Category: Politics

Last night (or tonight, as I begin this exhaustive post on Thursday night) we had most of the people seeking a position in the Maryland General Assembly gather to tell us that they are for better education, more opportunities for the minority community, improved health insurance, affordable housing, and a chicken in every pot. Okay, I made the last one up. But I’m sure that the thought simply didn’t occur to them in the few minutes they actually stood at the podium otherwise that may have been promised as well. (Now a chicken in every pot IS something which would likely benefit the Eastern Shore!)

The forum was pretty simple to break down. It started out with 3 of the 5 candidates for the Senate seats in Districts 37 and 38 getting one set of questions then 15 of the 18 hopefuls for their associated House of Delegates seats getting a different set. With a time restriction on the use of the hall, it led to only a few questions to each group – five for the wannabe Senators and four for the prospective Delegates. So each person only got 6 to 8 minutes to speak. (It’s why I’m trying to link to as many of their websites as I can.)

As mentioned, just 3 of the 5 Senator candidates made it to the forum, all from District 37. (District 38 Senator J. Lowell Stoltzfus is in the enviable position of being unopposed in either the primary or general elections.) At the moment, only 2 are on the ballot with Moonyene Jackson-Amis attempting to secure a ballot spot via petition as an independent. In fact, she was soliciting some of the 1,000 signatures necessary at the event. Something tells me that Richard Colburn would have signed her petition and Hilary Spence maybe not so.

Attendance amongst the House of Delegates crowd was better, just 3 of them missing the event. Gold stars go to District 37A and 38B who had all of their candidates present.

I’m going to start with the Senators, who fielded questions that dealt with issues of illegal immigration, affirmative action, slot machines in Maryland, and health insurance. As always, this goes in the order of opening statement.

Hilary Spence told the assembled that she was focusing her campaign on just a few issues that she had heard the most from her door-to-door visits about the district: health insurance (claiming it was the number one priority for voters she spoke with), fully funding K-12 education and making college affordable, and growth affecting the Eastern Shore. She even wanted to fully fund education for children of illegal immigrants, also favoring a path for them to get citizenship. On the slots question, Spence chided the supporters, claiming that there was “no place for government to raise revenue on the backs of gamblers.” But on the other hand she did favor another regressive tax of sorts, advocating the “Health Care for All” measure that would add $1.00 to the cigarette tax to help insure 50,000 of the estimated 800,000 (her numbers) Free Staters without health coverage, as well as looking at adopting a Massachusetts-style plan for Maryland.

Citing his 12 years of experience in Annapolis representing Maryland’s largest district geographically, Rich Colburn spoke about measures adopted and rejected during his time in the General Assembly. This was particular evident on the slots question, as he supported placing the item on the ballot as a referendum and co-sponsored one bill addressing problem gamblers. His view of health insurance for the uninsured was intriguing, as he tied in the issue of tort reform with streamlining coverage, and cited his opposition of 2005’s 2 percent HMO tax, which he said was simply passed on to the consumers. Colburn also showed an interest in the health insurance bill Massachusetts adopted.

Claiming that hers was a “tough race” because of the petition drive she’s doing to get on the ballot, Moonyene Jackson-Amis got herself into the debate by perseverance – she wasn’t on the original list but found out about the event in time to participate, albeit a few minutes late. A onetime Republican in New Jersey, Jackson-Amis is running this race as an independent. It’s apparent that she’s spent time as an advocate for the underprivileged because that theme ran through many of her answers. One example is not penalizing the children brought along by illegal immigrants, but establishing a “queue” for services. (However, she was in favor of penalizing employers who were “complicit” in the illegal immigration problem.) Another is calling any legislation that would roll back affirmative action a “travesty.” She wanted “livable wages” so people could afford health insurance and claimed to have helped some constituents who were illegally denied medical care. But I thought her best moment was, despite working with a church group that opposed the slots in Maryland, calling them “hypocritical” because some of them derived a portion of their revenue from wagering. Like Colburn, she favored a statewide referendum on the issue.

