The Republican blame game
This is one of those comments which deserves its own post, although I’m the one who left it.
Every so often I like to see what the other side is doing, so I go and catch up on Maryland Juice. Yes, David Moon is probably my mirror-image on the left, but I have to hand it to him because he writes quite well. Anyway, yesterday he wrote a piece bouncing off a Maryland Reporter post about the distribution of poverty in Maryland, and I responded with the comment below, which I will separate rather than blockquote myself.
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But how does one lift themselves out of poverty? The preferable method is a well-paying job, and I would argue that the state’s policies on development indeed constitute a “War on Rural Maryland.”
I live in Salisbury, and the problem we have is very simple: we have a good university which attracts students from across the region (including the western shore) but no well-paying jobs to keep them here. Incubators of jobs are discouraged from starting up in this part of Maryland because of the hostile business climate, manufacturing won’t come here because the infrastructure is sorely lacking, and all that seems to be left is a few state and institutional jobs here and there. I know the decline of the local building industry wiped my former job out, probably never to return.
On the other hand you live in Montgomery County, which benefits handsomely from its proximity to the federal seat of government. Businesses know they have to pay a premium to be near that population center so they grin and bear it, but guess what? What can work there doesn’t work out here.
Instead, the state seems to have a policy that rural land needs to be either purchased outright (taking it off local tax rolls) or have its usage restricted so much that it essentially becomes worthless. By doing that, farmers are put at a severe disadvantage because their chief asset is the value implicit in the possibility of development of their land. Selling an acre or two of frontage off a 80- or 160- acre parcel isn’t going to significantly affect an overall crop but it could make the difference between profit or loss for a farmer. But that soon won’t be allowed anymore in Martin O’Malley’s Maryland.
For all the talk about One Maryland from your side, the reality is there are at least three. The western panhandle could lift themselves up if the state government would get its head out of its rear end regarding fracking and our end of the state would do just fine if government realized the punitive policies which are fine for your end of Maryland aren’t helping when we have business-friendly Delaware just across the border. Let the counties figure out what’s best for them, and stop dictating what we do from Annapolis.
And I’m curious: if your contention that Republican are to blame for denser amounts of poverty in “their” areas of the state is correct, what does it say about Baltimore City – a Democratic stronghold for decades – being the absolute poorest?
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I think that about covers it. But there’s another point I’ll make here, too.
As it is measured for the purposes of the map, poverty is a relative term. Let’s say Person A makes a poverty-level income and lives in Wicomico County while person B lives in Anne Arundel County and makes twice as much. Person A could find it easier to scratch out a living in a rural area because of the lower cost of living than Person B living in a high-priced suburb. Yet on that map Wicomico is painted orange, implying it’s a poor county, while Anne Arundel is a bright blue.
And notice a rising tide lifts all boats. The counties which are in the best shape tend to be those with pockets of wealth, either through being bedroom suburbs to large urban areas (Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles, Frederick, Howard) or hideaways for the vastly wealthy, which I would categorize Queen Anne’s and Talbot as. In fact, if you change the criteria to a concentration of population existing at less than 200% or 300% of poverty level, the two Eastern Shore counties regress slightly but the bedroom suburbs remain high on the list.
But the argument that Republican parts of the state are leeching off the other portions is a red herring anyway, because the state will keep on spending huge amounts of money to satisfy certain constituencies. If you doubt me, just remember the hue and cry put up when we were “only” going to spend $700 million more than we did in the last fiscal year. Until someone shows me a pattern of budgets with year-over-year declines and their effects of state residents I’m not going to believe that we can’t survive with less. Real, working Maryland families have had to.
Odds and ends number 50
Half a hundred now of these items which deserve a paragraph or three, and in this rendition several are of national interest.
I wanted to start out with a rather comprehensive look by Accuracy in Media at voter fraud. In truth, this is less of an expose than a confirmation because we on the Right had been thinking about this for years, and some of these accounts have filtered down to a local level.
Now I’ve heard people claim that voting should be a privilege reserved to property owners or to those who pay taxes rather than receive goodies from the government. I don’t agree with that approach, but I think that perhaps if local election boards are running into a problem with last-minute registrations scant weeks before an election, the simple solution would be to simply move back the deadline. Honestly, if people wish to register to vote they’re going to do it well in advance of the election. This would also do away with the open invitation to fraud known as same-day registration.
But I also agree we should do away with motor voter laws and eliminate early voting. If people are serious enough to vote they already have the right to get an absentee ballot. To me it’s a waste of taxpayer money to spend thousands on multi-day elections when just 2% of voters participate.
And don’t even go there and tell me I want to suppress turnout, because I don’t. I want prospective voters to take their responsibility more seriously. The left always screams “voter suppression” whenever some common-sense idea like photo voter ID or those others above are introduced, but they are all in favor of oppressive campaign finance laws. Isn’t that monetary suppression? Hypocrites.
The report is well worth a read.
Along that same line, writers Peter J. Boyer and Peter Schweizer ask why certain corporate interests can go scot-free under the Obama regime while others are hounded by the Justice Department. That’s not to say that Wall Street is a batch of crooks by any means, but in politics perception is reality and the fact that Wall Street gave far more to Barack Obama than John McCain leads to the thoughts of pay-for-play and cronyism.
Speaking of entities which give Democrats a lot of money, Matt Patterson and Trey Kovacs of the Competitive Enterprise Institute asked in the Washington Times why unions just won’t let go if a bargaining unit doesn’t want to stay with them. Well, the answer seems pretty simple to me – as they write:
There is a reason why unions are fighting to hold workers against their will and challenging laws that bring greater freedom to the workplace. Union leaders need a monopoly on labor in order to bankrupt governments and corporations, and they require unfree markets to maintain their own power and wealth.
