Campaign 2010 – Page 31

Republicans now party of Steele

Well, that’s one less statewide candidate the Maryland GOP has for consideration.

Needless to say, much of the mainstream media spin is that Michael Steele is the first black GOP head and was the most moderate of the five candidates who were formally nominated today. I damn well hope that the color of his skin had nothing to do with his appeal (and it probably didn’t) but certainly that will be the way this event is reported.

In a five-candidate race, Michael began in second place after the first balloting behind incumbent Chair Mike Duncan, but caught up to Duncan on the second ballot. Steele took the lead on ballot number three, which is when Mike saw the writing on the wall and bowed out. Subsequent ballots saw the perennial last-place candidate Ken Blackwell fold up his tent and endorse Steele after the fourth go-round and Michigan GOP Chair Saul Anuzis drop out after the fifth.

In the end, Steele polled 91 votes to Katon Dawson’s 77, enabling him to finally win on ballot six.

So we have a guy from Maryland running the Grand Old Party. What does that mean for our state?

Obviously it takes Steele out of contention for 2010. And with signs pointing to Senator Mikulski making a re-election bid next year, it’s likely we’ll not see a very strong contender from our side this time around. The state party may decide to put all of its marbles on a possible Bob Ehrlich-Martin O’Malley rematch for Governor; however if you believe this post on Joe Steffen’s Darkness Rising blog Governor Ehrlich has a long uphill fundraising slog to regain the seat. It’s not like the Democrats aren’t going to lie and obfuscate their pathetic record of leadership in Maryland under O’Malley just to get whatever votes they have to count twice or make up out of thin air to win.

Probably the biggest favor Bob Ehrlich can do for Maryland Republicans is announce his intentions early, like this spring.

Granted, the Maryland GOP doesn’t have all that deep of a bench. It’s not for a lack of trying, but a good number of their players are either statewide losers or not nearly known enough to play at that level. To continue the baseball analogy, it would be like the Orioles roster was peppered with a few guys who got their cup of coffee in the bigs but struggled to succeed at Norfolk coupled with players who shone at Delmarva and Frederick but may not have been polished enough to play in Bowie, let alone the big leagues.

Obviously this isn’t to say we won’t be successful in 2010, just that the bigger push may have to come mid-decade when the Governor’s chair would be an open seat and Senator Mikulski may finally decide to retire. Pushing our House of Delegates ranks into the fifties and Senate numbers over twenty would probably rank as a successful 2010 campaign overall.

Where can Michael Steele help on that front? For one thing, he noted in his platform that:

My plan for winning the future relies on collaboration as the foundation to the road to victory. We need to forge a new working relationship between the RNC and state and local parties that will deliver a unified message and assure an amplification of resources. This will require constant dialogue. It will require a free and open exchange of ideas. And, it will require an immediate and collaborative examination with the Republican leaders of every state and the leadership of the RNC on what is and isn’t broken. Each state Party must examine how the Republican brand, and Republican ideals, can best be advanced in their ongoing efforts to improve. As leaders, our role is to listen to a broad universe of stakeholders, to unify around our common goals and then to create solutions that work.

And also:

Building our grassroots will be paramount to winning elections. We must do a much better job of networking into our communities. We spend too much time talking to ourselves instead of spreading the gospel to potential believers. As a party we need to focus on the people who live and work in our districts. We need to speak to them directly and we need to facilitate their grassroots and turnout. We must build and energize new volunteer networks. Without them, we lack the most important means of communicating our message — word-of mouth and neighbor-to-neighbor. To that end, I plan to recruit and train 25,000 new activist leaders by 2012. Many of these folks will become campaign managers. Most will help organize, train and lead volunteer organizations in their communities. Activist enthusiasm and energy has to be fed with knowledge and resources. We will lead the way in cultivating activists through training tailored to their strengths, interests and the needs of our Party on the ground. As their enthusiasm matures into success we will continue to invest in their growth and will recognize and celebrate outstanding accomplishments annually in Washington, DC. We need to ensure our grassroots activists never have cause to doubt the immense value we place on their contributions.