That took care of the Maryland Senate candidates. However, we still have 15 House of Delegates candidates to sift through. They dealt with just four questions, which dealt with licenses for high school dropouts, items most critical to African-American businesses, being accessible, and how their election would benefit the minority community. Unfortunately, these questions ended up getting many of the same answers. This makes for fairly short descriptions because, as noted at the start, everyone wants to achieve the best results.

In this case, rather than go simply in the order of their opening statements I’m going to add district affiliation in as well. So I’ll start with the District 37A hopefuls in order of their opening statements, District 37B, and so on.

By doing this, I get to start by talking about Charles Cephas, Sr. If nothing else, he probably had the best cheering section. There were 10 or 12 people identically clad in “elect Charles Cephus” t-shirts who whooped it up after his trips to the podium. So while most others got tepid to lukewarm applause for their remarks, Cephus got a great reception. Cephas opened by speaking of fighting our own “weapons of mass destruction” – particularly homelessness, securing affordable housing, and living wages. Later, speaking of this year’s General Assembly session, he challenged delegates to “just try living on minimum wage” while decrying what he termed as “electric companies mak(ing) millions.” Describing himself as representing those “across the tracks”, he related how he started out as a janitor but rose to beat an incumbent to become a Hurlock city councilman and “champion of the underdog.” He pledged to “fight for you” and convince other delegates by force of argument to agree with his stance on the issues.

Because there’s no Republican in the race, the primary between Cephus and incumbent Rudolph Cane will determine the delegate from District 37A. Much of Cane’s presentation focused on his 20 year record in the House of Delegates, starting as the first minority Delegate from the Eastern Shore and culminating in being the first Eastern Shore delegate to chair the Black Caucus. He told the assembled he had made “strong decisions” on proposed bills that affected the Eastern Shore such as the minimum wage bill and the “Wal-Mart” bill, one he described as a “win-win” because even though it was overturned in federal court, it goaded Wal-Mart into improving its health insurance coverage. Cane also talked about the matters of a “livable wage” and education being a “priority”, pointing with pride to $300,000 in scholarships he’d helped to secure. Cane related the story of how he was told not to waste food as a child because of starving children in China, but turned the phrase to suggest not to waste the books in school because of that child in China possibly taking your job.

Turning to District 37B, first up was James Adkins. Besides having his Ten Questions answers on tap, when he spoke of his prior experience I realized where I knew him from – he was a speaker at the Wicomico County Memorial Day observance. Adkins stated up front that the Eastern Shore faced “tremendous challenges”, particularly education, affordable housing, and health care. He wanted voters to look beyond his term and begin to think about things 20 to 30 years in the future, which showed in his answer to the question on high school dropouts and drivers licenses. On that occasion, he said that taking the licenses away from dropouts doesn’t solve the problem because these kids are “disadvantaged from birth” and the answers really start, among other reasons, with better health care. Maybe a bit short on specifics, he was willing be an advocate and informer for his district, “starting now.” Above all, he urged the General Assembly to “stop treating symptoms” and ask the people how to start solving problems.

Playing up his “20 month listening tour” on occasion, Tim Quinn advocated most strongly that job growth would come from enhancing technical education. But by spending so much time talking to people (Quinn was the first Democrat to file for the seat) he concluded he was the best candidate to be an advocate because he’s taken time to “listen to what the people want” and ask them what he could do to help. Quinn cited a statistic that showed the poverty rate in the district ranged from 8-11% overall but among African-Americans it was 23-29%. The root of that, Quinn claimed, is racism – whereas he wanted to “engage all cultures” when it came to business startup.

Incumbent Jeannie Haddaway spoke of a desire to empower young people, where education would be the basis. Moreover, her overall objective was to maintain the quality of life for those in her district. She pointed to her efforts in getting laptops in schools for her district as a method of getting kids engaged in learning and lessening the dropout rate. Another accomplishment of hers was serving on a task force for minority businesses and working to start a linked deposit program. However, Haddaway also asked to continue her service, saying “how can I help you?” and vowing to remain committed to the community.

The other incumbent, Addie Eckardt, was a late arrival so she only answered the questions on being accessible and how her reelection would help the minority community. She spoke of her pet issues – day care, housing, cultural heritage, and being an advocate for the mentally ill. Most important to her in terms of accessibility was to “keep her ear to the ground.”

