Odds and ends no. 6

Been awhile since I’ve had one of these, but thanks to reading some of my fellow MBA bloggers’ websites, I’ve found a few things out.

Thanks to Soccer Dad, I found out that the Baltimore Orioles’ farm system is getting quite a bit more compact geographically. Instead of shipping their players to Canada to hold them in reserve just off the big league roster, now players who progress through the Orioles system will go this route: Bluefield (WV), Aberdeen, Delmarva, Frederick, Bowie, Norfolk, and Baltimore. After 38 years as a Mets affiliate, the Norfolk Tides will now become the top farm team of the Orioles.

It may also come to pass that the man who owns the Tides, Ken Young, would become the new owner of three other teams in the Orioles’ chain, including the Shorebirds. That deal is apparently now contingent on the approval of both the minor league and major league baseball organizations, but that’s generally a rubber stamp.

So if Ken Young happens to be reading this, please refer to this post! I have a few suggestions for you.

Further, I found out that the lone Maryland team not holding an Orioles affiliation, the Hagerstown Suns, has also dropped the Mets as a talent supplier and opted to become a farm team for the Washington Nationals. So a great Maryland rivalry becomes even better. In fact, with the exception of the lowest level, starting next season the Orioles and Nationals affiliates will become at least semi-frequent opponents at each minor league level because longtime Yankee triple-A affiliate Columbus will become the Nationals’ top farm club in 2007.

Another item I saw amongst my MBA brethren was a blurb on Pillage Idiot regarding the top 10 Maryland political bloggers, of which he was one along with the Alan Colmes of our group (Crablaw) and some Eastern Shore blog, now what was the name of it?

Here is what Stephanie Dray had to say about monoblogue:

“This blog about Maryland politics is located in Salisbury, and that’s a good thing. In any discussion of Maryland politics, the Eastern Shore tends to be neglected. Monoblogue attempts to pick up the slack. Unusual for conservative commentary, the tone of this blog tends to be wonky. There’s a slew of useful links on the right-hand side, and it’s filled with content. A handy resource for those looking to learn more about Maryland politics.”

And here’s her list of the others in the Top 10. As one would expect from a left-leaning perspective, she mostly cites those that share her views. However, her comments about monoblogue tell me that I’m pretty much hitting the target that I intended when I started it, particularly regarding the links and the amount of content. So I appreciate the input from Stephanie, and perhaps that’s why I had a record for both hits and readership in September. I do think it’s a bit funny that I see this praise on a week that I was tracking the baseball playoff picture on a nightly basis. But I can’t do wall-to-wall politics because I’d get burnt on it.

Speaking of hits and readers, I was looking at my Site Meter today and realized that reader number 10,000 should be visiting my site this week. (This is readers since I started the Site Meter in the spring.) It’ll be interesting to see who it is, if I can figure it out.

Also, just to make people aware of this, I’ve already contacted Comcast about my move – but there may be a period in two weeks where my updates will be nonexistent as monoblogue switches venues. Hopefully all will go smoothly with the move; however, after the election I’m going to also update to WordPress 2.0.4 so there might have to be a template change (right now I run a much older WordPress version, release 1.5.2). Thus it’s possible the “look” of monoblogue could change as well. Just a “heads up”.

There is one thing I’m going to look for in WordPress that I’d like to integrate into monoblogue, and that’s the ability to do polls. I’m not sure if there’s a plugin that does it for WordPress, but if I can find one which agrees with the other plugins I have, I’ll integrate it and do occasional polls because I’m just a curious sort like that.

Election Calendar – October 2 thru October 15

Once again, it’s a pretty light calendar. I think people are still catching their breath a little bit from the primary because there’s not been a whole lot of action. Of course, it’s also assumed that each party has its base of support nailed down so all the effort goes toward picking up independents and they’re more easily reached via the media.

But on to the calendar once again.

Monday, October 2: This is the local election day in Fruitland, a fact I was alerted to last week.

Tuesday, October 3: Candidate forum in the Wicomico Room of Guerrieri Center on the Salisbury University campus. It starts at 7:00, and if you’re like me and can’t be there it’s also being taped for showing on PAC-14.

Wednesday, October 4: This is becoming a Wednesday night tradition. County Executive write-in candidate Charles Jannace holds court at Break Time Billiards, 1009 South Salisbury Boulevard in Salisbury. A Break Time event is on his website calendar through November 1st.

Thursday, October 5 and Friday, October 6: No events scheduled.

Saturday, October 7: I believe this is a fundraiser, but State Senator Richard Colburn is having a dinner at the American Legion #91 post in Cambridge at 6:00 p.m. I still haven’t gotten confirmation on costs and such.

Also on that date, County Executive candidate Charles Jannace will have a “Twilight Cruise” fundraiser. It begins at 4:30 p.m. and cost is $100 per person. Contact Donna at (443) 523-7653 for more information.

Sunday, October 8 and Monday, October 9: No events scheduled.

Tuesday, October 10: PACE is sponsoring a Wicomico County Sheriff’s Forum (Kirk Daugherty vs. Mike Lewis) at Wor-Wic College at 7:00 p.m. If I were to guess, I’d say that will also be on PAC-14 at a future date (because I can’t attend that one either!)

Wednesday, October 11: As noted earlier, County Executive candidate Charles Jannace will be at Break Time Billiards.

There are no events currently slated from October 12-15.

Today I got a nice note from WICO-AM’s Bill Reddish and he’s sent me his scheduled 7:40 a.m. guests for the next couple weeks.

October 2: County Executive candidate Charles Jannace.
October 3: State Senate District 37 candidate Hilary Spence.
October 4: House of Delegates District 38A hopeful Patrick Armstrong.
October 5: United States Senate candidate (and current Lieutenant Governor) Michael Steele.
October 6: Current Delegate from District 38A Page Elmore.

October 9: Current Delegate from District 38B Norm Conway.
October 10: Wicomico County Council at-large candidate John Cannon.
October 11: Wicomico County Council at-large candidate Bill McCain.
October 12: House of Delegates District 38B officeseeker Bonnie Luna.
October 13: Wicomico County Sheriff hopeful Mike Lewis (tentative).

While it goes beyond my timeframe, Bill’s already lined up two others for the following week.

October 16: Wicomico County Council District 3 incumbent Gail Bartkovich.
October 17: Wicomico County Council District 4 candidate David MacLeod.

I swear if it weren’t for Bill Reddish, there wouldn’t be a whole lot of point in this exercise. I’m not getting a whole lot of cooperation from most of the candidates, so if you are one or know one, let them know about this Election Calendar. It’s called free publicity, people! I’ve been getting about 700 readers a week so that’s not chump change here.