That goes in the category of “duh,” workers be damned.
And this is a video worth sharing, even if I don’t necessarily agree with the point.
Personally I would prefer Medicare eventually be phased out or devolved to the states, but I realize that’s a decades-long process. Having said that, though, it’s obvious that Obamacare is the wrong direction to go despite the fact it cuts Medicare. Paul Ryan’s not pushing seniors off the cliff.
Finally, I wanted to bring up the attention being paid to a national issue by our own Congressman, Andy Harris. In a recent release, he decried the abuse of taxpayer dollars by those here illegally:
Illegal aliens are filing false tax returns claiming numerous fake child tax credits. Once our tax dollars are in the hands of illegal aliens, it’s impossible to get the money back. Once I learned about this outrageous loophole that allows billions of dollars per year to be stolen from US taxpayers, I knew I had to act.
In November of 2011, I joined Rep Sam Johnson in introducing H.R. 1956, Refundable Child Tax Credit Eligibility Verification Reform Act, to close this loophole. The bill is necessary because the IRS claims that they are simply following the law. We had hoped that the IRS would act without legislation.
One would think that the White House would instruct the IRS to stop giving away tax dollars to illegal aliens scamming our tax system. This is an urgent and immediate problem, especially as we’ve passed the tax filing deadline of April 15th.
The child care tax credits have grown from $924 million in 2005 to $4.2 billion last year. H.R. 1956 will curb the fraud in this program by requiring the IRS to only allow this tax credit for children with a social security number. H.R. 1956 was assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee and I am waiting for the hearing to be scheduled any time. (Emphasis in original.)
So my question is why there’s been no hurry to move this bill? I guess one would have to ask Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) because it’s his committee. Perhaps his contributors would like the waiver to stand?
In truth, though, I think this is another in the series of ill-advised cautions by the Republican establishment to not risk alienating the Latino vote. Never mind that they turn off millions of voters who are concerned about the illegal alien problem – I’ll grant it’s less of a concern now that migration by illegals is now a net outflow due to a poor economy, but once conditions improve we may become a magnet once again.
Well, that cleans out my mailbox for the most part. Glad you stopped by for some original monoblogue content – I can’t put all my good stuff on Examiner because in all honesty I’m not sure their format would lend itself to such a post. That’s why I maintain this independent, conservative site!
But by all means you should subscribe to my Examiner page to get notice of when I do post there. I’m having fun juggling all these writing plates! Haven’t broken one yet.
And a happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. I wrote this yesterday so I could devote a little time to the moms in my life today, so enjoy.
Good for Indiana (and North Carolina, too)
The TEA Party’s political obituary may have been written a little too soon, despite the presumed nomination of moderate Mitt Romney as the GOP Presidential standardbearer.
Senator Richard Lugar will be ‘Back Home Again in Indiana’ come January as he was defeated in their Republican primary. After 36 years in office, the 80-year-old Lugar became a poster child for establishment, RINO Republican insider and out-of-touch politician. State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, a TEA Party favorite, defeated the incumbent and will likely be elected come November. While Obama won the state in 2008, his campaign concedes Indiana will likely be a Republican win six months from now and Mourdock has twice won a statewide campaign.
Mourdock and other conservative Republicans have important races in the eyes of the TEA Party, with the hope being they would drag Mitt Romney to the right if he’s elected. (Of course, if Obama is re-elected the composition of Congress may not really matter.)
North Carolina voters also performed a valuable service, showing Maryland how it should be done and enacting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage by a comfortable 16-point margin. This should hearten Maryland advocates of traditional marriage, who now claim to be past the halfway point in gathering the required number of signatures to place the state’s same-sex marriage legislation on the November ballot. Supporters of gay marriage remain 0-for at the ballot box, although many believe Maryland could break their slump. (Let’s hope not.)
I’ll grant that not all TEA Party supporters are interested in social issues, believing they detract from the necessary push for fiscal conservatism that is the backbone of the TEA Party movement. But I believe that social conservatism goes hand-in-hand with fiscal conservatism, and this is an easier sell with a society based on traditional values. I really don’t care who sleeps with who, but I believe bending the definition of marriage in that manner would only lead to other problems and even more odious partnerships, like adult-child relationships or polygamy.
We’re about six months away from perhaps the most pivotal election in our history, and a chance to perhaps steer the country back in the right direction after four years of runaway spending, consolidation of executive power, and corporate/government cronyism gone rampant. Needless to say, we would have to have several elections in a row fall in the correct manner to undo all the damage done over the last century but 2012 has to be the first step on the journey. Let’s see whether the trends continue in the right direction.
Small business: it’s not just taxes, but regulations and training too
As a prominent member of the media (or more likely someone on a particular e-mail list) I received an advance notice of a study being released tomorrow; one which pinpoints some of the root complaints of small business owners around the country and, more importantly, grades states on how willing they are to help small businesses start up and prosper.
The study, which was a joint effort between the Kauffman Foundation and Thumbtack.com, a company which bills itself as “a place where you can hire help locally,” surveyed over 6,000 small business owners with some of the main goals being to find out:
- In general, how would you rate your state’s support of small business owners?
- Would you discourage or encourage someone from starting a new business in your state?
- How would you rate your company’s financial situation today?
In all, the study counted up 21 different metrics, ranking each state and 40 cities across the country in their business-friendly attitudes. Locally Maryland graded out as a C- overall, which translated into a ranking would put them between 31st and 33rd. There were two other states with a C- and 12 states which had a D or F grade; meanwhile, six states did not receive a grade – Alaska, Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Presumably they didn’t get a large enough survey sample from these smaller states. (The same holds true in our little corner of the state, as there were no responses south of Talbot County and only four on the entire Eastern Shore.)
