reversing changes to the law, beginning in 1965, that have allowed far more legal immigration to occur than we can assimilate and that have created explosive population growth typical of Third World countries.

One hopes Harris is not a neoconservative. Perhaps he has received bad advice. Neoconservatives tend to be right of center on guns and the family, which, I feel, is good, yet, on balance, do more harm than good where sovereignty and the relationship between the people and corporations are concerned, advancing a number of globalist policies. They narrow discourse and would have us believe politics is only one-dimensional, namely, left-center-right. Above all, it can be shown that they have deviated from American Way (nationalist) policies, which made American great, and which a long line of Republicans, including Lincoln, McKinley, Roosevelt, Coolidge, Taft and Eisenhower and the Reagan vision, and some Democrats, more or less upheld.

What we desperately need are more American Way leaders in Congress.

To be quite honest, I’m sure Tony Caliguiri, Kathy Bassett, and the rest of the Gilchrest team are ecstatic about having a third candidate jump into the race and split the anti-incumbent vote up. On the other hand, there’s a little less of a benefit to the GOP at-large if it’s perceived that Gilchrest will win easily over two challengers – there’s less potential for people who are Democrats but strongly support Wayne to cross over and register Republican solely to vote for him in the primary.

Regardless, this is an interesting introduction to the respective county central committees by the challenger. I’m sure we’ll hear more as the campaign carries on.

Another “Gilchrest on the Long War” moment

I told you about this letter on Friday and this morning I’m going to share the contents.

Dear Mr. Swartz:

Knowing of your interest in ensuring America’s success in Iraq and war on terrorism, I wanted to share with you some thoughts concerning our long-term strategy.

As you know, in late 2003, US and Coalition forces swiftly ousted Saddam Hussein from his brutal dictatorship. Disbanding Saddam’s military was decided necessary in dismantling Saddam’s power hold. However, in the process, this unleashed a brutal power vacuum that thrives today along religious and cultural lines. Over time, security conditions have dramatically deteriorated in much of Iraq to the point where Iraq’s society, unfortunately, is coming apart at its seams.

I regret that we were unable to formulate a post-Saddam strategy that anticipated Iraq’s complete social and political collapse and the onslaught of violent conflict, but these are the conditions we face today. And while our military continues to make heroic sacrifices, Iraqis have failed persistently to make the necessary compromises needed to unify the country and stop the bloodshed.

The nation has received a new assessment on Iraq from the Administration that is a mixed, but generally not positive assessment of our progress. There are, however, clear and present dangers that confront our current strategy in Iraq. Cycles of violence and bloodshed continue to escalate while the stress on our military mounts. As asserted by our commanders and military experts, troop levels under our current policy cannot be sustained past March of 2008. These critical variables remain at odds with our current strategy and are converging to make it almost impossible for the United States to sustain the long-term solution that is needed in Iraq.

Clearly, we need a new direction in Iraq, the Middle East, and our general fight against international terrorism. The war against violent extremism, unfortunately, will have to be fought much longer than a “surge” in troops can last. Exhausting our force policing Iraq’s civil war leaves us too vulnerable on other fronts.

This new direction should be based on the recommendation of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), and include a redefining of the mission for our troops, a deliberate and strategic withdrawal from central Iraq, and new and strengthened diplomatic efforts with Iraq’s neighbors and the international community. I am pleased that the President is beginning to quietly implement some of these recommendations under the direction of Secretary Gates, a former member of the ISG, including intensified campaigns to enlist constructive efforts from Iraq’s neighbors and the international community and acknowledging our forces cannot police an indefinite civil war.

My vote on July 12, 2007 on HR 2592 was part of this effort to introduce a new strategy. It must be made clear that the bill does not require a complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq, it does not affect funding, and it allows the President to determine the troop levels for this redefined mission. The bill, however, does encourage the administration to redefine our mission in Iraq, away from policing the civilian warfare, redirecting our troops to critical missions like fighting terrorist groups as al-Qaeda, training Iraqi troops, securing Iraq’s borders and providing security for our military and diplomatic missions in the Middle East. Moreover, it will serve to ensure our allies in the region that our mission is to support the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Iraq, but also enforce the notion that we are not a permanent occupier.

Immediate withdrawal is not an option – the consequences unknown, and quite possibly catastrophic. That is why I have voted against measures in the House, including HR 2237 on May 10, 2007, which would seek a complete withdrawal of US troops within 180 days of enactment and prohibit any funds from being used to continue critical missions that our troops are engaged outside the civil war. That is also why I continue other critical assistance to Iraq, including measures to increase funding for economic and reconstruction assistance programs for Iraq under the FY08 Foreign Operations bill; this was the President’s request and is consistent with the ISG recommendations, but not included in the bill under the Democrat leadership.

The troops are doing a magnificent job under difficult circumstances. They have my unequivocal support. I would never vote to cut funds for their mission, but i think it is important to support a mission which is politically, economically, and militarily sustainable. I cannot support a combat mission that fails to recognize the long-term and sustainable efforts needed in this vulnerable region.

I appreciate your taking the time to express your thoughts on the crisis in Iraq. Please remain in touch.

Sincerely,

Wayne T. Gilchrest

Member of Congress

First of all, Wayne misspoke on the bill number he voted against on July 12, it’s HR 2956 and I’ve linked to the version passed by the House. The problem I have with that bill lies in two areas: it mandates a “reduction” of troops beginning within 4 months of passage and speaks about a “limited presence” of troops after April 1, 2008. So al-Qaeda and its Iranian allies (who we’re fighting by proxy in Iraq) would have a date certain to shoot for and ramp up their efforts to secure safe areas for them that we’re forced to abandon.