A trip to the Holly Center

One casualty of my recent focus (bordering on obsession) to the baseball playoff picture was a visit I made Tuesday last to a community forum held at the Holly Center. For those of you not from Salisbury, the Holly Center is a facility that houses severely to profoundly mentally retarded individuals. I suppose this was a case of rank having its privileges – the sole reason I was invited is because I’m soon to be a politician. In fact, out of perhaps 50 to 75 that attended this breakfast I’d have to say at least half were political candidates, and the reason for the breakfast (to put it bluntly) was to justify the Holly Center’s very existence. In their word, they wanted these elected officials to “confront” the state’s bureaucracy.

The actual sponsor of this gettogether was Holly Community, which is a group dedicated to serving what I’d call the ancilliary needs of the Holly Center population and benefit their quality of life. The overriding goals of Holly Community are to improve the lives of those who reside at Holly Center, provide options for private caregivers, and utilize the facility as a whole more fully; in essence making it a “one-stop shop” for individuals in need of their services.

At this continental breakfast, we were given a Powerpoint presentation that included a short history of the Holly Center facility. The site along Snow Hill Road was deeded to the state back in 1969, and 6 years later the Holly Center opened. As originally built there were nine residential cottages and buildings for recreation, education, administration, and an infirmary. Basically it was built to be its own little community with a target population of 225. The population has never gotten to that point though, at its peak in 1991 there were 205 residents and now there’s about 100. Because of this population shortfall, 3 of the buildings (including the original infirmary) have been converted to other uses, while one cottage was converted into a new infirmary. Groups that use former Holly Center buildings include Healthy U, the Child Advocacy Center, Wor-Wic Community College, and the Eastern Shore Laboratory.

A goal of the Holly Community group is to build up the population by giving those who have dependents in need of their services the ability to choose care at the center. Currently the state of Maryland has a preference for integrating those who would’ve been the target population of the Holly Center into the community at large as part of group homes. (My stepdaughter works in a similar group home in Ohio, she is one of the caregivers to five adult individuals whose mental ages range from infancy to age 12.) In 1981, claimed the presenters, there were 11 facilities similar to theirs in Maryland, now there’s just four and Holly Center is the lone one on the Eastern Shore (there’s state-run facilities in Hagerstown, Cumberland, and Owings Mills as well.) The Holly Community group argues that because the facility is there and already on the state’s budget, it should be one of the choices available to those in need; however, the state discourages admissions and only a few have occurred in the last decade. Currently the state has money in its budget for what’s called “respite care” (allowing temporary admissions to avoid family caregiver burnout) but that program will sunset in September of 2007. The Holly Community group chided Governor Ehrlich for wishing to shift the focus of caring for the severely mentally disabled to community-based services, but admissions to state-run facilities were practically ceased in 2001 before he took office. They also noted that a bill allowing the choice of using state-run facilities for care didn’t make it out of committee in the last General Assembly session.

The Holly Community group also talked about the loss of employees in the last decade; at one time there were 374 employees and now the number is about 285. They asserted that payroll is about $15 million (of a budgeted $18 million) and the economic impact to the region is over $90 million. Additionally, the group complained that other state agencies who advocate community-based care get 90% of the budget targeted for those individuals who have severe to profound mental retardation.

One asset the Holly Center does enjoy is a large parcel of land. The site is 75 acres and stretches back from Snow Hill Road all the way back to the apartments at the end of Onley Road. At one time it was planned to sell the “back 40” as state surplus land, but that was shelved in part by Delegate Conway, or at least that was what was said. (I’d have to say that the Holly Community folks are pretty strong backers of Norm, they frequently referred to him doing things for the center including the respite care funding.) A portion of that land is going to be developed soon as a new senior center, the 30,000 square foot facility is on target for a mid-2007 groundbreaking.

What the Holly Community advocated to those of us in attendance was a model that is being used in the commonwealth of Virginia, that of a “community resource center”, or, the “one-stop shop” I called it earlier. And to me that actually seemed fairly logical. With an estimated 700 families on the Eastern Shore in need of these services, it makes sense to have this concept become reality.

Let’s face it, there’s a large NIMBY factor that comes into play when word gets out that a group home for the profoundly retarded is plopped into the community at large. To a large extent, that’s fear of the unknown, but just as there’s communities that are tailored to “active seniors” and are age restricted enclaves, maybe here’s an opportunity to have a community of individuals who are in various states of mental retardation have the care they need in one facility. Perhaps the entities who run group homes in various areas could have a parcel leased to them by the state on the Holly Center grounds and locate the group homes there. With a senior center coming on site, there’s the possibility of interaction between these two distinct communities as well. This would also allow the current facilities to be used for their intended purposes more fully and also allow for better training opportunities for the personnel in the privately-run group homes.

Until mankind figures out a way to magically cure the condition of severe to profound mental retardedness, there’s going to be a need for someone to take care of these less fortunate individuals. While families of those afflicted and privately-run entities take up an increasing portion of the slack, it’s still been dictated by the citizens of Maryland (as is their right as one of the “several states” under the Constitution) that the state assist to one extent or another with seeing to the needs of that population. Given that, I think that this care should be given as efficiently (yet effectively) as possible and to me the Holly Center has some underused assets in that quest that should be taken advantage of. Let’s allow people more choice in the matter.

GOP headquarters opened

The Wicomico County Republican Headquarters is open for business.

Today at noon we had the “media opening” of the Wicomico County Republican Party headquarters. It’s unfortunate that despite the fact we were almost IN SIGHT from WBOC-TV (Channel 16) that no TV cameras were there. We did have a photographer from the Daily Times there, that was it.

Front view of headquarters showing the signs in the window.

Another view looking toward the corner.

Here’s a couple views of the building, just so you get an idea. The reason I placed the second one in was to give a better idea of what it would look like traveling southbound on Salisbury Boulevard. It’s just before the corner of Northwood Drive and Business Route 13.

A number of local politicians were present to cut the ribbon.

I was one of those who participated in the ribbon cutting. If the picture in the Daily Times comes out like I think it should, it’s one of those rare times you’ll see me on the extreme left! Obviously I wasn’t in this picture because I took it. Some of those present from left to right are State Senator Rich Colburn (in the blue suit), County Council candidate John Cannon (shirt and tie), Clerk of the Court candidate James Gillespie (light blue shirt), Delegate Page Elmore (dark shirt), current Central Committee member Louise Smith (partially hidden in the red outfit), Wicomico County Ehrlich campaign manager Ellen Andrews (holding ribbon in center) and County Executive hopeful Ron Alessi (in the dark suit). The gentleman with the hands raised and his back to my camera is Wicomico County chair Dr. John Bartkovich. The candidates were in the middle of the shot while us flunkies were more to the outside; thus there’s a few faces I can’t place there.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs.