Our state, surprisingly, did best on training programs with a B+ grade. I wasn’t shocked to see a low D+ grade on licensing, though. (The complete methodology and analysis is here.)
What did surprise me, however, was the fact Delaware only ranked as a C. But their tax code was given an A+ grade. Other adjacent states received overall grades of C (Pennsylvania) and A (Virginia.)
So why is this important?
Every so often, particularly when a new administrator takes over, we hear the government promise to make life easier for businesses by streamlining the process. But it seems that these words are just so much lip service in most cases – sure, you may see a “one-stop shop” but there are still reams of paperwork to fill out, license fees (read: government revenue) to collect, and other non-productive busy work for a prospective business owner to do. Obviously, a city or state which makes it easier to go through these hoops will eventually accrue an advantage over adjacent areas – it’s most painfully obvious in Maryland, which seems to lag behind neighboring Delaware and (particularly) Virginia in job creation.
The Founding Fathers had a vision of each state being its own laboratory of government, competing in how best to serve the public good. With respect to business climate, it’s obvious some are better than others and that’s one reason why some states are more prosperous.
However, with that being said, one also has to examine the goals of each state as well. If a state is interested in promoting job creation under the belief that a rising tide lifts all boats and their prosperity comes from the people doing well and contributing a small share of that wealth to the public coffers through reasonable taxation, that’s one philosophy I tend to agree with. On the other hand, if states figure that those who embark on business are cash cows to be milked until old Elsie crumples over from exhaustion, they do reasonably well until word gets out and people become fed up. The corollary effect of this philosophy is one where the public finds only large-scale businesses such as chain stores can be successful, because they have the overhead necessary to deal with these government-created issues whereas a mom and pop operation does not. Eventually that stifles competition, leading to collusion and a system of corporate cronyism.
Maryland seems to fall into the latter category, and there’s only one key reason they can get away with it. If it weren’t for having the seat of federal government power close by Maryland would be an economic basket case much like most of the Eastern Shore, with little industry or development to speak of. That’s because business policies are set to take advantage of the economically captive audience of the I-95 corridor. Martin O’Malley and other Democrats speak of ‘One Maryland’ but in reality there are at least three, and perhaps four: the western section, which could prosper if allowed to exploit its natural resources, the center of the state which relies on government to succeed economically, and the Eastern Shore, where agriculture and tourism reign supreme. Southern Maryland is sort of a blend between the latter two because of Washington, D.C. and its sprawling growth down the Potomac River.
Granted, there are local economic factors in play as well: while Virginia is a relatively prosperous state as a whole, I wouldn’t characterize their Eastern Shore as thriving. Localities are the same way – as businesses open up around the outskirts of Salisbury, the downtown area dries up. Needless to say, government policies are far from the only reason people decide to locate a business where they do. But they can make a difference in whether an enterprise succeeds or not. If taking eggs from the golden goose is all government seems interested in, don’t be surprised when the goose starves to death.
Small startup businesses already have a difficult time getting established in this economy, and the question becomes whether their efforts are helped or hindered by government. Over time, localities have tried a number of different approaches to attracting business like setting up infrastructure for industry on a speculative basis, establishing tax abatement policies, becoming a lender of last resort, and so on. All these can be helpful, although they aren’t exactly making the playing field more level.
Taking the step into entrepreneurship is already stressful enough, so the goal of government should be one of making the process as simple and painless as possible. Fortunes have been built in America based on good ideas, and government should take its place in line for its rightful share instead of taking advantage of those who have a dream.
The real life of ‘Julia’
In a blatant pitch to woo female voters – presumably the base of the Democratic machine – the Obama re-election campaign came up with the “Life of Julia” concept. Poor Julia is seen suffering through a life of government dependence from age 3 when she’s enrolled in Head Start (I suppose by Julia’s unseen parents) to age 67, when she “retires comfortably” on Social Security.
Of course, this little slideshow has been unmercifully (and rightfully) parodied by Lee Stranahan into the Life of Rover, given a conservative rebuttal by the Heritage Foundation, put under a libertarian remix, and become fodder for endless Twitter shots using the #Julia hashtag, some of which are featured at the tail end of this article by Meredith Jessup in The Blaze. It seems like every time Obama tries to go viral with a hashtag, conservatives have a ton of fun with it.
My question, though, is why Obama’s so worried about the female vote. One thing the President has going for him is a fair amount of personal likability, as the First Family has been carefully scripted to appeal to women as a happy nuclear family. Granted, the Obama children are far younger than President George W. Bush’s twin daughters, but it seemed like every time one of the Bush twins misbehaved it was made into news – on the other hand, a recent Mexican trip for Obama’s older daughter Malia had its accounts scrubbed and sanitized after word got out about the 13 year old’s journey south of the border.
But women have been hard hit by the poor economy, and oftentimes the female handles the bills in the family. Whether they’re a single mom or part of the rapidly disappearing nuclear family of Mom, Dad, and two kids, women have found that over the last three years it’s been getting harder to make ends meet.
And there’s also intention behind making ‘Julia’ a single mom – you may notice that there’s no husband in the picture when she has ‘Zachary.’ (Does that sound like a focus-grouped name or what?) Of all the women who voted in 2008, it was single women who came in most heavily for Obama – a 70-29 margin. If he loses even 10 percentage points on that total, Barack Obama has to know that his re-election bid is toast. But single women haven’t been exempt from the stagnant economy, either.