I’ve talked about having a permanent presence in Iraq like we have in Germany or Japan, not as conquerors but as a forward deployment for the region. I may concede on that if it can be proven to me that the base I think we have in Bahrain (it’s either there or Qatar) can be effective enough to do that task.

But a look at history shows that it usually takes several years to establish an effective republican government. In the case of the United States it took 11 years to go from Declaration of Independence to Constitution, meanwhile fighting the British forces trying to subdue our fledgling government for the first seven years. (It’s astute to note that we didn’t fight alone, either, we had some measure of help from France.)

Not only is maintaining Iraqi security important, but let’s not forget that the larger goal is to defeat the forces of radical Islamic fundamentalism. The strategy that led to deposing Saddam was to deny the enemy a base of operations while ridding the world of a supplier of WMD’s to those who would love to use them on us. And I’m not convinced that some of the WMD’s Saddam claimed to have aren’t sitting in a country allied with his former government, such as Syria.

In the last Democrat administration, it was thought important enough to place our troops in Bosnia to combat what was then reported to be ethnic cleansing of an Islamic population. In general, while Republicans may have argued the validity of the mission, they allowed the Commander-in-Chief to command as he saw fit. Unfortunately, over the last 4 years we’ve seen the Democrats not extend the same courtesy to a Republican president, which is shameful on their part.

Very few questioned the need to respond to the attacks on 9/11 at the time. Thus far, we’ve escaped a further terrorist attack thanks in part to the leadership of a President who said from the start that this would be a Long War. Unfortunately, our Congressman has chosen to break ranks from a party that seems to understand that victory over this foe wasn’t necessarily going to be easy, quick, or follow the normal course that wars have in the past.

I say while the strategy may have to shift here and there, the eventual aim should be nothing less than wiping out the threat we face. By voting in the manner he does, I have little confidence Wayne Gilchrest shares my view.

Clarifications for Friday

I’ve heard John Robinson over the last couple days pimping my appearance on his show Friday, which is good. Hopefully a lot of my readers will tune in and CALL IN!

But I just wanted to make a couple clarifications on some things he’s said. While I am an elected member of the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee, the views I have and will be sharing are definitely my own. Lord knows that my six cohorts don’t agree with me on everything.

One thing I’m sure we’ll be discussing is the Congressional race between Joe Arminio, Andy Harris and Wayne Gilchrest. Unlike the NRCC (or at least its chairman), our Central Committee cannot take a stand officially in the race. However, I can tell you that we have some Harris supporters and some Gilchrest supporters in our midst. I’m sure most readers know where I stand on the race, but I do try to give each candidate their say, even the Democrats. They can dig their own holes.

Further, my feeling of the state party as I understand it is that they’ll remain neutral in the race as well. If this remains so, they are certainly to be commended. I have to say that thus far I think we’ve chosen a good leader in Jim Pelura – in truth, he’s surprised me as a voting member who actually supported his opponent, John White, when we selected a state party chair last fall.

Anyway, some of the other topics I’d like to discuss are the events in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Congressional race I just covered, and maybe the Presidential one as well.

Speaking of my Presidential decision, at the moment the early leader (through part six) is Tom Tancredo. In visiting his blog a few days ago, he’s made the interesting move of soliciting questions from ordinary citizens, so I asked him two. (It’s 1/5 of Ten Questions I suppose.) He hasn’t gotten around to answering this round yet so I’ll be interested to see if he does answer mine – if so I’ll certainly share that.

And I’m sort of curious myself who my readers support for President on both the Democrat and Republican sides (or even if you’d consider a minor party candidate), so I’m going to try something and see how it goes. Consider this an open thread; but a) tell me why you support who you do, and b) try and keep it clean.

Having such good comments made in the past, I know my readers are up to those two tasks!

A “distinction without a difference”

I’ve gotten quite a bit of response about my post condemning the NRCC for “endorsing” Wayne Gilchrest this early in the campaign season. In fact, my article was linked on the national blog redstate.com, which I thought was pretty sweet.

And this afternoon I got a call from Chris Meekins of the Harris campaign, who pointed out that the endorsement was a personal one given by Rep. Cole and not a blanket NRCC one. But I also think that someone from the Gilchrest campaign is certainly earning his or her money (could it be Kathy Bassett, wife of Daily Times editor Greg Bassett?) by writing the press releases in a truthful yet thisclose to misleading fashion. Imagine these two headlines:

“Gilchrest Endorsed By Fellow Congressman And NRCC Chairman Tom Cole”

“NRCC Chairman Endorses Gilchrest Re-Election Bid”

They say the same thing, but the second one makes it sound like the weight of the NRCC is behind the endorsement. Obviously it fooled me, and I’m likely more of a student of politics than the average Joe reading his daily paper.

So the argument is that it’s only Cole and not the NRCC apparatus behind the endorsement. Well, if you’ll indulge me going across party lines for a few sentences, I got an e-mail from the Martin O’Malley campaign machine inviting me to an organizational meeting for the Hillary Clinton campaign. (Yes, I’m on e-mail lists for both parties under a separate address. That way I can keep up with both sides for election coverage.)

If the average person gets an e-mail from the Governor pressing a particular campaign, is there any doubt that the marching orders for party underlings aren’t going to be to push for that candidate too? The Maryland Democrat Party machine is going to be lock, stock, and barrel working for Hillary regardless of how particular Democrats feel. The same goes for the Democrats running for the First Congressional District seat – obviously having O’Malley’s support means the machine’s in for Frank Kratovil over Christopher Robinson and any others who decide to run on that side.

Above all, it’s quoted in the redstate.com post that “the NRCC is first and foremost an incumbent retention committee.” So regardless of the merits of a candidate or the failings of the incumbent the policy stated by this particular member of the NRCC is that they’ll throw the challengers under the bus. Hopefully Andy Harris will be able to avoid the Greyhound coming at him.