It’s a pretty utilitarian building, I was told it was a parts counter for a former auto dealership. There’s not a whole lot of sitting room in there but it does have a nice long counter for putting literature on. We only have to put up with it for six weeks, I’m already signed up to work on the 20th and 27th of October in the afternoon.

I suppose I should mention that we had all but one of the incoming Central Committee there, only M.J. Caldwell was absent. I can account for his good health though (at least as of 4 p.m. this afternoon) as he got to shove a lot of paper at me. Yes, once again I am a homeowner. And I can take this opportunity to put a shout out to Bill, my sort-of new neighbor for the time being and the guy who sold me the house. He happens to be a monoblogue reader so I can tell him good luck in his new place. I’ve walked through his new neighborhood and I’m sure he’ll like living there.

Also today I went up to the Board of Elections to change my address and pick up the precinct results for my Central Committee race. I found out that campaigning and getting my name out did pay dividends.

There were two precincts where it turned out I did probably 90-95% of my lit drop. Those two were precincts 005-003 (voting at Delmarva Evangelistic Church) and 005-004 (which voted where I did at the Civic Center). In precinct 005-003 I finished 6th, but 5th through 7th were separated by 2 votes so I stayed pretty close to the field. In my home precinct (005-004) I finished 4th of the 7, and it was my second best percentage showing in the county. Because those two precincts had the second and fifth largest turnouts respectively, that’s what carried my totals. I also did better than average in the Camden area, which just may be an area where many of my readers live for all I know.

So that does prove what a little shoe leather and bike riding will do I suppose. It’s going to be interesting to see now that I’m a homeowner whether I’ll have politicians beating on my door.

WCRC meeting – September 2006

While we didn’t quite have the throngs we did pre-primary, it was still a pretty respectable gathering tonight at the September WCRC meeting, my guess is that we had about 50-55 people there. And a lot was accomplished tonight as we settled several business items for the upcoming election.

As always, we got ourselves started with the Pledge of Allegiance, then did the Lord’s Prayer and went through the August minutes. There was actually a attendance count within the minutes, and when I said 65 or so I was off by one – we had 64. Maybe I forgot to sign the sheet? No, I’m sure I did. But I was pretty close, so I guess that explains my success at predictions (for all you Central Committee folks out there.)

Also, we had our treasurer’s report. It was about this time last year that we started building up the war chest we have, between last year and this year it’s only about 60% higher rather than double like we were running. But the Crab Feast was quite a financial success, I believe the totals worked out to about $8,000. I did underestimate the proceeds on the silent auction, it came out to $1,430. That’s all right, I had no money invested in that result so I can miss on that prediction.

Anyway, inside jokes aside, we quickly disposed of old business. Bob Miller thanked all those who helped with the Crab Feast and Woody Willing called for even more silent auction items next year, along with letting the members in on the ballot language for Question A, which would allow the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Department collective bargaining rights with binding arbitration. The binding arbitration portion is what Willing stressed voters be most aware of.

At that point we got to what would be several items of new business. On one, I’m reserving my right as the author to make additional comments so that will be covered after I go through the remainder of the meeting.

But the first item was comments by M.J. Caldwell about encouraging people to switch parties if you find they’re in agreement with you on most issues. Instead of Democrats voting for Democrats because that’s the party they’re aligned with (even if they’re in agreement with the GOP on most issues), changing their perception of identity by getting them to switch parties generally results in more votes downticket. People are more likely to cross over for big races but then stay with the party line farther down.

Ellen Andrews of the county’s Ehrlich campaign was looking for volunteers, as campaigns are known to do. Unfortunately, I dropped the ball on one item. There was a list of accomplishments that Governor Ehrlich had done for Wicomico County at the meeting and I forgot to pick one up! These could be the basis for a letter-writing campaign, or talking points if you will. She also was looking for phone bank volunteers, one upcoming opportunity is Wednesday night from 5:30 to 8:30 at M.J. Caldwell’s office here in Salisbury. Andrews also informed us about a fashion show up in Baltimore on October 12th (I believe First Lady Kendal Ehrlich puts this together) and introduced intern Josh Wick, who’s working on the Ehrlich campaign with Andrews.

Most importantly, she emphasized getting out the vote, particularly in this area where the governor is strongest. The only area of the state where opponent Martin O’Malley is winning big is the MoCo/PG area, even Baltimore is a tossup (this according to the Sun, so given that source I’m sure Ehrlich’s leading by a few points in Baltimore then.)

Next, we heard a representative from the Maryland Public Policy Institute (who I met and shook hands with, then promptly forgot his name. Sorry.) But more importantly, they are hosting a Town Hall meeting here on the SU campus on Wednesday, October 25. The purpose of the meeting is to introduce their new book, Maryland 2006-2007: A Guide to the Issues and solicit public input. Something tells me monoblogue will be represented.

The last issue (after the one I’m reserving comment on) was that of spending some of the “war chest” we have collected during this cycle. It was resolved that we should spend as much as we legally can on local candidates (as needed) while leaving a cushion of a few thousand dollars in the bank to begin the next cycle with. As John Bartkovich would comment on later, some of that funding would go to advertising for the Republican team.

With that, we had our first speaker, County Council at-large candidate John Cannon. The native of Wicomico County stated that he was “no stranger to community service or the political arena” and did go through a pretty impressive laundry list of organizations he’d served with and political posts he’d held, including some time on the Republican Central Committee.

John focused on two main issues during his address, growth and education. He used the analogy of cutting a diamond to express his thoughts on growth, saying that you only have one chance to get it right. Growth, he continued, should be managed and kept within the metro core and close to other county municipalities. Cannon also cited a need to “take advantage of the developer’s ideas” where possible, as the best ones would take initiatives and help to take the burden of cost off the taxpayers. Above all on the growth issue, Cannon stressed a “no surprises”, consistent approach.

Cannon told the group that he’d looked through the education budgets for both administrative and capital expenditures and, while there was a little bit of pudginess on the administrative side, the report he cited said that Wicomico County’s BOE delivers “good value for the dollar” overall. But he wanted to work on finding creative and efficient solutions to some budget areas and sought more state money to help the 12% of students that he claimed used 20% of the budget.

In response to a question from our assembled regarding the revenue cap, Cannon asserted that the county had an $18 million surplus with the cap, and while it could be said that the government never has enough money, John prudently said that the county simply needs to “set priorities” and that it would be up to the voters to create a groundswell of support for removing the cap. (Fat chance of that happening.)