In reviewing the ‘Julia’ slides, there’s also no question that the Obama campaign is playing the class envy card to the hilt, even in this example. At 17 Julia could lose her public education funding to “pay for tax cuts to millionaires,” for example. And Julia’s life is doomed if we even cut one penny from these bloated federal programs or dispense of Obamacare, as several slides warn.
But would it? What if Julia’s parents didn’t send her to Head Start but took the time to read to the child – or better yet, made the investment of time and effort to homeschool her – even as they sacrifice the tax burden of helping to support the public education they aren’t using? Chances are Julia would still be able to enroll in that college. (I’m also curious: if Julia’s going into web design, is a four-year degree even required? It seems like she could acquire those skills in a two-year associate program at a community college.)
And perhaps her parents, if they raised her right, would instill in Julia the work ethic to get her to avoid taking out thousands of dollars of student loans because she would have learned to be responsible for the results of her own education while working her way through college, along with the moral compass to wait until the right stage of life to marry Zachary’s father before they have the little rugrat. Until that point she would pay for her own contraception, thank you. (Needless to say, abstinence is free.)
That work ethic would come in handy when Julia opens her own business because she will have to work twice as hard to overcome the roadblocks in her way – not because she is a woman, but because of all the red tape an overbearing bunch of pencil pushers throw in her path. She would also have the pride to not accept work simply from the set-asides given to a female-owned business, but because she does a damn good job of it. It’s the only way she would know.
And Julia would retire comfortably because she lived a reasonable but frugal lifestyle, investing wisely in her future despite government’s best efforts to confiscate every dollar she made. Julia and her husband of over 40 years would enjoy the sunset of their lives despite never receiving a Social Security check from a bankrupt system.
But perhaps my favorite parody of Julia came from the Facebook site AttackWatch:
The Gaps of Julia
At 1 year old: Under President Obama, Julia’s posts “I hate Obama!” on her Facebook page. She is investigated by the Secret Service for threats against the President. (That’s one precocious child!)
At 16 years old: Under President Obama, Julia goes goth and changes her religious affiliation to “Wicca.”
At 18: Under President Obama, Julia realizes she’s learned more on her own than she ever has at public school and registers as a Republican voter.
At 19: Under President Obama, she realizes her Pell grants don’t cover anything but a small tuition, so she takes out student loans to supplement her income.
At 23: Under President Obama, Julia begins her career as a web designer. Despite what Obama said all those years ago, she’s still paying hundreds a month on her student loans. She makes her payments on time, but rising taxes have made it difficult to eat much more than rice, beans, and ramen. She’s happy to know she can sue for wage discrimination, except that she’s making more than her male coworker who regularly attends Occupy Wall Street meetings. Since he’s known to go into work stoned, she’s inclined to believe the pay difference is because of her performance.
At 25: Under President Obama, Julia has worked as a web designer for the past four years. She’s chosen to be responsible with her health and family planning, and doesn’t want to drain the system by using other peoples’ money for her sex life.
At 31: Under President Obama, Julia and her husband decide they’re financally secure enough to have a child. Julia wishes she could be a stay-at-home mom, but she can’t because men’s wages have been stagnant for 50 years now and they can’t live solely on her husband’s income. She slips and lets the tax payers pick up the tab for her maternity leave. Both her and her husband’s taxes go up the following year. They consider selling their house to move into a condo half the size.
At 37: Under President Obama, Julia’s son Zachary starts kindergarten. She’s there to see him off at the bus stop because she quit her job, deciding the slight bit of extra pay wasn’t worth it since taxes and highly-regulated child care costs were so high. She and her husband fight more than they’d like, but remain close. Zachary eats better than they do, they make sure of that.
At 42: Under President Obama, Julia decides to start her own at-home business to try and bring in at least a meager extra income. She finds that Obama’s tax cuts for small businesses help, but his extra excise taxes on manufacturers and healthcare and income do not. It’s not a zero-sum game; she’s losing money. She wants to help people, so she hires another worker, but has to lay him off after a year because she can’t afford the healthcare costs.
At 65: Under President Obama, Julia submits an application for Medicare. She’s eagerly granted acceptance.
At 66: Under President Obama, Julia develops a brain tumor. She submits an application to Medicare, which is denied. “Due to age,” and “See Quality of Life (QoL) Regulations” stick out through her watered eyes. She chokes and sobs. She hugs her 70 year old husband when he returns from work. They cry together, in bed, just holding each other. “We tried,” Julia whispers to her husband.
At 67: Under President Obama, Julia passes in her husband’s arms. Full of anger that his ailing wife was denied care from the Obamacare Government because of costs, he takes his wrath to Facebook. He writes, “President Obama, I can’t stand everything you’ve done!”
At 71: Under President Obama, Julia’s husband is investigated by the Secret Service for threats against the President.
President Obama has now been president for at least 67 years.
You might laugh, but the sad fact is that millions of gullible voters will lap up the Obama Kool-Aid and believe he’s only trying to help the middle class. He’s helping them, all right – helping them become poor and dependent on government handouts of some sort.
Who will they be in it for?
This goes in the category of “I had to laugh.”
Because I have one of the millions of e-mail addresses that makes up Barack Obama’s list of internet friends, I get his campaign missives on practically a daily basis. Yesterday’s was a hoot, and I excerpt here:
Mark your calendar: On May 10th, George Clooney is hosting an event at his home in Los Angeles to support President Obama.
If you donate $3 or whatever you can today, you’ll be automatically entered to be there, too.
We’ll take care of airfare and accommodations — all you need to do is think about who you’d ask to join you for an evening with President Obama and George Clooney.
At least twice in the last few months there was been the enticement of having dinner with the President, but the unwashed masses don’t seem to be coughing up enough $3 donations to make that work anymore. If it were he wouldn’t need a SuperPAC, even though it’s not making a ton of money either.