While Steele wasn’t my first choice, he seems to be a good choice. And while I’m not exactly what one would call a prototypical grassroots activist, I’m certainly not afraid to advance a conservative agenda!

So let’s hope that my assessment of the Maryland GOP is one of underpromising, and we can overdeliver both on a state and national level in 2010 – Lord knows we can’t do it soon enough!

Odds and ends no. 17

Yet another compilation of stuff that doesn’t take a whole post to discuss.

It didn’t take too long, but the guys and gals at Our Country Deserves Better have a gradecard for President Obama. I’m simply shocked he didn’t get F’s across the board, but I’m not too inclined to disagree with their assessments. They’re backed up from a plethora of sources in the mainstream media.

The short story is that OCDB gives Obama a D- for Taxes and Fiscal Policy, a big fat F for National Security, another D- for Protecting the Unborn, and a D for Appointments. What does that work out to, an 0.5 GPA? That may chip farther into BHO’s steep 15-point approval drop in one week.

It’s not exactly breaking news that the stimulus program passed the House of Representatives, but Obama’s reaching out to the GOP bore no fruit at all – not a single member of the Republican caucus voted for the bill. Can’t say as I blame them – after all, the President haughtily reminded House Republicans that “I won.”

I have to give credit to Congressman Kratovil on this one too – he was one of 11 Democrats who voted no (the only Maryland Democrat to do so, needless to say.)

Even with that tilt toward moderation and independence, Kratovil is certain to be a target to be defeated by the Republicans in 2010. As for the here and now, much of the buzz in GOP circles this week concerns the upcoming election for party Chair. Unfortunately for local fans of Michael Steele, his bid could come up short according to this website called yourrnc.com.

While I like Steele, personally I think a better choice would be Ken Blackwell of Ohio. He’s the subject of this American Spectator profile by Quin Hillyer. Unfortunately, neither lead the pack – the incumbent Mike Duncan does. It’s a classic case of establishment vs. grassroots brewing, I fear.

I know fans of the aforementioned Frank Kratovil aren’t big supporters of the Club For Growth, but that group brings up an interesting market anomaly:

Have you heard of the Congressional Effect? Let’s say you invested $1 in the stock market on the days when Congress is IN session and another dollar on the days when Congress is OUT of session. Can you guess which investment has a better historic return (HINT: Congress is very capable of creating political mischief)? Find out what the Congressional Effect was for 2008 here. And here’s an old article from our friend Amity Shlaes who explains it at more length.

While neither result is doing much for our 401.k plans, one has to wonder when the markets will stop paying such attention to Congress and revert to gauging business trends. Or is that now a thing of the past?

One business trend that seems to be semi-permanent in Maryland is driving them away through excessive regulation. I’m going to wrap up this edition by pointing out an excellent post by Richard Falknor on his Blue Ridge Forum blog.

Once again, Governor O’Malley is operating with the mistaken belief that cutting greenhouse emissions in Maryland – a state with about 2% of the national population, and one who’s the 4th largest energy importer as Faulknor points out – will make a sizeable dent in global warming.

Which, by the way is not occurring. Is it my imagination or do we have a winter storm every time Al Gore comes to town?

Lesson one: the stimulus

Let me bounce off last night’s post, beginning with the so-called stimulus package.

In this case, though, it’s not just the young voters who want the government to do something, but almost everyone.

There’s no question we’re in a difficult economic period, but it bears repeating that the whole mess started when some of those who borrowed for a larger, more expensive home than they could truly afford found themselves unable to sustain their payments. At that point, the foreclosures began, the overbuilt housing market became even more saturated, and home values plummeted.

As money became tighter, harried consumers cut back on purchases, forcing retailers to close stores or go out of business entirely. In turn, this threw more onto the unemployment lines while at the same time states saw their revenues decrease at a time when they thought spending more on social programs was the way to go.

Enter the stimulus programs of the last 12 months or so. What did you do with your rebate check from last year? Many paid bills, while others put the money away in savings. As economic conditions became worse it was obvious that $150 billion didn’t do the trick – nor has the $350 billion used to bail out a number of banks appreciably loosened the credit market.