Then, for a second time, it was M.J. Caldwell’s time to speak. This time he had the candidate hat on as opposed to club officer. Caldwell is a Maryland native, but not an Eastern Shore native. (As he put it, he came here by choice.) I found it quite analogous to the experience on the Eastern Shore though as he related how his once-staunch Democrat family (including himself) slowly switched over to the GOP column as the Democrats moved away from the values his family held closest. M.J. also alluded to his personal persistence as he recited the story of how he came back from law school (at Tulane University) and couldn’t get a bite on the resumes he’d sent to various Eastern Shore law firms, so he took a day and drove the stretch from Ocean City to Easton along Route 50, meeting people face-to-face. Coming home, his wife told him she’d lined up four interviews for him from phone calls he’d gotten back and the rest is history. (I can vouch for that approach, I got my last job in Ohio via a similar method within a day after being laid off by my previous employer because of a slow workload.)

One asset Caldwell claimed would be helpful on County Council was having the law school background because there he was trained to listen and analyze. He also claimed to have a hand in job creation as a minority shareholder in two local companies which had grown from startup to a combined 300 employees. Other items he used to buttress his argument were his efforts to rewrite the Wicomico County charter a few years back and then, after being against it at first, how research into the matter persuaded him that a County Executive would be a good step to take for Wicomico County. Another little-known but important task he’s done is to serve on the committee that decides legislative compensation. While it may not seem like a lot of money to give a raise to 188 members in the General Assembly, the dirty little secret is that all of the retirees get a raise as well because their pension is tied to the salaries. Caldwell and the committee were successful in holding the line on raises this time around.

While M.J. agreed with John Cannon on the growth issue, he did amplify one aspect in talking about the farmers and their role. With a moratorium on growth, the average farmer wouldn’t have the ability to recover from a bad season by splitting off a small parcel or two to sell for extra income. He also chided the county’s planning and zoning department for not always operating in a “timely” fashion. Caldwell also stayed pretty much in lockstep with John on education, although M.J. did advocate more “neighborhood-type” schools rather than the centralized setup we have now where kids from outlying parts of the county are bussed all the way into Salisbury to attend school. (Three of the four local high schools are in or close to Salisbury.) M.J. also noted that since now the majority of the Board of Education is Republican, there’s a better chance for a good relationship between the two if the County Council is likewise GOP-controlled.

Caldwell continued on from these points of agreement though, saying that the “number one priority (for the county) is the safety and security of citizens” and calling for the budget money to be made available to improve the disability plan of the Sheriff’s Department. He also vowed that he “will not vote for tax increases” including an excise tax, calling taxes “government’s legal right to pickpocket” the public. In his message, Caldwell called on the county to make priorities and choices first, and stated the budget was still increasing at a 12.5% annual rate even with the revenue cap in place. In summary, he spoke for himself and John Cannon saying that they “weren’t afraid of being Republicans.”

M.J. also answered a post-speech question regarding the aforementioned Question A, which he was against only because of of the binding arbitration factor. If it were simply a question of collective bargaining, he had no problem with it.

With the speakers concluded, we got our Central Committee report from John Bartkovich. First he thanked the volunteers who helped at Riverfest (you’re welcome) and the Women of Steele event last Saturday. He also was on the hunt for future volunteers, first for the Winefest on October 21-22 and also for the headquarters. The GOP headquarters will be at the corner of Route 13 and Northwood Avenue in Bob Lawrence’s building. The “media opening” is Friday at noon and staffing will begin on Monday, October 2nd. I signed up for two Friday shifts and encourage other Republicans here to do so. And as mentioned before, Bartkovich spoke about the advertising campaign the party would fund for local candidates. These ads would tout the Republican Party as the party of leadership and fiscal responsibility.

This brings me back to one piece of new business that came up. A motion was made from the floor regarding the current situation where local blogs (including monoblogue) are linked from the WCRC website. The motion was made to remove these local links from the site if they were deemed harmful to the GOP cause. (Note to my readers who also partake of the other local blogs: the motion was not made by Mr. Alessi, Mr. Ollinger, or Mr. Bellachico.) After amendment, local candidate websites were exempted as well as generally recognized national conservative websites. As amended the motion passed with one dissenter (three guesses who, first two don’t count.)

I was told afterward that the ban was obviously not pointed at me, but then again there could be cause sometime to do so. It’s not that I’m going to change political stripes or anything like that, but following links from monoblogue one can access almost any Delmarva political website, including those of minor parties. And regular readers know that I’d like to see more choices on the ballot, despite the fact that could cut into the number of Republicans out there someday. (I doubt at the moment too many would switch from GOP to Populist or Greens, but a Conservative Party – maybe.)

But let’s face facts here. The ONLY reason this came up was because the other three major players on the local blogging scene have found fault with County Executive candidate Ron Alessi. Even so, this still may not have come up had Charles Jannace (a.k.a. Hadley V. Baxendale) not began a write-in campaign for County Executive because Alessi won the GOP primary by a handful of votes.

If you go back through the entire body of work of these other three local blogs you’ll find that they are all on the relatively conservative side. I’ve been reading Duvafiles for about the last year and a half (since the “wetback” controversy) and Justice For All? since before the Blogger crash last winter. National Joe-A-Graphic is newer on the scene, it’s only been around since the spring. To me these are good background sources of information mainly because I’m the newcomer of this group, the others have been here for years.

And this so-called “feud” has escalated to this point, a point where bloggers like myself (even though I’m not who he meant, I get tarred by association) are called a “cancer” and one blogger decides that he’s going to make a statement by getting into the race as a last-minute dark horse candidate. I know that Dr. Bartkovich wants unity among Republicans, but in this case events aren’t going to dictate that and it seems to me that this action may make the WCRC look closed-minded.

I operate on the principle that I’m not afraid of competing views because I believe I have the better argument on the issues. This is why I link to all the websites I do and ask the questions I ask. I’d like people to compare the stances and platforms because it’s become apparent to me that people who have any sort of common sense will see that government that governs best governs least. Sometimes that puts me at odds with my adopted party, but my goal is to bring about change from within by enabling a tide of support for a conservative and Constitutional point of view – to me it’s too late for that sea change to occur within my Gen X’ers so I’m placing my hopes on the Millennial Generation (born after 1975 or so). And where do they get their news? It sure ain’t from the newspaper or the 6:30 nightly network broadcast.

On that principle, I voiced my opposition to the proposal when it was voted on. But after the November election when things have cooled down, a motion to reconsider will be in order because it’s time for me to speak up. I’m not afraid of checking out all of the corners of the “big tent”, neither should the WCRC be.

Election Calendar – September 25 thru October 8

Not too much new on the Election Calendar this week. Have no clue why. Maybe it’s because we’re almost to the new month.

Monday, September 25: As is customary, the Wicomico County Republican Club will have its monthly meeting at the Chamber of Commerce Building, 144 E. Main Street in Salisbury. Social time at 7 p.m., meeting begins at 7:30. Wicomico County Council at-large candidates John Cannon and M.J. Caldwell will be the speakers.