Switching gears and districts, 38A challenger Tony Bruce sought a return trip to Annapolis, where he served briefly in the General Assembly in the early 1990’s. As stated up top, he observed that all of the candidates were in favor of the same things so it was important to work together as an Eastern Shore team in Annapolis. He continued the theme with a call for common sense and not “politics as usual.” And citing that “a rising tide raises all ships” he wanted to use state resources wisely to promote a living wage and health care. Most interesting to me was his disdain for the Maryland Lottery; insofar as being against slot machines in the state, to him it seemed all forms of state-sanctioned gambling should be curtailed.

Incumbent Page Elmore is using his retirement to serve his constituents. After 35 years in business he ran for and won the Delegate post. He sought a “level playing field” for those in his district, and bragged that he had the most bills passed of any first-time delegate. With his background, it was obvious that most of his answers centered around using resources available to citizens of Maryland to encourage small business startups, thus creating jobs and opportunity for people of all races. Minority set-asides, he continued, were difficult to fill on the Eastern Shore because of a lack of qualifying contractors and companies.

Probably the most diverse group of answers came from those seeking office in District 38B. Sonny Bloxom pointed to his 16 years as a Worcester County commissioner where he’d already worked with and became familiar with the concerns facing the district. I found that his best answer was one where he sort of went against the grain by saying that issues that affected the minority community were problems for everyone, not just minorities. But education was his major concern, quoting Frederick Douglass, “it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

As the youngest candidate in Maryland history, Bill McDermott belied his age by claiming he would bring energy, leadership, and inspiration to the General Assembly. Saying that he lived by twenty principles – ten carried on stone tablets by Moses and ten written by learned men at our founding, McDermott also gave credit to Norm Conway for helping to pass legislation getting broadband to the Eastern Shore. While he knew he didn’t have the life experiences of the other candidates, he did posit on the question of accessibility that, with his being a resident assistant in college, he always had an open door and could do the same as a Delegate. Obviously his pet issue was college tuition, as he again gave a nod to the General Assembly for voting to increase college funding and freezing tuition. He was the one candidate who advocated tax incentives for minority-owned businesses and a task force to study the effects of government on those enterprises.

Former Ocean City mayor Jim Mathias told the gathered that his “number one priority was to work for you.” Speaking in the third person, he said that “Jim Mathias was accessible as mayor of Ocean City.” As a delegate he would be “accessible to small business people”, and that working together we can make a difference. He didn’t carry a lot of specifics with what he said, and I think a part of this is being an appointed delegate with no real record of accomplishment but on the other hand being targeted as part of the Democrat machine in Annapolis. He did deliver his remarks with the polish one would expect from a veteran politician, though. With his appearance and slick delivery, Mathias reminds me a lot of the longtime mayor of Toledo, Carty Finkbeiner (albeit without the controversy.)

Bonnie Luna can be best described as one who has her priorities straight. In her time at the podium, she noted during the “accessibility” question that her priorities, in order, were “God, family, and her job” but she would give her time and talent to her constituents as part of her task. The other part I liked about her words was when she said she would treat all of her district residents equally, as long as they claimed the equality granted to them under the Constitution. The equality theme was also apparent in her answer regarding minority businesses, where she noted that obstacles are the same for everyone, and that there were already plenty of resources available through the government. And Bonnie’s quite quotable, as her goals are to “bring common sense to Annapolis”, place “people before politics”, and “do the right thing.” She pledged to work on bringing civility back to Annapolis and to get past partisan politics. It takes two to tango in that realm, though.

The sole elected incumbent of the two who already occupy the 38B seats, Norm Conway was certainly given praise by opponent Bill McDermott for his legislative accomplishments for the Eastern Shore. Norm touted his experience and leadership as well and informed those who were running for delegate posts that if they weren’t accessible now, they would become so the moment they won the job. But the money quote to me from Delegate Conway was that he “firmly believes in the One Maryland concept.” I just have to put on my editorial hat here and disagree, because to me what’s good for Garrett County may or may not be the best thing for the Eastern Shore and certainly the needs of Baltimore City are different than either. Now if he’s referring to his philosophy of giving all an opportunity to be successful I won’t argue with that but I’m not certain about whether he’s coming at the issue through a philosophy of government or through mandates and legislation. I tend to think the latter, which to me becomes a disagreement on the means to achieve the goal.