I suppose that’s the risk you run when pandering to the food stamp generation. So Obama needs a little bit of star power now, and anyone with half a brain for popular culture knows that when one uber-liberal Hollywood star has a political event, a whole flock of them (along with assorted other beggars and hangers-on) show up. So the thought in the Obama campaign must be that a million people will cough up $3 to show up at George Clooney’s house to be laughed at as that giant sucker who won the contest. Maybe they’ll put the winner in a closet so they can have the real party and stick their hands into the Obama stash.
Unfortunately, the same fundraising approach is being used by the Romney camp (as is the dinner one) and it’s beginning to make me wonder if our culture is just too starstruck and obsessed with celebrity to think rationally anymore. It used to be that people donated money because they believed in the candidate, but what message does it send out when one can donate a trivial amount to be entered into a contest as the longest of shots to have to rub elbows with the President? Okay, the chance to see the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Patriot’s Day wouldn’t have been a bad enticement for me but I resisted. It would have been a good game to watch, too. (I wonder if Romney stayed for the whole thing? Reason number 8,564 I couldn’t be a politician: if I go to a ballgame I am there until the final pitch. I don’t care if they play 20 innings.)
We all know Barack Obama decries the Citizens United decision out of one side of his mouth while eschewing campaign finance limits with the other. But if people want to donate against their self-interest in the slimmest of hopes of hobnobbing with Hollywood elitists, Obama is all for that. And considering no one has to report donations under $200 to the FEC, no one will really see where the money comes from, just that they’ll have the cash to spend on glossing over the Obama record.
Something tells me there’s something for George Clooney in this too. Those elitists really hate spending time with real people from flyover country, so I’m guessing there’s a Department of Energy grant or farm bill earmark somewhere chosen especially for him. Good luck to the person selected from among all the donors, because the rest of us are going to lose if Obama wins.
More observations on the RNC races
As I mentioned the other day we had our quad-county meeting earlier this week, where the members of the four Lower Shore GOP Central Committees (Wicomico, Worcester, Somerset, and Dorchester) get together to discuss issues and find common ground. For the most part, this meeting (ably ran by John McCullough of Dorchester County) focused on the upcoming Spring Convention, including what was supposed to be a frank discussion of the two National Committee races.
In the runup to the meeting, we debated whether we should invite the candidates to speak or not. Three of the four county chairs decided to say no, while the other was neutral on the issue. Because of that consensus, none of the hopefuls was invited to speak; however Audrey Scott got her “wires crossed” in the words of McCullough and showed up anyway. It created an awkward scene where we had to have her leave the room so an open discussion could take place.
But before she left, she made sure to tell everyone not to believe what was read on this site. And while she was careful not to single me or my site out by name, I must say that I will abide a lot of things because I bend over backwards to be fair but I will not be called a liar. In fact, I have taken steps to have the information I was provided by several reliable sources disproved and if I find out it is so I will make the correction. As of this writing I’m awaiting the confirmation, after asking a person I frankly thought she threw under the bus when the subject was brought up.
Unfortunately for Audrey, some of her more fervent supporters adopted the same condescending tone Audrey adopted when she discussed what’s been said about her in the campaign. This was especially apparent when one (female) backer wondered aloud if Nicolee Ambrose could handle the position while having a family, ignoring the fact that many women who serve in politics already do so quite well. These supporters as a group believed Audrey’s experience sets her apart, and I won’t deny she’s experienced. But that’s not what the position needs at this time; instead it needs bold leadership and frankly I feel Audrey Scott will treat the post like a retirement gift from a grateful party.
And then we have several points brought up by quad-county members about Audrey’s actions: the Rule 11 controversy, attendance at the rally supporting the gas tax and her weak retort that she only attended the rally to support a bill to keep the Transportation Trust Fund from being raided, and of course the “unelectable” Roscoe Bartlett comment. I found it fascinating as well that, just hours after Roscoe announced his support of Nicolee Ambrose in the NCW race, Audrey Scott slapped up her own grainy picture with Bartlett, taken at the Montgomery County Lincoln Day Dinner last Friday. She also rehashed the “let’s get behind our nominees” mea culpa but the damage has been done.
I also found out, in speaking to some of those attending, that at least two of them who are listed as supporters of Audrey Scott have no intention of voting for her. Of course, Audrey mentioned she would be happy to remove any names from the list but who wants to ask about something like that? It’s almost embarrassing, but more importantly these admissions chip away at her facade of support she’s attempting to build.
Compared to the NCW discussion, the contest between Scott Shaffer and Louis Pope was rather mild. There were some who wanted the change and some who didn’t, but for the most part neither drew many negative remarks.
But I wanted to bring up something I was told today, as a letter from Louis Pope arrived in my mailbox. It proves one thing that Scott Shaffer brought up earlier this week and that I wasn’t sure of: Pope is indeed sending out re-election items paid for by the RNC (at least the stationery is, and presumably postage too.)
I’m not worried about the couple hundred dollars which the RNC may be giving to Pope for his re-election (although it is an important item to point out) as much as I’m interested in this line that Pope wrote:
Over the last decade I have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for MDGOP and our local and statewide candidates here in Maryland, as well as presidential candidates.
I’ll take that at face value, particularly since Pope has led fundraising seminars in the past and has several entries on his political resume regarding fundraising for Bob Ehrlich, Michael Steele, and George W. Bush. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in a decade seems like a realistic amount.