Tuesday, September 26: I’m not sure if it’s too late to RSVP for this, but the Public Awareness Forum at the Holly Center will get underway at 8:00 a.m. and run through 9:00. It will be held in the gymnasium of the Massey Activities Building, 926 Snow Hill Road in Salisbury. District 38B House of Delegates officeseeker Bonnie Luna and Clerk of the Courts candidate James Gillespie have this event on their respective schedules.

Wednesday, September 27: No events scheduled.

Thursday, September 28: Delaware State Treasurer (and also monoblogue-linked blogger) Jack Markell formally begins his re-election campaign in Georgetown at the Old Sussex County Courthouse at 8:30 a.m. (his first stop.) Also having this on his calendar is Delaware’s U.S. Senator Tom Carper.

Friday, September 29 and Saturday, September 30: No events scheduled, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if candidates are campaigning at a local high school football game.

Sunday, October 1: Delegate Jim Mathias hosts a “Meet the Candidate” get-together from 1 to 3 p.m. and again from 4 to 6 p.m. at Occasionally Yours, 10514 Racetrack Road, Berlin.

Monday, October 2: No events scheduled.

Tuesday, October 3: In talking with the folks at PACE yesterday, I found out that there’s a candidate forum on the SU campus that night in the Wicomico Room of University Center. It starts at 7:00, and if you’re like me and can’t be there it’s also being taped for PAC-14.

Wednesday, October 4 through Friday, October 6: No events scheduled.

Saturday, October 7: I believe this is a fundraiser, but State Senator Richard Colburn is having a dinner at the American Legion #91 post in Cambridge at 6:00 p.m. More details as they become available.

Sunday, October 8: No events scheduled.

Upcoming on WICO’s Bill Reddish morning show, 7:40 to 8:00 a.m.:

September 25: City of Salisbury District 2 Councilwoman Debbie Campbell.
September 26: District 38 State Senator J. Lowell Stoltzfus.
September 27: Wicomico County Sheriff candidate Kirk Daugherty.

September 29: Wicomico County Council District 4 aspirant Bryan Brushmiller.

At the moment, there’s no one scheduled for Thursday the 28th.

Political day in pictures

Me and my (somewhat) trusty camera were out and about today checking out the political scene.

Signs in a nice geometric march.

The afternoon started at the Stoltzfus Picnic, which this year was held inside the Civic Center. They were tired of being rained on, last year’s event was soaked.

District 38B hopefuls Bonnie Luna and Michael James applaud remarks by Senator Stoltzfus (center).

This event worked in a pretty tried and true fashion. We all got our food first – they had the hot dogs and sauerkraut again, along with some really good pulled pork. A little cole slaw, a ladleful of baked beans, a few cookies and my lunch was filling. This photo was taken after most of us ate, when the candidate introductions started. Luna and James both made remarks. Stoltzfus even got down to introducing the Central Committee people for each of the three District 38 counties (Somerset, Worcester, Wicomico) which meant I was introduced and got a wave in.

Senator Stoltzfus introduces a U.S. Senate hopeful, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele.

We actually were introduced after Lieutenant Governor Steele got to the event. He patiently waited a few minutes and here he’s shown just before making his remarks. Steele made what’s probably a pretty typical stump speech to a crowd of supporters but he had some help. Steele spotted a toddler-age girl scampering in front of the stage and bade her come up. With her on his shoulder, Steele pointed out that his job was to help this little girl’s future (as he pointed at her for emphasis.) You couldn’t ask for a better photo-op and hopefully someone got it.

Michael Steele's ride on his 24-county Maryland tour.

This moving billboard is Michael Steele’s bus for his state tour. I snuck out after he finished to take the picture, then walked back inside to renew acquaintances with the Lieutenant Governor, as well as many other politicians in attendance that I knew. In fact, I found out that once the new Central Committee gets underway it’s been decided that I should act as Secretary (which I did for the Toledo Young Republicans years ago.) Gee, a guy with a blog doing a job that requires writing. Whoda thunk it?

Write-in County Executive candidate Charles Jannace - a.k.a. Hadley V. Baxendale of Justice For All? -  (in green on left) with fellow blogger Joe Albero, who does National Joe-A-Graphic (in green on right). Albero is helping to finance the Jannace campaign.

One person I hadn’t met yet was Charles Jannace, who is the “Hadley V. Baxendale” of the local Justice For All? blog, and also a write-in candidate for County Executive. It was a pleasure to meet him and place a name and face behind a blog that I regularly read. Now I hope Joe Albero got the picture of Steele with the young lady I mentioned above. She’s the daughter of Beau Oglesby, an attorney in the Wicomico County State’s Attorney office who’s running for the job in Worcester County where he lives.

Just like last year, the event also had a live auction that was conducted by Lewis Riley, Maryland’s Secretary of Agriculture. I didn’t keep a running count, but I’m guessing they totaled in the $2500 range on the items sold. They were also supposed to have Kristen Cox (Governor Ehrlich’s current running mate) come and say a few words but unfortunately she was running late. I did get to meet her at the next event.

Arriving at the 'Your Vote, Your Voice' event.

Frankly, I was disappointed with the turnout to this event, but it was a nice Saturday and SU doesn’t have a whole lot of on-campus housing.

A nice setup for the Senate hopeful.

U.S. Senate candidate Ben Cardin had a nice table set up even though he didn’t come to see it. At left are two Wicomico County candidates, District 4 Council hopeful David MacLeod and incumbent Orphans’ Court Judge Melissa Pollitt Bright. Seated behind them is another Orphans’ Court candidate, George Ossman.

On the other side, the Republicans had plenty of signage.

The College Republicans put together a rather impressive display. I took the shot looking down the row but theirs stood out.

Two of the Green Party contingent on the SU campus.

These two young people were very nice and polite, but they’ve never heard of monoblogue! I told them I’d make them world-famous. Well, at least they’re now on the World Wide Web.

I do have a question though. Since we have far fewer hurricanes in 2006 than we did in 2005 (with none of them being “major” hurricanes), does that mean we’re having global cooling?

County Council at-large candidate Bill McCain.

In between the band sets, there would be a speaker or maybe two who would go up there and talk about the importance of voting. Judging by the attendance though, not a lot of students find it that important. But I have to commend the folks at PACE for trying.

The politicos outnumbered the students.

However, there were times like this one where I saw mostly candidates who were running for offices speaking to their counterparts, sometimes of the opposite party and sometimes not. I spoke to Joe Albero (in green on the left) and he sadly noted the same phenomonon at forums he attended – they were 1/2 to 2/3 politicians and most of the rest were their hangers-on. Just a handful of citizens show up. At the end, I was chatting with a young lady who’d volunteered to sit at the PACE table and they’d registered only about a half-dozen voters.