In listening to Jack Lord, I thought he also slyly showed that he was running more against the Democrats in charge in Annapolis than his four primary opponents. In referring to the health care issue, he opined that to achieve better health care you need better jobs, thus a pro-business attitude is needed in Maryland. That theme continued when he answered the question on how his election would benefit the minority community, as he said everyone up there wants job creation but he also wanted to “keep the state out of (our) wallet.” Furthermore, in closing he wanted to “put representative back into the quotient” and not just be for big business or big labor.

Finally, we come to Michael James. He portrayed himself as an outsider who wanted to give a “different type” of representation, as he was a political neophyte but, more importantly, was a businessman who had created jobs. He also took a swipe at the perception of Maryland as anti-business when he spoke of minority-owned businesses, saying that the state needs to market its programs better and “(not) drive jobs away.” As he said, having no jobs is equal to having no tax base. And James was the person I adapted the opening from, as he closed by saying that most of them agreed on the problems but the position was about much more than who was effective at winning elections. Obviously you do have to win two elections in order to get to the General Assembly, at least in most cases.

By my count there were about 100 people there, the number actually grew as the evening progressed. It was sort of sad in a way though that a goodly number of the people there were other candidates running for various offices or brought as a show of support. For example, 5 of the 7 running for Sheriff were there and probably another half-dozen or so who were running for County Council. And then you had the Cephus brigade, plus a few others who were associated as campaign staffers or relatives of the people who shared the podium. I know that this will be televised at some point on PAC-14 but there’s not a lot of viewership among the general public there.

As this is the final NAACP forum, I’m unsure what other avenues are available to those who seek to see all of the candidates answer questions. Actually, the questions presented last night were probably the best of the three forums because they dealt least with pet NAACP issues. If this is the last forum, it looks to me like monoblogue will be the one asking the tough questions from here on. (By the way I got a letter today from Rich Colburn, so his Ten Questions answers will be featured on August 19, when I’m back from vacation. That brings the number of responses to seven, and checking my e-mail I should get another next week.) And in a few moments, this post will be superseded by a U.S. Senate response to my Ten Questions that arrived in my e-mail today.

Also, I did get a few more links to campaign sites which I’ll add to monoblogue over the weekend. The campaign is rolling on!

Again, just not a whole lot in the way of specific events. The only four people I have found with events listed in the next two weeks are District 5 County Councilman Larry Dodd, U.S. Congress candidate Jim Corwin, and District 38B contenders Jack Lord and Bonnie Luna. They are among the few who update their campaign calendars on a regular basis.

Dodd has on his calendar that he’ll be at the upcoming NAACP candidate forum (see below.)

Corwin is planning to being amongst the crowds at the Seafood Feast-I-Val in Cambridge on August 12th.

Lord will be at the Showell Fire Department on the 1st, the Blessing of the Combines in Snow Hill on August 5th, and probably one of many Worcester County-based candidates at their county fair (also in Snow Hill) on August 11-12.

Finally, Luna will be at a “neighborhood reception” in Berlin on August 5th and the “Concert on the Lawn” in Berlin on August 13th.

This coming Thursday, August 3rd, the final NAACP candidate forum will occur at the First Baptist Church auditorium, 528 Booth Street, in Salisbury. Hopefuls for the General Assembly are slated to attend, but it will be interesting to see which ones actually do – plus how many other candidates (such as Larry Dodd) will attend. By the way, I still haven’t filled out my candidate survey I got from them yet.

At the moment, that’s the only candidate forum I know of. With county fairs taking center stage for consecutive weekends in August (Wicomico’s runs from the 17th to the 19th) it’s not real likely that there will be many more, time is growing short before the primary election.