Yet Audrey Scott claimed to raise $1.5 million for the MDGOP along with $1 million from the RNC for Victory Centers, all in the one year she was Chair. I’d be glad to believe that if the numbers were there, but as I dissected them last Sunday they are not. But even if she did, I quite frankly believe that her presence at the quad county meeting may have lost her more votes than she gained, particularly when the Allen West fundraiser that Nicolee Ambrose helped to organize was described in glowing terms. I don’t think MDGOP fundraising would suffer under Nicolee, particularly if she can bring those kinds of personalities to the state.
Out of a two-hour meeting, we spent well over an hour going back and forth about the National Committeewoman race. To me that points out the distinction between the two candidates, and I’ll be quite interested to see how the votes come out from the four counties involved in the quad-county meeting. Our votes may not mean a lot but they have to be earned, and coming down to attend a meeting where her opponent obeyed a specific request not to show up gives me the impression that Audrey Scott believes she’s entitled to be National Committeewoman because she’s served in the Republican Party at a high level for a long time.
I don’t believe in entitlements. I believe we need a leader, and Audrey Scott isn’t translating the success she had as Chair into a good campaign for National Committeewoman.
Free (if politically incorrect) speech
It’s billed as a non-political event, but something tells me that they’re not going to sit around sipping on Coca-Cola.
I got the invitation from Robert Broadus, who will be a speaker at the Take Back Maryland Rally on Saturday in Federalsburg. It’s organized by a group I was heretofore unfamiliar with called the League of the South, and I’ll get to them in a little bit.
First of all, the topics seem quite interesting: during the three-hour Saturday afternoon event, Broadus will speak on “Defending Marriage in the Old Line State,” State Senator Rich Colburn talks about “A 51st State: Partitioning ‘Red’ Maryland from ‘Blue’ Maryland,” and David Whitney of the Institute of the Constitution pondering “Is the 14th Amendment Legal?” All seem like intriguing topics worth listening to, particularly since they don’t seem to come from an orthodox point of view in Maryland.
The sponsoring organization bills itself as maintaining the spirit of the Confederacy, noting ”We seek to advance the cultural, social, economic, and political well-being and independence of the Southern people by all honourable means.” Obviously this brings up the familiar images of the rebel flag, white-hooded Ku Klux Klan members, and separate but equal facilities. And of course we’ve already fought one War Between the States that their side lost.
Still, if you ignore the racial portion of the equation (as Broadus is apparently doing, since he is a black man) there are some aspects of Southern life which could stand a revival. A couple in particular are the restoration of state’s rights and the Southern emphasis on family and community – the definition of which comes from achieving the greater good through local, privately-based efforts rather than a government program. Taken in that context, the selection of speakers makes a lot of sense.
Without question, this will be the kind of event that liberals fall over themselves condemning because they see almost everything through a lens of perceived racism. But the League of the South contends (and I think to a significant extent rightfully so) that southern Maryland, the Eastern Shore, and lower Delaware are bastions of the old South trapped inside northern states; on the other hand portions of Confederate states like Florida and Texas are no longer “southern” as they define it because of Yankee and Latino influences.
And while there isn’t a shooting war going on between the blue and the gray, there’s no denying we have a cultural and social war going on between the principles being stood for by the League of the South and ideologically similar, socially conservative and even libertarian groups versus those promulgated by their perception of government policy and the influence of Hollywood and the mainstream media.
Just witness the GOP Presidential primary schedule – Mitt Romney didn’t win any states in the Deep South except Florida, and Florida was won only because Romney carried the urban areas. The northern tier of the state and panhandle was Gingrich country, as was Newt’s adopted home state of Georgia and South Carolina. Rick Santorum carried Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee during his Presidential bid.
They didn’t call the South the Bible Belt for nothing, and over the last many decades it’s been Hollywood’s task to sell the idea of Southerners as white trash while government enforces policies which many evangelicals in the South disagree with. Yet Southerners are proportionally more likely to fight and die for their country.
But I guarantee that some of those who read this article are going to shake their head and think to themselves that these speakers are making a mistake appearing before such a group, one which believes the South should rise again and eventually secede from the rest of the Union. I have news for them: we already live in a polarized and divided nation, made so because it benefits certain people and groups at the expense of the rest of us. We don’t have to agree with everything the League of the South says, but we should give it the respect due any other group of citizens who have a political or social view to express. A country which allows both the hatred of Fred Phelps and the perversion of the Folsom Street Fair (just Google both, I’m not linking) definitely should make room for a group advocating a return to the better points of tradition.
Colombia scandal closer to home
The latest news sensation blown up by the need for content to serve the master of a 24/7/365 media, the Colombia Secret Service scandal has many of the ingredients of a juicy tale, with sex and celebrity among them.
But it’s also ensnared a collateral victim in all this, as recently nominated U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino is a former Secret Service agent who apparently knew some of those involved. Needless to say, those on the Left have been quick to tar him with the same brush and Bongino has responded:
With regard to the ongoing investigation into the activities of a group of Secret Service Agents in Colombia, I have chosen to defend the agency publicly & will continue to do so. I will not defend the abhorrent choices made by the individuals involved as they have tarnished the reputations of an elite group of men & women I am proud to call friends. I have been clear from the beginning both publicly & privately that I had close personal relationships with those involved but out of respect for their families, I adamantly refused to release their names. A left wing media outlet intentionally leaked the name of my brother without the surrounding facts. ALL of those involved, without exception, pursuant to a thorough investigation, must be held responsible for their choices. Integrity and leadership matter.
Already several of those involved have faced punishment or termination from the Secret Service, but if you look at this in a political sense this is a needless distraction in a race already made an uphill climb by Ben Cardin’s financial advantage – David Moon of Maryland Juice mocks Dan, writing that Bongino has “dustballs in (his campaign) wallet” while bragging about Ben Cardin’s millions in the bank. (Living in a high-tax Democratic state too many of the rest of us working Marylanders have dustballs in our wallets too, David.)