U.S. Senate aspirant Kevin Zeese during his address.

There were some bright spots though. I liked Kevin Zeese’s brief message about voting for what you believe in and not against what you fear. Actually, the Green Party’s Senate hopeful is running a fairly positive campaign aside from being virulently anti-war. I did take this occasion to introduce myself and thank him for participating in my Ten Questions. Also, I got to speak at length to his son Alex, who was there helping his dad. He’s a bright young man who told me about his unusual childhood – instead of getting to watch cartoons on weekend mornings, the one TV in his house was tuned to “McLaughlin Group”. So he was immersed in politics at an early age.

In fact, I spent the largest part of my time there speaking with Democrats and Greens. Obviously I’m loyal to the GOP, but it’s good to find out about people on the other side. So I spoke at some length to Democrats like Hilary Spence, James Adkins, Melissa Pollitt Bright, and Sheree Sample-Hughes (who didn’t deny it when I told her she could be a political force to be reckoned with at a higher level), as well as the Green Party’s Zeese. Most of the time we actually spoke about things that were non-political – for example, Spence got a little bit of my history with taking the architectural exam, and Adkins told me about referring folks to monoblogue to read his Ten Questions answers.

As a group, the Democrat and Green candidates stuck around longer than the Republican ones did. I think I was about the last one on the GOP side (excepting the College Republicans) to leave, but I was enjoying talking to some of the younger people there as the affair wound down.

So like in years past the Stoltzfus Picnic will be an early-fall affair next year, but I believe that the SU event will be shelved because there’s no state or federal election in 2007. It may return in two years though as the Presidential election winds down. But after the event I told the organizer to invite me whenever it returns, I’ll be there. This year’s event may not have been what they’d hoped, but there’s no harm in trying since that generation is going to be a pivotal one in history.

Pre-election planning

Since this turns out to be a “milestone” post (number 250)* I wanted to do something “important” with it. With just over 6 weeks remaining until the general election, this seems like a pretty good time to work out some of what I’m planning to do with monoblogue for election coverage.

First of all though I’m going to go back and review my pre-primary election coverage. There were four major initiatives I began during that period, some were more successful than others.

The first part of the equation was expanded coverage of political forums, which I thought were very successful in the two most important aspects – it gave people who couldn’t be there an idea of what went on and it also brought new readers to monoblogue. With the exception of the weeks immediately after I was on vacation and also last week after the primary election, monoblogue readership has established new all-time highs week after week since about the first of June. According to my much stricter Site Meter, I had close to 800 readers in the week before the primary, and my server’s more generous hit counter has already established an all-time high this month with another 9 days left (when my last reading was taken), a hit rate that’s on pace to blow by the 40,000 mark (once only dreamed about during my “ttown’s right-wing conspiracy” days on Blogspot) and challenge the 50,000 hit mark for the first time. Obviously I’ve had some success with my forum coverage and also with my expanded links list and Election Calendar (which were part of my second initiative).

On the other hand, I don’t think the Ten Questions (my third initiative) worked out like I’d hoped, particularly on the U.S. Senate side. There’s many an expert who advises candidates not to answer open questions like those I presented; unfortunately these so-called experts think that 30 second commercials are the basis for good campaigning. I think what I’m going to do for the U.S. Senate race now is use the candidate’s own websites to answer these issue-related questions as best I can, although with Kevin Zeese I can supplement his own answers. Fortunately, that’s not going to be too time-consuming as we have just three candidates. If Michael Steele can’t even send his answers to the Baltimore Sun, he’s not going to mess with a website that has just a few hundred readers (for now.) So my thought is that the Ten Questions for candidates of that level was a good try, but likely not useful in statewide elections. I think I’ll resubmit these (with one change since early voting was overturned) to the surviving (and opposed) General Assembly candidates to either change any answers they feel like changing or answering them anew. Ten Questions seemed to work better for local-level races.

The final initiative was devoting some time and coverage to my own campaign. Unlike a website that’s specifically to boost electoral prospects, monoblogue started well before I decided to throw my hat into the ring and (good Lord willing) will continue far into the future. As I’ve stated, I’ve done local newsletters before to keep people in my precinct informed about Central Committee happenings and will do more of that after I’m sworn in. Fortunately monoblogue can cover all of Wicomico County, no more hand delivery! I found out on Thursday night that I’ll officially be sworn in during the fall Maryland Republican Party convention in Annapolis on December 2nd.

Looking back at what I did, I have to say that not finishing last was a pretty good achievement, considering that all of my opponents were a) older and b) have lived and worked in Wicomico County for a period of time, whereas I moved here in October 2004. I started with probably zero name recognition unless you recalled a Letter to the Editor I wrote at one time or another to the Daily Times or knew me from monoblogue. And as stated, my website only covers a few hundred readers, some of whom are either Democrat, independent, or live outside the county. Having no idea what kind of response I’d get, I’m very grateful to the 3,363 voters who had enough confidence in me and my ideas to vote for me. And all the votes counted – if just three fewer people voted for me I would’ve been the cow’s tail, it was that close!

But my goal for the next time is to get about 5,000 votes in the same race, in part because people saw the job I did in helping the Republican Party improve itself here in Wicomico County, and also because there’s more Republicans! Actually, I’d like to improve upon the number of ballots I was voted on to about 65-70%. John Bartkovich finished first because he was on 68.7% of the ballots whereas Ed Heath and I (the tail-enders) finished right about 53%.

However, this is now all past history. My main focus in the next 6 1/2 weeks is the biggest races – governor, U.S. Senator, General Assembly Districts 37 and 38, and Wicomico County Executive. (The County Executive race, needless to say, has been turned on its ear by events over the last 10 days.) Those are ones I’m going to try to cover and analyze in-depth as far as where each candidate stands on main issues involving the Eastern Shore. Because the Sheriff and County Council contests had a lot more play during the primary due to the sheer number of candidates, I can focus a little less on those as many of their positions are already known and previously covered.

I’m also going to try and “fill in the blanks” as far as websites go. I believe I have all of the Maryland statewide candidates linked now. There’s a few left in the General Assembly that I have to get (Jeannie Haddaway, Lowell Stoltzfus if he does one, and possibly one in Senate District 37) but most of my focus for link collection would be on local Wicomico County races as I’m sure some of the local folks will get online too. I also have expanded my Delaware offferings some in the last few days as well. Those are of more limited scope so using those links for further self-guided research will likely have to suffice. Of course, I’ll also check through things as I do the weekly Election Calendar.

Since events during election time can occur without a lot of notice (not to mention I’ll be moving my household and volunteering for headquarters and various campaigns), I’m probably not going to set any sort of schedule in stone for race analysis and such like I did with the Ten Questions, which were generally on set days of the week. The only constant I plan on keeping is Sunday for the Election Calendar and that may yet become flexible, particularly around mid-October when I shift locales.