Finally, here is Bill Reddish’s WICO-AM morning show schedule so far as I have it:

Monday, July 31: Wicomico County Council District 1 candidate Mac Hayward.
Tuesday, August 1: Wicomico County Council District 4 candidate Bryan Brushmiller.

Brushmiller will be the last Wicomico County Council aspirant on the “hot seat” for the time being. After that, we hear from the many candidates for the two seats representing District 38B in the House of Delegates.

Wednesday, August 2: Candidate Bill McDermott.
Thursday, August 3: Appointed incumbent Jim Mathias.
Friday, August 4: Candidate Sonny Bloxom.

Monday, August 7: Candidate Michael James.
Tuesday, August 8: Candidate Jack Lord.
Wednesday, August 9: Incumbent Norm Conway.

I haven’t received anything further than that from Bill Reddish, but I would hazard a guess that he’s trying to get Bonnie Luna (the other 38B candidate) on for the 10th or 11th. Fortunately (for me) he’s getting the district I’m most interested in on first, before I go on vacation for a few days.

Because of that vacation, next week’s Election Calendar will be an extended version that will cover all the way up to August 27th.

To continue the seafood theme that last week’s Tawes Crab and Clam Bake began, people were packed in like sardines for this month’s meeting. Over 60 were stuffed into our meeting room and dined on crab dip among other finger snack foods, thanks to volunteer (and District 5 contender) Dorothy White.

Now originally when this meeting was announced, District 37 Senator Rich Colburn was the featured speaker. But thanks to Colburn’s calendar having conflicting events, Wicomico County Sheriff candidate Mike Lewis was added to the speaker bill, and honestly I think he’s the one who drew the increased crowd.

As usual, we started with the Pledge of Allegiance and the usual business of the minutes and treasurer’s report. And as usual, both were motioned, seconded, and passed unanimously. Interesting how that works. But we did find out that there’s 227 active members in the club now, with 61 unpaid.

We did hear first from Dustin Mills, who was volunteered to restart the dormant Lower Shore Young Republican Club. He was hopeful to get it off the ground in late September, and it would involve the same three counties that host our Lincoln Day dinner (Wicomico, Worcester, Somerset.) A word of advice to young Dustin, from someone who’s been there…make sure you have motivated volunteers and a leader who knows how to delegate. Unfortunately, I’m probably the worst delegator in the world. But the part about motivated volunteers is helpful because without them you have no one to delegate to.

Also, the club needs a food volunteer for next month’s meeting. I’m not sure how to beat crab dip though.

We also heard briefly from Woody Willing of the Wicomico County Board of Elections, where they still need GOP election volunteers. But the main part of his remarks was a breakdown of the current party affiliation by Council District (there are 5 in Wicomico County.)

District 1 (which takes in the northwestern sections of the county, including Delmar and Hebron) has 5,448 Democrats and 2,450 Republicans.

District 2 (the western section of the county, including Sharptown, Mardela Springs, Fruitland, and the small communities along State Route 349) runs 5,418 Republicans to 5,200 Democrats.

District 3 (Pittsville, Willards, Powellville, and the remainder of eastern Wicomico County plus a swath along its southern border that curls around to the U.S. 13 bypass and the southeastern portion of Salisbury) has 4,637 Republicans and 4,345 Democrats. This is my district because of that curl – if I walk across Old Ocean City Road I’m in District 5.

District 4 (predominantly the southern half of the city of Salisbury, but with a panhandle that takes in a narrow swath between U.S. 13 and the north branch of the Wicomico River in Salisbury) has 3,637 Democrats and 2,591 Republicans.

District 5 (sort of the northeastern section of the county between U.S. 13 and Parsonsburg Road, it includes part of Parsonsburg and the northeast quadrant of Salisbury including the Centre of Salisbury) contains 4,259 Democrats and 3,382 Republicans.

By my public school math skills, I added these totals up to give me 22,889 Democrats and 18,478 Republicans. While my goal as a Central Committeeman would be to reverse these numbers in four years, it still means that the 7,000 or so independents are going to decide many an election.