Now I’m not paranoid enough to see this as a conspiracy against a single Senatorial candidate in a race that’s really not on the national radar screen yet, but this sort of attention is going to be detrimental to Bongino until it clears its way off the front pages for the next scandal. This is true even though Bongino left the Secret Service nearly a year ago, when he began his campaign.
Instead, the campaign should be reset – even if some of us have to force the agenda in that direction – to speak about the real issues. Let’s look at a Facebook statement Bongino made Monday, for example:
It’s time to have a genuine conversation about what the administration refers to as “fairness”. What is “fair” about a limitless spending agenda which places untold burdens on my children? What is “fair” about a tax code written by insiders, paid for by insiders and benefiting insiders and their political acolytes? What is “fair” about telling parents just looking for a fair shot that education is the govt’s choice and not their’s? This is a conversation, we as Republicans, should embrace.
Ben Cardin supports all these things: the escalating spending, the tax code cronyism, the blind throwing of money at a dysfunctional public education system; above all, it’s all about preserving political power and he’s played that game at a variety of levels for 45 long years.
The early April primary makes the campaign a marathon – with just a small fraction of the voters casting their ballots most haven’t gotten into the political frame of mind yet and probably won’t do so until the national conventions later this summer. So the scandal comes at a good time insofar as Dan is concerned because it will be forgotten by this fall, but it also takes just that little bit away from the movement building we’ll need to oust an entrenched incumbent.
Tolerance: the Left doesn’t practice what it preaches
If you thought the debate over same-sex marriage was going to be genteel and conducted by adults, don’t say you weren’t warned of what was to come.
This was sent by Protect Marriage Maryland as an example of some of the sign vandalism and theft which has occurred since churches and supporters of traditional marriage around the state began putting up signs urging people to “protect marriage” over the first few months of the year in response to the bill signed by Governor O’Malley legalizing same-sex marriage in 2013. Of course, PMM is among the groups seeking to place the issue on November’s ballot.
And with a number of events where people are expected to gather before the initial May 31 signature gathering deadline (including next weekend’s Pork in the Park celebration and the Salisbury Festival the following weekend) we could see efforts made at intimidating those who would seek or give their signatures to petition the bill to referendum. The template is already there based on some of the events surrounding last year’s petition drive to put in-state tuition for illegal aliens on the ballot, not to mention the controversy which swirled around California’s gay marriage referendum and its aftermath. The price of deviating from political correctness can be steep.
Yet I’ve often wondered why those who believe gay marriage must become the law of the state are so afraid. They trumpet polls which state their side is winning, and while it takes the signatures of just 3 percent of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election to place a referendum on the ballot, it was nearly a 20 year hiatus since the last time Maryland had seen a successful push for allowing voters to decide. If they are so right there shouldn’t be a need to deface signs and perhaps intimidate petition signature gatherers and contributors to the pro-marriage effort, should there?
I happen to believe in traditional marriage and I’ve already signed the petition to place the issue on the ballot. Hopefully somewhere around 150,000 to 200,000 Marylanders will do the same, and while they’re at it place our gerrymandered Congressional districts to referendum as well. (Somehow I don’t think anyone will be putting out signs exhorting us to save the Congressional districts, though.) Perhaps I will take a little flak for doing so, but I happen to believe that changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples will eventually lead to it including adult-child weddings and unions between multiple partners of one or both genders. Once one threshold is crossed, those who will take a mile when given an inch won’t be satisfied with the one notch in the bedpost they’ve achieved.
And spare me the equation of the relatively recent legalization of interracial marriage and same-sex marriage. Once civil rights advocates got their desire to eliminate racial barriers to marital bliss, they were completely satisfied. Yet getting all the legal benefits and protections of marriage through the adoption of civil unions isn’t good enough for the radical queer movement – it has to be considered the equal of marriage between one man and one woman, or nothing.
Finally, it’s worth reading this gay man’s theory that being gay is more of a fad than anything, done for shock value. If what he’s saying is true – and admittedly this is very anecdotal, single-source evidence – then perhaps we should rethink the idea of changing a century or more of law (not to mention many generations of custom) for the flavor of the day.
Remember, the maturity level of some gay marriage proponents is measured by the behavior they exhibit. Is defacing a sign an indicator that the merits of same-sex nuptials can be rationally argued? I don’t think so.
Last race standing
About 35,000 votes were cast, and as of tonight’s results there were just 82 votes separating the two front-runners. But this evening John LaFerla conceded the Democratic nomination in the First District Congressional race to Wendy Rosen. In a statement on his Facebook site LaFerla wrote:
Now that most of the absentee and provisional ballots have been counted, it is clear that the result of the Democratic Primary in the 1st Congressional District will not change and I will not be nominee of our party.
I would like to congratulate Wendy Rosen for winning the nomination of our party and I wholeheartedly endorse her candidacy and urge all my supporters to get behind her so we can defeat Andy Harris this November.
I want to thank everyone who supported our campaign to bring common sense to Congress. While we came up short, the issues we talked about remain vital to the future of our District and our Nation. While I won’t be in Congress, I hope to continue working with all of you in other ways to build a brighter future for everyone in our community.
So for the first time in recent memory no one from the Eastern Shore will be among the two major-party contenders for the Congressional seat, after a streak of Eastern Shore representatives for the First District – which for the decade between 2000 and 2010 was roughly a 50-50 voter split between Eastern and Western shores – came to an end with the election of Andy Harris. Both Wayne Gilchrest and Frank Kratovil lived on the Eastern Shore; while Harris owns a condominium on the Eastern Shore his principal residence is in Baltimore County, as is opponent Wendy Rosen’s.