Step three seems to be where the Obama Administration and Democrats spend upwards of a trillion dollars on a number of scattershot proposals, including a tax cut for those who don’t pay taxes. In my day, that was called a welfare check – but then there’s no shame for being on the dole anymore. In truth, last year’s check was wealth redistribution too – those who earned above a certain threshold did not get one, either.

Let’s use a little logic here, kids. I know that most of you weren’t taught critical thinking in school, so this may be a foreign concept. Bear with me.

Those of you who are working – it’s likely you make a certain amount per hour and work 40 hours a week if you’re full time. To make math easy, let’s say you make $10 an hour, so your weekly paycheck should be $400. But it’s not, is it? If you’re like me, you have about 1/3 taken out for various reasons, mostly to pay taxes.

For the most part, those taxes go to the federal government. It was a law called the Community Reinvestment Act passed by the federal government which in essence told the banks that they had to lend to those who probably wouldn’t be good credit risks, or they would find it difficult to expand or merge to run more efficiently and profitably.

It was also the federal government who indirectly set the policy of easy credit for homeowners and others in order to make ours an economy based on consumer spending rather than investment.

So, in order to fix the problem they had a hand in creating, the federal government wants to take that money you earned through your hard work and, after they take their cut, give it to a vast array of organizations and inferior (e.g. subordinate to them) governmental bodies (who also take their cut) who will spend some of that money to “stimulate” the economy. Of course, also bear in mind that the money out of your check, even when combined with everyone else’s money, still will fall something on the order of a trillion dollars short of what the federal government would like to spend – for years to come.

Because of that shortfall, one (or both) of two things happen. The debt accrues over time because of interest, making it a larger burden on you later in life; or, the dollars you earn lose purchasing power because there’s more of them out there. You weren’t around for the double-digit inflation of the Carter years, I was. Your $10 an hour would only be worth $9 after a year, yet you work just as hard.

Now imagine that, instead of giving your money to the government who MAY provide you benefits (assuming you happen to be in a group who they target the benefits to at that particular moment, these things are always subject to change) you get to keep more of what you earned and spend it where you want to. Or you could save it and invest for your future dreams, like purchasing a house with a solid 20 percent down payment, as they did in the old days.

Does that sound appealing to you? Well, welcome to conservatism. It’s not practiced by the Democratic Party, so you may wish to rethink that political leaning.

If you’re not convinced yet, don’t worry. I have plenty more where that came from.

The need for education

I’m probably going to harp on this a couple more times in the next few days, but the Pew Research Group sent me an alarming statistic last week.

Young voters 18-29, according to the data they used (an exit poll from NBC News), now consider themselves Democrats by a 45-29 margin.

I’ll grant that perhaps that’s a little bit of a dubious source, since we know that NBC is one network seriously in the tank for Barack Obama. But the huge liberal advantage of indoctrination through public (and some private) schools and the internet seems to be bearing fruit as far as the forces favoring expanded government are concerned.

It’s worthy of note, though, that minority voters are better represented among the youth group as are unmarried female voters. These groups have generally swayed to the Democrats, and having a larger sample may be part of the reason for the radical shift. Nor can the constant drumbeat of bad news about the Long War be discounted, as this age group has made the largest amount of sacrifice fighting Islamic terrorists.

That indoctrination thesis of mine may well be proven with another point the Pew researchers (Scott Keeter, Juliana Horowitz, and Alec Tyson) assert:

Young voters differ most from older voters in their liberal views on the proper scope of government. Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) of voters ages 18-29 favor an expanded role for government, agreeing that it should do more to solve problems; fewer (27%) say the government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals. Opinion on this question is more closely divided among older age cohorts and a narrow plurality of those age 45 and older says government is doing too much.

Where are the youths taught about the benefits of limited government? Simply put, they’re not.

Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to personally beat some sense into these youth, but I’m curious what others think about this trend. As I said, I’m going to return to the topic a couple times this week when I’m not playing reporter.