After Willing finished, we got to hear from Senator Colburn. Stating that this is “the most important election in my lifetime”, he related a story from his childhood. When he was four years old, Hurricane Hazel struck the area and Colburn said he could recall it clearly. A month afterward, Governor Theodore McKeldin was reelected but Colburn said he had no memory of that. However, what makes that important is that 1954 was the last time a Republican governor won a second term in Maryland. While I’m sure no one would like a major hurricane blowing through Chesapeake Bay again, we’d all like to see Governor Ehrlich remain in office. One reason is the two appointments that the incoming governor will make the the Maryland Court of Appeals. Further, Colburn commented that despite the usually negative editorials from the Baltimore Sun, the paper still termed the election as being “up for grabs.”

For his part, the Senator remarked that when he was first elected to the House of Delegates in 1982 (in his second try, he lost the first by just over 300 votes) he was one of just two Republicans in the Eastern Shore delegation. Even with his move to the Senate, he’s remained a very staunch and pro-business Republican, getting high marks from organizations like the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation for Independent Business, and Maryland Business for Responsive Government. All of the organizations gave him a rating of at least 90% as far as his votes, the NFIB score was a perfect 100.

But, Colburn warned, this record would make him a target for the liberals. He saw the opposition galvanizing around three votes he made in the last two sessions – the Healthy Air Act, the minimum wage bill, and the Fair Share Health Care Act. In defending these votes, he stated that the effects of the Healthy Air Act could be the closing of one power plant and possibly brownouts due to the constrained supply. He criticized the minimum wage bill as “politics over economics” and noted that the Democrats didn’t make this an issue when there was a Democrat governor who obviously would’ve supported it.

His most stinging rebukes were saved for the Fair Share bill, a measure he said was “unfair…and selective” and was a “highly partisan bribe to (the) unions.” Continuing in that vein, he quipped that this was a “tough month for the liberals” as they lost two court cases concerning the Public Service Commission and the Fair Share bill, plus saw the utilities they chained up by passing a so-called rate relief bill have their bonds sink into junk bond status, thus guaranteeing them higher interest rates for borrowing.

To close, he said he expected “lies and innuendo” from the Democrats campaigning against him, and concluded “I don’t want Maryland managed like Baltimore city”, an obvious jab at Baltimore mayor and Democrat candidate Martin O’Malley.

Upon Colburn’s finish, the assembled perked up as Mike Lewis had a video presentation to go along with his words. First, he did have a few remarks, stating up front that he was a “die-hard Republican” who fully supported Bob Ehrlich, Michael Steele, and President Bush.

Lewis rolled on, speaking of his Maryland State Patrol career where he became an expert at interdicting drugs. He started out doing this along U.S. 13, which he claimed became the preferred alternative route for drug traffickers after the heat became too intense along I-95. Some of the nation’s largest crack seizures occurred along our stretch of that road. In fact, he noted that he was so good at stopping the smugglers that he had two contracts on his life, which led the MSP to promote him to become a sergeant at the Annapolis MSP office for his safety. He got back into the interdiction game when he was placed in charge of overseeing the task statewide by Governor Ehrlich.

He had one interesting comment up front. There was one where he stated that he’d never been a principal in any racial profiling lawsuits brought by the ACLU or NAACP. In the later stages of his presentation, he did talk a lot about the “investigative advantage” of traffic stops. This led me to believe that somebody thought he was targeting too many minority drivers, but as he explained there’s telltale signs that one can gather illegal activity from regardless of race. Put another way, “Criminals are most vulnerable at traffic stops.” As an example, Mike recited how mass killers Ted Bundy and Timothy McVeigh were captured due to observant state policemen at routine traffic stops.

As to how he became interested in the Sheriff’s job, he told us that he’d been “hurt and concerned” over what’s happened in Wicomico County, but had no interest in the job until Sheriff Nelms announced he wouldn’t seek another term. At that point he decided to run, since he had served long enough in the MSP for retirement.

The first presentation he showed us was a short remainder of the events of 9/11. While it’s good to be reminded of that, especially from someone in law enforcement, I wasn’t quite sure of the point of showing it. I know I haven’t forgotten, but perhaps it’s true that as he stated too many Americans already have.