But I think this is going to be an exciting month and a half as both Maryland and (to a lesser extent) Delaware select their respective representative governments. Of course, after that we’ll have a short holiday lull but then the races in the city of Salisbury will ratchet up after the first of the year and then the prologue to the 2008 Presidential campaign starts up next summer with early straw polls. (That will be Maryland’s only statewide race in 2008 as both of our U.S. Senators will be midterm.)

Needless to say I’m looking forward to serving the Wicomico County Republican Party on their Central Committee and the voting public on monoblogue.

* The way WordPress works, my pages also act as posts and are assigned numbers, plus along the way I’ve deleted a couple of test posts. So this isn’t actually the exact 250th post but its sequential number is 250.

Let’s see how far this gets before the court challenge

I was reading in the RSC blog about a bill called the Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006 (HR 4844). This bill would amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by REQUIRING photo ID be presented at federal elections beginning in November of 2008. (As HR 4844 was originally introduced, the date was 2006 but the bill languished too long, darn it.) The bill will also appropriate some money to states to enable indigent people to get a photo ID. I think Georgia had a similar law just struck down by a court in their state, so if it somehow gets through the Senate I’m thinking the ACLU will attempt to block implementation in record time!

The one point that made me decide to post this bill was the Constitutional reference in the RSC blog post, and sure enough it says in black and white on my copy, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” (Article I, Section 4). The reason Senators were exempt at the time was because they were originally chosen by the state legislatures, the Seventeenth Amendment did away with that practice. (Personally I think all three amendments from 16th to 18th were mistakes, unfortunately we’ve only gotten rid of the 18th.)

While I read the blog post from a couple days ago, I also saw that this bill did pass the House on a 228-196 vote, with 4 Democrats siding with the majority and 3 Republicans with the minority.

Just for fun on the Thomas website, I found a list of 89 groups opposing this bill. Here’s those groups.

A. Philip Randolph Institute; ACORN; Advancement Project; Aguila Youth Leadership Institute; Alliance for Retired Americans; American Association of People with Disabilities; American Association of Retired Persons (AARP); American Civil Liberties Union; American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona; American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; American Immigration Lawyers Association; American Policy Center; Americans for Democratic Action; Arizona Advocacy Network; Arizona Consumers Council; Arizona Hispanic Community Forum; Arizona Students’ Association; Asian American Justice Center; Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIA Vote); Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO; Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law; Center for Digital Democracy; Common Cause; Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; Concerned Foreign Service Officers; Congressional Hispanic Caucus; Consumer Action; Cyber Privacy Project; Democratic Women’s Working Group; De.AE8mos: A Network for Ideas & Action; Electronic Privacy Information Center; Emigrantes Sin Fronteras; Fairfax County Privacy Council; Friends Committee on National Legislation; Hispanic Federation; Hispanic National Bar Association; Interfaith Worker Justice of Arizona; Intertribal Council of Arizona; Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), La Union Del Pueblo Entero (LUPE); Labor Council for Latin American Advancement; Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; League of United Latin American Citizens; League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson; League of Women Voters of the United States; Legal Momentum; Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund; National Center for Transgender Equality; National Congress of American Indians; National Council of Jewish Women; National Council of La Raza; National Disability Rights Network; National Education Association; National Korean American Service & Education Consortium; National Urban League; National Voting Rights Institute; Navajo Nation; New York Public Interest Research Group, Inc./NYPIRG; Ohio Taxpayers Association & OTA Foundation; People for the American Way Foundation; Project for Arizona’s Future; Protection and Advocacy System; RainbowPUSH Coalition; Republican Liberty Caucus; SEIU Local 5 Arizona; Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF); Somos America/We Are America; Southwest Voter Registration Education Project; The Multiracial Activist; The Rutherford Institute; Tohono O’odham Nation; Transgender Law Center; U.S. PIRG; Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations; United Auto Workers; United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries; United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society; United States Student Association; United Steelworkers; UNITE-HERE; Velvet Revolution; William C. Velasquez Institute; YWCA USA.

The only ones I can’t figure out are the Ohio Taxpayers Association, Republican Liberty Caucus, and The Rutherford Institute. Apparently the federal intervention outweighs the fact that it’s spelled out in the Constitution and I’m betting that’s what the 3 Republicans saw as their guide to vote against the act. The OTA probably sees this as another unfunded federal mandate. There’s arguments to be had from each group but on balance I think this bill’s become necessary.

Regardless, voter ID is one step closer to reality although I doubt the Senate will take this up because; to be honest, they’re pretty gutless about pissing off some of the above groups – particularly the Hispanic ones. So this may be all ado over nothing but I’ll have to take small victories where I can find them. There was one tonight I wasn’t going to win so here’s a little consolation.

Election Calendar updates – 9/20

Three things that just crossed my wire:

WICO’s Bill Reddish gave me (thanks as always) his upcoming political lineup for the next week or so:

September 21: House of Delegates District 38B hopeful Michael James.
September 22: Wicomico County Democratic Party chair Phil Tilghman.

September 25: City of Salisbury District 2 Councilwoman Debbie Campbell.
September 26: District 38 State Senator J. Lowell Stoltzfus.
September 27: Wicomico County Sheriff candidate Kirk Daugherty.

September 29: Wicomico County Council District 4 aspirant Bryan Brushmiller.

At the moment, there’s no one scheduled for Thursday the 28th, hopefully I’ll know by Sunday.

However, I did come across a happening on September 28th for our north of the border friends as incumbent State Treasurer (and also monoblogue-linked blogger) Jack Markell formally begins his re-election campaign in Georgetown at the Old Sussex County Courthouse at 8:30 a.m. (his first stop.)

I also found out via my normal little postcard I get from the WCRC that our speakers for Monday will be the “dynamic duo” of at-large County Council candidates M.J. Caldwell and John Cannon.

So that’s an update for today, and I’ll integrate these into next week’s Election Calendar.

Party time (minor version)

With this being the quadrennial election season in Maryland, most people’s attention turns to the races for the governor’s chair, control of each legislative body, and the two other statewide offices of Attorney General and Comptroller. What attracts much less fanfare is the effort for those parties who are considered to be minor parties to remain in good standing for another four years. At present, Maryland has four minor parties; the Constitution Party, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Populist Party. State election law (obviously set by the Democrats and Republicans) mandates that they have three possible routes to retain their status for the 2007-2010 election cycle:

* A statewide candidate needs to poll 1% or more of the vote in a Maryland general election, or;
* The party must have 1% or more of registered voters. If they have neither condition at the end of this election cycle, then;
* The party must petition its way back to status by submitting 10,000 valid signatures to the Board of Elections.