It’s just another challenge we on the Right face. But we can win it – yes we can!

Observations on District 38B town hall meeting

First off, I actually took my camera but decided there really wasn’t much worth photographing.

Earlier this afternoon I was over in the thriving metropolis of Pittsville (the locals will get it) to attend a town hall meeting put on by my erstwhile but Democratic Delegates to the Maryland General Assembly at the village’s fire hall.

I was a little bit disappointed in the turnout, though. There were only 10 people there besides the Delegates and one assistant who took note of the proceedings. Only nine of them were of voting age, the other one may be the first to vote in a Republican majority in the General Assembly. I heard she was one year old; this means she’d come of age in 2026 and it may take that long to sufficiently chink the armor of liberalism (and 66 Delegates/22 Senators) present from Baltimore City and Prince George’s/ Montgomery counties.

But to their credit, both Delegates Norm Conway and Jim Mathias took this as a “listening opportunity” and a chance to “gain insight from other avenues” as this weekend was the second of four they’ll return to the district and hold these meetings. Continue reading “Observations on District 38B town hall meeting”

Disappointed and disillusioned

And I thought it was the Democrats who allowed incompetence to rise to the top. Apparently the GOP really wants to follow in those shoes; that is if this report by Reid Wilson from The Hill’s Briefing Room blog is to be believed. (In a related story, they’re predicting a multi-ballot race, which I’ve suspected would be the case all along with several contenders.)

This compilation of those who have announced publicly who they’ll support for the Chairmanship of the Republican Party shows that the incumbent Mike Duncan has the plurality among those who’ve expressed a preference. Granted, there’s only about half of the 168 who vote that have gone public, but one has to wonder why some would continue with a leader who’s already lost one national election.

Perhaps it’s because we’re very close to the situation and there’s a favorite son candidate representing Maryland, but the buzz around Michael Steele based on his debate performance and name recognition doesn’t seem to be permeating all that many of those who actually make the decision next week.

It’s somewhat akin to the situation conservatives found themselves in for the 2008 Presidential primaries. There are several good candidates who will probably split the vote and allow the status quo to win. John McCain was the “establishment” GOP candidate in the 2008 election and Mike Duncan represents the establishment to me.

There’s no better proof of this than noticing that, despite the state having its own favorite son candidate in Ken Blackwell, two of Ohio’s representatives are in the Duncan camp. And this is something else I feel I need to comment on.

Bob Bennett was in charge of the Ohio Republican Party while I served as a Central Commitee member there. While the setup is somewhat different in the Buckeye State, the fact is Ohio Republicans have seen their onetime grasp of each statewide office loosened and ripped away because the state party brass relied too much on their own judgment. They didn’t trust the will of the GOP base enough to select the best candidates – well, that should tell readers in a nutshell why Duncan is the wrong man for the job.

Ken Blackwell has never been the darling of the establishment Republicans in Ohio, who seem to think that candidates have to be wishy-washy moderates to have a chance to win statewide. Unfortunately, the last wishy-washy moderate to win statewide from the GOP side was the reviled Governor Bob Taft, who raised taxes and became embroiled in the Coingate scandal. Once Blackwell finally had the opportunity to run for governor (Bennett and the Ohio GOP talked Blackwell out of running in 1998 in favor of avoiding a primary against their annointed Taft) the party had been damaged beyond repair and Blackwell became the scapegoat, getting less than 40% of the vote.

Personally, I think Steele would be a good national GOP chair but Blackwell would be a better one. One thing whoever wins the nod needs to make priority one is encouraging some of the deadwood to get out of the way and bring aboard new leadership at the state level.

The old guard is what gave the Republican Party both Bushes, Bob Dole, and John McCain. While many of them came in with Ronald Reagan, they squandered much of the Reagan legacy on candidates who failed to ignite the conservative base – or when one was selected, like Sarah Palin, they turned the long knives on her.