I found the second part of his presentation quite interesting, as he showed a video of a traffic stop he had made. There were several tips and techniques he showed that he’s teaching others to do on a national and international scale. The most intriguing one is placing a hand on the car as the trooper walks up to it on the passenger side. (Ask him about why, I kind of thought it was a neat trick of the trade and I’ll not reveal it.)

But the video he went through blow by blow as the perp was carefully observed and certain actions and clues led Lewis and his partner to believe the van was carrying drugs. Sure enough, once a K-9 unit was on the scene, it became obvious and the man driving the car was arrested for having about a half million dollars of cocaine in his car headed for PG County. I had to snicker when I saw Lewis and his partner at the end of the video bust trading high fives and a shoulder bump.

One thing Lewis stressed in his talk over the video was the importance of in-car cameras, and he claimed that there was federal money available for grants because of our having a commercial airport. This would be Homeland Security money and he would strive to get some to provide Wicomico County deputies with that equipment.

He concluded his presentation by showing us a fishtank stand. But it wasn’t an ordinary one. This one was rigged with electronic pistons that were activated by waving a transmitter over the back. Once activated, it revealed a secret compartment. This was found at a home in Salisbury, and at one time held over $200,000 in drug cash. Now it’s part of Lewis’s show-and-tell presentation while its former owner is cooling his heels in prison for the next 25 years or so.

Mike then took a few questions after this informative multimedia show. In a query about school resource officers, he was quick to answer “we need more of them.” But the problem wasn’t quite about that, it had to do with turnover. Lewis stated that he would assign officers and walk the halls with them a few times as needed to build the students’ trust in the officers.

I’m going to go out of order here because the second question of the three had the most interesting answer. But the last question had to do with priorities – while busting drug smugglers on Route 13 was important, what happens to the call about a vandalized mailbox? Lewis told the man who asked that “everyone will get a quality investigation” and not just a police report. He added that he’d do “everything in his power” to reopen all of the substations; in fact one is to reopen shortly, I believe it was in Powellville.

Now to that most interesting and magnanimous answer. A question was asked about the Sheriff Department’s $7 million budget and 110 employees and how Lewis would handle the administrative end. Mike admitted that it was probably his weakest point and clearly stated that Doris Schonbrunner would be appreciated and welcomed to stay on as his second-in-command should he win the job, continuing in her current post.

He concluded by saying that he was planning to take his retirement and continue teaching the methods of drug interdiction full time until the opportunity of the open Sheriff’s chair came about. But in boiling the presentation down, it’s all about, as he termed, “organized crime against disorganized law enforcement” and that was something he was going to work to change.

As I wrote at the top, we had quite the turnout there. So there were a few closing remarks made, mostly by John Bartkovich. Much of it was soliciting volunteers for upcoming events, including the Farm and Home Show next month. I’m signed up to be there on the 17th at 4:00 p.m., the first guy out of the chute. But we’ll also have workers manning a space at the Riverfest in September and the Chamberfest and Autumn Wine Festival in October.

Another subject brought up was voter registration and getting those cards filled out. There’s a course on it and a call was placed about whether there would be interest in a club-sponsored class on that. Since there would be more discussion on it afterward, I don’t have the results at the moment.

But this month’s meeting was probably among the best we’ve had, particularly with turnout. We did a quick (well, except for Bonnie Luna and John Cannon) introduction of all the candidates who were there, and I counted 21 including myself. Just like on the ballot, I was the last one. So vote from the bottom up.

I really have very little to place on the calendar this week, as only two candidates have formally scheduled events on their dockets, and they’re both District 38B contenders. You actually can save me the typing and just go to Jack Lord‘s and Bonnie Luna‘s websites, they are linked to the side. (I am curious how Bonnie will be two places at once on the 29th.)

There are at least three main events coming in the next two weeks. I’d love to have a member of the Wicomico County Democratic Club (or whatever it’s called) confirm this, but I believe they normally meet on the 3rd Wednesday…that was the day of the Tawes event so perhaps they pushed that meeting back? I’d love to give them equality of opportunity. But equality of positive results is another thing entirely.