Yet while the First District was perhaps made even more Republican, there is peril in Andy’s re-election bid. There’s no doubt that the public perception of Harris as stiff and uncaring will be made even more apparent as he faces a female opponent for the first time as a Congressional candidate. Certainly the Sun and other media outlets will do their best to soften Rosen’s image over the summer. (Harris defeated female Democratic opponents in both his State Senate re-election runs in 2002 and 2006, however.)
In an interview on Forbes.com Rosen describes herself as a “recovering Republican” who left the party for because she perceived it as unfriendly to small business:
Her frustration has grown to disenchantment with the Republican Party, which she says only supports big business and eventually led to her decision to run for Congress as a Democrat.
“I always thought the Republican Party supported small business and included small business in that definition (of being pro-business),” she says. “I think the Democratic Party is more receptive to creative ideas needed to revitalize our smallest businesses. The Republican Party represents the defense industry and the insurance industry. They talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.”
I have to chuckle on that one because she’s about 180 degrees out of phase, at least when it comes to the current occupant of the Oval Office and titular head of the Democrat Party. If there’s anyone who is selling government to the highest bidder who can afford the largest group of lobbyists it’s those in Rosen’s current political home.
And if you look at Rosen’s key issues, it’s clear she’s trying to portray herself as a friend to small business. But what I see from her is more micromanagement and government picking winners and losers. I’m not seeing the big ideas which will level the playing field and allow all companies a fair shake like a reduction in regulations and a more sound tax policy which would put more money in their pockets, allowing them to hire more workers and create more jobs. That’s how you “fill those vacant shops and give small business owners the tools and support necessary for them to succeed” – you get out of their way.
Wendy rails about how too many items come from other countries and aren’t American made, but has she considered why the products are made overseas? Well, there is a cost of labor advantage, but by the time you add shipping costs that is practically negated. Yet taxing business at the industrialized world’s highest rate (as of April 1 Japan lowered its corporate tax rate below that of the United States) and writing reams of regulations (a study for the Small Business Administration in 2010 pegged the annual regulatory cost at $1.75 trillion – yes, that’s trillion with a “tr”) isn’t going to create American jobs. Nor will it win many friends in the business world – that is, unless you have the lobbyists and clout to write the rules in such a way to stifle competition. She’s suspiciously silent on those aspects of the issue. And what about the energy industry and gasoline prices?
I’m pleased Wendy seems to have found a way to succeed in her chosen field, although when she talks about walking the halls of Congress for over 10 years she begins to sound like the lobbyists she detests. But I think we have tried things her way for a number of years and those methods don’t work anymore. Back off the entrepreneurs of America, give them breathing room from excessive burdens, and watch them grow.
A fork we stick in Rick
So it ends, not with a bang but more of a whimper.
The news that Rick Santorum has opted to suspend his campaign just two weeks before a multistate primary where opponent Mitt Romney would be expected to do well in all the states – except possibly Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania – coupled with the withdrawal in all but name by Newt Gingrich over the weekend (“he had more things to hit with than I did”), means that Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee come September. Sure, Ron Paul is still in the race but he hasn’t won a primary yet.
Obviously that’s frustrating news to Santorum backers (like The Other McCain) as well as residents of the five states (including Delaware) who were expectantly awaiting their turn in the national spotlight, but it also brings up a couple interesting questions.
- Who will be the second banana on the ticket? We saw a rejuvenated Republican Party for a brief time in 2008 when Sarah Palin was selected, so one would hope Romney assuages conservatives with a strong pick.
- Will the electorate in the remaining states which have not conducted primary elections embrace Mitt as the nominee?
I don’t know what the rules are for ballot withdrawal in the remaining states, but it’s quite likely that the last four standing (Romney, Paul, Gingrich, and Santorum) are on the ballot in 17 of the 19 remaining states (Nebraska and Montana are caucus states.) And we can look back at Virginia for a case study in just how much anti-Romney sentiment was out there – in a contest limited to Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, Romney couldn’t even carry 60 percent of the vote. Had it been Santorum or Gingrich on the ballot straight up against Romney, Rick or Newt may have carried the state.
It would be quite surprising now if Romney didn’t get a clear majority of the votes, but the depth of anti-Romney sentiment may be most expressed in states where Santorum or Gingrich were thought to be strongest (most likely Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Indiana, and South Dakota among remaining primary states.) But this ceding of the Presidential field could also have a detrimental effect on conservatives in downticket races as well – one example being the U.S. Senate primary in Indiana where moderate Senator Richard Lugar faces a primary opponent in Richard Mourdock.
But all the talk of a possible brokered convention and a white knight coming in to save the GOP will now be replaced by emotions from anger at the establishment to outright despair from the Right that Romney can’t win and we’re doomed to another four long years of Barack Obama. Yet if every conservative in the country came out and voted, we would win because Democratic turnout tends to lag behind Republican regardless of whatever tricks the Democrats try to pull. It’s simple math – around 40 percent of the country self-identifies as conservative while only 20 percent or so self-identify as liberal. Even if the squishy middle splits evenly, we win.
And it’s not like the incumbent has much of a record to run on, unless you define record deficits, record number of adults out of the work force, and record high gas prices as records to brag about. Obama has those.
So here we are: Obama vs. Romney. It wasn’t my personal choice (since I voted for Santorum after all my other good choices split the scene) but that’s the way it’s going to be.
And now for something (almost) completely different:
I have it on very good authority that someone familiar to local voters is going to jump into the First District Congressional race. That’s all I’m going to say for now, but watch this space for more details.
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