We’ve tried it their way for the last 20 years and with the exception of the Contract with America, the GOP record hasn’t exactly been stellar when compared with the stated party principles. Selecting the wrong guy to run the party may accelerate the rush toward the exits for conservative rank-and-file party members and voters.

Ten Questions for – Dr. Jim Pelura, Chair of the Maryland Republican Party

As I like to do on about a monthly basis, here is another installment of what I call Ten Questions.

Back in December of 2006, Jim Pelura and I came into our positions at the Maryland GOP together – I was sworn in as a Central Committee member and he was elected at that convention as Chair of the Maryland GOP. Admittedly, I voted for his opponent but obviously he didn’t hold that against me when he agreed to do the interview.

monoblogue: Let’s go back to the beginning. The 2006 elections have just concluded and Republicans were shut out in statewide races, including the relatively popular Governor Ehrlich losing a reelection bid. Nationally the GOP faced the prospect of being in the minority for the first time in 12 years. So what motivated you to run for the Chair position you now hold, and how many people thought you were completely crazy?

Pelura: Why did I run?

I had been concerned for some time that the MDGOP was out of touch with the grassroots and the traditional Republican philosophy of small government, low taxes, fiscal responsibility and faith in the individual. I was concerned that the liberal agenda of the Governor and majority of the General Assembly would have no voice of opposition among the Republican rank and file. I was not ready or willing to give up on Maryland that easily.

As for the second part of your question………not as many as one would think, although a friend said that he was going to give me a few sessions with a psychiatrist for Christmas that year!

monoblogue: Oh, there were and still are plenty of voices of opposition to liberal policies here in the Free State. But you found yourself inheriting a Maryland GOP which was in dire financial straits and had to make some unpopular financial decisions. Were you surprised at the extent of the problem when you came onboard? And do you think that the Maryland Republican Party will be able to compete financially in 2010?

Pelura: If you remember, at the December meeting where I was elected, the outgoing Chairman announced that I was being left about $300,000.00. We all knew that fundraising would be difficult due to the recent elections and that money in the bank would be needed to “get over the hump”.

As we soon learned, that $300,000.00 was actually about $20,000.00 and there were about $60,000.00 in bills to be paid. Needless to say, I was surprised.

But, by making significant cuts in expenditures and taking out a line of credit, we survived.

Fundraising is still a concern, however, but there are significant “bright spots”.

The line of credit is nearly paid off, small donations are way up from in the past (in terms of the “health” of the Party, I would rather have 10,000 $1.00 donations than one check for $10,000), and many of the “big” donors are showing interest in giving to the MDGOP once again.

The Maryland Republican Party will be ready for 2010, both financially and in terms of good and credible candidates for elected office. Continue reading “Ten Questions for – Dr. Jim Pelura, Chair of the Maryland Republican Party”

Town Hall meetings scheduled

Oddly enough, I probably received this notice because I’m on the Relay For Life mailing list after participating last year – it came with a laundry list of budget priorities the American Cancer Society seeks here in Maryland. But it had a useful nugget of political information on it that I’ve seen nowhere else.

To get input from the public in anticipation of the upcoming 426th Session of the Maryland General Assembly, Del. James Mathias and Del. Norman Conway will hold town meetings scheduled for:

Saturday, Jan. 17 – Pocomoke Fire House, 10 to 11:30 a.m., Snow Hill Library, 2:30 to 4 p.m.

Saturday, Jan. 24 – Pittsville Fire House, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Ocean Pines Library, 2:30 to 4 p.m.

Saturday, Jan. 31 – Ocean City Library, 4 to 5:30 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 7 – Salisbury, Wicomico Public Library, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

It’ll be quite interesting to see just how they interact with the residents back in the district and respond to their concerns, particularly when the state is staring down the barrel of a billion-dollar plus budget deficit. Remember, Maryland is quite unique among states in that the Governor sets the budget and the General Assembly can only cut from it before approval. This means Delegates Conway and Mathias will have to keep their knives sharpened, and perhaps the meetings will be sounding boards to determine which sacrifices the public will stomach.

Needless to say, I might just have to stop by one with notebook in hand.