Anyhow, for those reading in Wicomico County:

July 24: The Wicomico County Republican Club meets in their usual monthly meeting at the Chamber of Commerce Building at 144 E. Main Street in Salisbury – social hour is at 7:00 and meeting starts at 7:30. Originally Rich Colburn, incumbent Senator from District 37, was slated to speak, and he will. But late word is that Wicomico County Sheriff candidate Mike Lewis will utter some remarks (and probably inspiring one-liners) as well.

July 27: NAACP candidate forum at the Mills Memorial Baptist Temple at 1323 Jersey Road in Salisbury. This one will feature those running for Sheriff, State’s Attorney, Judge of the Orphans Court, and the two central committees. So I’ll be there (since I’m on the ballot for Central Committee) and hopefully the gentleman with the ten stickers and the gawdawful green O’Malley shirt will be there too, I thought his badge said Wicomico County Democrat Central Committee. Just keep that shirt at home, please.

August 3: Another NAACP candidate forum but this time the location shifts to the First Baptist Church auditorium at 528 Booth Street in Salisbury. The final of three forums the organization is sponsoring will focus on the General Assembly races.

Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be getting a lot of help from the campaigns so the calendar is getting a bit thin. It’s not worth a lot of time if I’m just finding relevant events from two contenders; not to say that their website calendars aren’t useful but it may be more prudent for me timewise just to note that their calendars on their websites have these events and stick to the more public ones. You know, the Election Calendar is and remains a work in progress.

Now, as for Bill Reddish’s WICO-AM morning radio show, I’m aware of the following scheduled guests. All of these are for Wicomico County offices:

July 24: District 4 Council candidate Neil Bayne.
July 25: District 3 Council candidate Mike Pretl.
July 26: District 4 Council candidate David MacLeod.
July 27: District 5 Council candidate Ed Werkheiser.
July 28: District 5 Council candidate Joe Holloway.

July 31: District 1 Council candidate Mac Hayward.
August 1: District 4 Council candidate Bryan Brushmiller.

After that, we begin on the state offices, all of these are contenders for the House of Delegates District 38B seat:

August 2: candidate Bill McDermott.
August 3: appointed incumbent Jim Mathias.
August 4: candidate Sonny Bloxom.

If Bill Reddish happens to be reading this, I’d love the update on who’s coming in the first week of August and also if he’s managed to reschedule Martin O’Malley’s slated appearance. (Late edit, I knew Bill would come through – and he’s adding “issue interviews” in the 8:40 slot now where possible.) I believe it was last Wednesday that both he and Michael Steele were to be interviewed over the phone. Steele made his interview slot (a couple minutes late) but O’Malley never called in. Somehow I don’t think that qualifies as “Leadership for Maryland.”

A couple final notes: there will be no Political Calendar on August 13th, I’m going to be on vacation. So the August 6th one will probably creep a few extra days into a third week so folks can stay on top of things.

Also, astute readers of monoblogue might have noticed that there wasn’t a Ten Questions on Friday. As I said, I’ve exhausted all of the responses I’ve gotten from Maryland candidates to date. You can click on the “Ten Questions” category in the upper left corner to catch those who have replied and those who got snarky remarks because they didn’t.

So far I have 7 replies out of a total of 28 people for the Senate seat and none of 4 for the Maryland District 1 House seat. I have two people who I haven’t sent the Ten Questions to because I just crosschecked my list vs. the state’s and I’m two short. That will be rectified in the next couple days. So far I’ve gotten replies from:

Democrats (4): David Dickerson (July 7), Allan Lichtman (June 5), Dennis Rasmussen (June 30), and Mike Schaefer (June 20).

Republicans (2): Earl Gordon (July 18) and Daniel “Wig Man” Vovak (July 15).

Unity Campaign (Green/Libertarian/Populist): Kevin Zeese (July 8 ).

And I’m pleased to announce that I have 3 responses thus far to my Maryland General Assembly “Ten Questions.” Look for these starting Wednesday, scheduled as follows:

July 26: District 38A Democrat Patrick Armstrong leads off the series.
July 29: Fellow District 38A Democrat contestant Tony Bruce.
August 2: District 38B Republican Jack Lord.