Judging by the history of these four parties, the prospects of continuing unabated through to the next election cycle are spotty at best – the Constitution Party in its various incarnations has been on and off the party rolls five times in ten years, and the Libertarians have lost status once in seven years. Only the Green Party has gone uninterrupted through an election cycle. (The Populists are in their very first cycle.) In the 2002 general election, only the Greens and Libertarians fielded candidates for state offices according to the Board of Elections website. Green Party candidates were in six contests, with three being write-in candidates who got little support (less than 1/4% of the vote, including a Comptroller candidate.) In three races where they were on the ballot for various House of Delegates seats, the Greens got between 2 and 14% of the vote. Meanwhile, there were two Libertarians running, one for governor and one for Congress. The governor candidate finished short of the 1% required by polling 0.68% (11,546 votes) while the Congressional officeseeker did better with just over 2.5% of the tally.

So how are prospects for 2006? Certainly they are better for some parties than others. While each of the four parties has candidates running for various offices, the number varies greatly. The Constitution Party has just two officeseekers running, both for House of Delegates seats. Meanwhile, the Populist Party also has two people on the ballot, but one is running for governor and looking to at least eclipse the magic 1% threshold. The other Populist is running for the House of Delegates. As for the Libertarian slate, it has four on it, but only two in state races and one of those is a technically non-partisan judge race. The other is running for Ben Cardin’s former Congressional seat. Libertarians also are on the ballot in Dorchester and Howard County races.

By far, the most successful minor party as far as candidate recruiting is the Green Party, which has 20 on the ballots for various state races – governor, 3 for U.S. Congress, 1 for State Senate, a judicial candidate, and ten folks running for House of Delegates seats, including a full slate of three in House of Delegates District 43. Plus they have 3 running in local jurisdictions as Greens. This doesn’t include U.S. Senate hopeful Kevin Zeese, who’s been crossendorsed by three of the four minor parties (all but the Constitution Party.)

The item I ran across awhile back that piqued my interest for writing this post was a note I got from the Libertarians because I’m on their mailing list. In it, they were worried about once again losing their status as a party in Maryland as their petition drive was sputtering. So I asked representatives from three of the four parties how their petition drives were going. I didn’t get reaction from the Constitution Party because they have just revamped their website and I couldn’t find an e-mail address of their state chair.

Chris Driscoll of the Populist Party wasn’t worried about the petition yet, sounding fairly positive about meeting the 1 percent threshold in the gubernatorial election (Driscoll is the Populist Party candidate.) He stated that their Central Committee decided early on to devote full attention to their candidates, and only after the November election would they work on the petition drive if needed.

Also sounding quite positive about her party’s chances to stay for another cycle was Patsy Allen of the Green Party, who noted that their petition drive was “very close” to the 10,000 they needed as of last Sunday (before the primary) and now was seeking the extra 4,000 or so as padding in case some signatures were ruled invalid. Allen stated that she herself had collected another 170 on primary Tuesday and that many others were soliciting signatures on primary day as well. (I’m sure the Lamone administration at the Maryland Board of Elections goes through Green Party submittals with a fine-toothed comb.)

However, Bob Johnston of the Libertarians was more glum, speculating that the party was “less than halfway” to their 10,000 signature mark, even with petitions gathered on primary day. While the Libertarians nationally have been around for a long while (since the early 1970’s) they haven’t found a lot of success as members get pulled out from both the left and right – parts of their message have been co-opted by both the liberal and conservative fringes. In Maryland, their slice of the left wing pie is being cut into by both the Greens and Populists.

I also found out in my research that the Reform Party, once a viable party in Maryland, lost its status after the last cycle and hasn’t yet regained it (and likely won’t.) It might be that come the next election cycle in 2007, we may be down to four or even just three parties again in Maryland as the other parties will have to restart the long process to revive themselves.

In looking at the most recent voter registration totals, none of the parties come anywhere close to the 1% threshold. With 3,105,236 registered voters in Maryland as of August 31, a party would need to have 31,053 registered voters and the highest total of the four minor parties is the Green Party with 8,023. The Libertarians place second with 4,059, there’s 495 registered Constitution Party members and Populists number just 90. These totals are dwarfed by even the number of unaffiliated voters – they have 14% of the total with 433,286 voters.

This led me to an interesting request. Even though I’m a member of the Republican Party, I’d like to see more voices on the political scene because it adds more to the battle of ideas that politics is at its root.

If you are one of those unaffiliated voters and it’s because you don’t feel strongly enough in either major party to vote straight ticket, a good idea might be to join these minor parties just to pump up their numbers and keep them on the ballot. You can always switch if a party that suits you better comes along!

Those of you who inhabit the left side of the political spectrum have three choices at the moment as I’m sure the Populists, Greens, and Libertarians would welcome new members; meanwhile, those to the right could perhaps find a home as a Libertarian or probably be more suited to the Constitution Party’s point of view. If just 10% of the unaffiliated people decided to join one “minor” party, that group would be insured ballot access perpetually, or at least until the two main parties changed the rules of the game. And you’d most likely still get to blow off primary elections like you do now.

In turn, getting these “minor” parties more permanent access could encourage more to form, like NYC blogger (“Suitably Flip“, a blog I link to) Philip Pidot’s Growth Party or another bellweather New York state party, the Conservative Party. And I believe putting more choices before voters would do more to increase turnout than all the early voting in the world. It doesn’t matter how many days you can vote if the choice is between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In the Wicomico County GOP primary, turnout was pretty high because of a four-person race for Sheriff and a spirited three-way race for County Executive, as well as a five-person House of Delegates scrum in parts of the county. Meanwhile, Democrats had less to choose from and their lower turnout reflected this.

This is a time where I’m certainly placing principles above party. While strengthening the Green, Populist, and Libertarian parties would be a threat to the entrenched Democrats, a stronger Constitution Party would pull voters out of the Republican column. But my feeling is that the larger pool of interest would make up for the diminished market share of both Republicans and Democrats. Above all, I want people to be satisfied that they have a say in their affairs, and, with just two choices given by the major parties, a large segment of the population isn’t satisfied so they stay home on Election Day. Place more people inside the political process as candidates and you’ll find a more satisfied electorate.

Election Calendar updates

Two items of note:

Number one, U.S. Congressional candidate Jim Corwin will be on Bill Reddish’s show Wednesday morning in the normal political slot, 7:40 to 8:00 a.m.

Secondly, I got a note from Jim Gillespie on my post that the September 19th candidate forum (tomorrow) has been scrubbed. Well, no wonder I hadn’t heard about it.

Because I “buried” the Election Calendar post, I thought it prudent to make this its own post; but the remainder of items can be found two posts hence.