And I might have to ask Norm Conway whether he’s possibly learned the lesson that raising taxes is counterproductive to increasing revenue – Jim Mathias may have already figured it out because he voted against those tax issues in the 2007 Special Session, to his credit.

Speaking of giving credit to Democrats, I’ll give Congressman Kratovil props for going against the vast majority of his party and not voting to ramrod through Barney Frank’s TARP Reform bill (H.R. 384). The resolution in question would essentially limit debate to two hours and not allow for amendments. Still, the resolution passed so that bill is now on the fast track to approval.

I think there’s much better ways to use that money than what Barney Frank has in mind for it, such as not borrowing it to begin with.

In the meantime, let’s see if Frank Kratovil can maintain at least the 5% (1 vote of 22 so far) of the time he goes against the remainder of the Democrats, or if this vote is an outlier.

Venting on Human Events

Regularly I get e-mail updates from the Human Events website. Generally it’s for columns I like to read by writers with a number of disparate styles – Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, Chuck Norris, Ted Nugent, and the Evans-Novak Report are among my favorites, even if I don’t always agree with them. It’s the latter which prompted the comments I’m going to revisit here.

I caught it at a time when I could have a front-page comment and steer an argument. So I wrote the following, based on quotes within the story:

“Republicans are comfortably settling into a minority position.”

Well, that’s problem #1 in a nutshell. And people wonder why conservatives are in a revolt?

“Indeed, some Republicans are quietly hoping Coleman will give up the fight.”

When stealing an election becomes an acceptable standard, it’s not just the Republican Party that’s in trouble, but the Republic itself.

Both these comments take the GOP to task for the very complacent attitude that I sense. Certainly there is an argument which can be made for giving the new Congress and President a chance, but I don’t really recall that same courtesy given to the last President – and he bent over backwards and forwards to exhibit his willingness to work with the other side. Remember the “new tone”? Continue reading “Venting on Human Events”

My first letter to Frank

I’m going to be curious to see when and how I get a response to this. Here was an opportunity to reach out and touch my newly and duly elected (despite my strenuous objections and serious reservations) Congressman. He has no Salisbury office yet, but e-mail is actually better anyhow.

The bill in question is S.22, which I wrote about last Friday.

On Sunday, the Senate allowed S.22, The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, to proceed by voting for cloture. Thus, it’s expected to get a vote in your chamber later this week, although my bet is that even more will be added to the 1,200-plus pages the bill already contains.

There are three main concerns I have with this legislation. First of all, as an omnibus bill there’s more than just land management added. One instance is the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, which was a bill that didn’t get passed last session. The Senate sponsor decided to add this into the bill in hopes of sneaking it through without as much debate. Many of your fellow House members are notorious for doing the same thing to “must-pass” bills.

Secondly, one provision of S.22 pulls an estimated 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 300 million barrels of oil off the market by restricting the use of the land overhead in Wyoming. At a time when we have energy companies willing to invest their own capital into our economy in order to secure new supplies, taking them “off the market”, so to speak, seems like a poor move given both our economic situation and dependence on foreign energy supplies. While I know you favor alternatives in energy, the technology isn’t ready for a switchover and may not be for some time.

My third concern comes out of respect for private property rights. By placing areas under federal control (such as “wild and scenic” rivers, for example) many of those new restrictions negatively impact landowners whose plans for their private property would be altered because they would run afoul of federal dictates. Moreover, any privately-held land directly acquired by governmental entities comes off the local property tax rolls, dealing a blow to the financial well-being of local governments.

I hope you’ll take these arguments into consideration and vote against the passage of S.22 through the House.

While it may do just as much good as my brief conversations on Friday with the staffers of Senators Cardin and Mikulski (both of whom voted for cloture), I decided to make my feelings known. It’s a good chance for Frank to establish those “independent” bonafides he campaigned on, because as I write this he hasn’t gone against his party brethren yet in any vote.

Standing on principle (in part)

This item from the Maryland GOP just came across my e-mailbox this morning. Nice to see that we’re back in fighting mode now that the 90 Days of Terror is about to resume:

The Maryland Republican Party has established a Commission for Citizen Tax Relief to investigate Maryland ’s record of over spending by the Democrat controlled leadership in Annapolis. The formation of this Commission is in response to the historic tax increases from the 2007 Special Session, the Democrat policy promoting bloated state budgets and the anticipated $1.9 billion deficit in the upcoming budget year.

For the past two years, the MDGOP has closely documented the Annapolis Democrat’s agenda of burdening Maryland citizens with increased taxes to fund new and expanded government programs. “Today’s tough times make it imperative for the Maryland Republican Party to hold Governor O’Malley and his supporters in the General Assembly accountable for their chronic over spending,” stated Chairman Pelura.

The Commission will be directed by Charles Lollar. Lollar hails from Charles County where he is Chairman of the Charles County Republican Central Committee. As a former Marine Corps Officer and local Charles County business leader, Mr. Lollar brings extensive experience in corporate accountability and budgeting.

This Commission is comprised of two dozen Maryland Republicans and citizen activists. As Director, Lollar will lead the Commission towards sensible budget and accountability recommendations that will provide much needed tax relief for Maryland citizens. During his introduction as Director, Mr. Lollar stated to the MDGOP membership at their Annual Fall Meeting, “We need a balanced budget with fair cuts across the board…just as we all are tightening our belts at home, the State should be doing the same.”

Members of the Commission will be visiting each county in Maryland to engage citizen participation. These town hall meetings will begin in late January and will give Marylanders the opportunity to review the Commission’s initial budget analysis and to provide input.

“It is time for the fiscally-challenged Governor and his supporters in the General Assembly to come to grips with the economic impacts of their runaway tax increases and uncontrolled spending. We need a balanced budget with fair reductions and accountability across the board,” added Pelura. “ Maryland’s working families know that fiscal responsibility isn’t a choice, it is a must. Fiscal responsibility does not have partisan stripes, it is something we should all strive to achieve.”

In doing this, the Maryland Republican Party indeed is making a first good step because this effort serves to provide an alternative with grassroots support.

However, another contention I’ve made that’s not noted in the press release is a push to make the Democrats and Governor O’Malley publicly justify where they’re spending those rapidly-declining tax dollars we provide. Certainly one of my favorite whipping boys is Program Open Space, but there’s a number of other funds which were created pell-mell by the General Assembly and codified into state law that have either not served their purpose or become sacred cows, never to be touched by the hands of those who would hold Annapolis politicians accountable for the money they spend. While I certainly can’t say that our state budget needs to fit on both sides of a regular sheet of paper, the hundreds of pages to which our budget annually runs are filled with programs that either don’t work, can be trimmed, or can be done much more efficiently in the private sector.

In economic times such as those we’re faced with, the operative term should be “leaner and meaner.” Surely those bleeding hearts on the left who consider any reduction in even the unchecked growth of government spending as one which creates “victims” would stress the “meaner” part, but that’s just a fact of life in Maryland we’ll have to deal with. Being right doesn’t always equate with being popular, at least not popular with the news media and their editorial boards.

But taking the time to explain our side while simultaneously pushing for those who create the budget to justify extracting more money from hard-working Free Staters (whether in families or not) is something citizens should simply expect. It’s unfortunate that the Maryland GOP has to create a Commission to do the job everyone in our General Assembly and state government in general should be doing as habit.

I look forward to seeing what the Commission comes up with and putting in my two cents.

A new experiment

In theory I could try this here but I think I’ll have a more interesting outcome on my Red County site. Later this afternoon I’ve scheduled a live blog of the RNC Chairmanship Debate, which will take place at my Red County Wicomico site beginning at roughly 12:45 p.m.

So I’m inviting all of those interested and who have a chance to watch onboard to participate. If nothing else, it’ll give me a chance to try this technology!

Late note: There is a pre-debate Straw Poll ongoing at thenextright.com. As of this writing, over 700 votes are in with Ohio’s Ken Blackwell and Maryland’s Michael Steele the two clear leaders.