Crisfield is the southernmost town in Maryland, but one day per summer it becomes the state’s political capital. Anyone familiar with Maryland politics knows that a summer tradition is standing around on the blacktop at Somers Cove Marina waiting for crabs and watching politicians try to create a show of support. But this year’s affair promises to be somewhat different than ones in years past, perhaps getting the feel of one held the year after the previous gubernatorial election.
This is because, for the first time, we already know for sure who the nominees will be. In years past we had a primary just weeks away but that’s no more. So Anthony Brown will be there, presumably with a cadre of blue-shirted volunteers who will head straight to the AFSCME tent. Larry Hogan’s posse will arrive at some point and the question will be how much smaller will his be, as it always seems Republican groups are smaller.
If things hold as they have over the past few years, there will be a steady stream of traffic going by the GOP tent, if only because Bruce Bereano’s bipartisan party is generally right across the walkway; meanwhile, the Democrats will hole up in the opposite corner by the cove, near a place I generally go to get some shade as I walk around. The only difference is that shade may not be such a requirement – the forecast for Crisfield tomorrow is for temperatures only in the upper 70s but a chance of rain throughout the afternoon after a stormy early morning. It could affect the business portion of the event, as a number of local businesses use this as a party for their employees and clients. (It’s not just politicians having a good time – I have some beer pong photos from a few years back. I was not a participant.)
I have no insight as to how ticket sales are doing, aside from knowing we sold most of our allotment. I do know this will be the ninth straight one I’ve gone to (beginning in 2006) and a lot of things have stayed pretty constant. Something worth noting from 2006 is that then-Governor Ehrlich skipped the event – and lost. Martin O’Malley didn’t skip the event in 2006 and 2010, and won.
But instead of blast-furnace hot as is usual, we may be drowned rat wet. Fortunately, there are tents but those cardboard box halves may come in handy as makeshift umbrellas. (Pro tip: don’t forget the box half, although occasionally campaigns will be one step ahead and bring a bunch. It’s a good place to use old bumper stickers.)
In any event, be looking for me. I got my ticket last week and will be there with my little camera taking pictures as I have for most of the last several years. I have a lot of good memories of Tawes and met some fine people, so there’s no reason to stop going now.
I’ve heard a lot of talk about nominees who are RINOs and sitting out the election because so-and-so won the primary and they don’t want to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” and it always amazes me because this doesn’t happen on the other side. Here’s a case in point from a fawning AP story by Steve LeBlanc about Senator (and potential Presidential candidate) Elizabeth Warren.
Now, Warren is continuing her fundraising efforts, with a planned Monday event with West Virginia Democratic Senate hopeful Natalie Tennant. Tennant, West Virginia’s secretary of state, is vying with U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller. Capito is favored and holds a hefty cash advantage.
Capito’s campaign has also been quick to target Warren, calling her “one of the staunchest opponents of coal and West Virginia’s way of life.”
Warren has conceded that she and Tennant — who, like (Kentucky Democrat Senate nominee Alison Lundergan) Grimes, has criticized Obama’s plans to limit carbon emissions from the coal industry — don’t agree on everything, but can come together on economic issues facing struggling families.
So it’s obvious that the Democrats have their own 80/20 rule, but unlike some on our side they don’t take their ball and go home based on the non-conformance of the 20.
We had our primary, and at the top of the ticket there were 57% who voted for someone else besides our nominee – many of those live here on the Eastern Shore, where David Craig received 49.6% of the vote and carried seven of the nine counties. There can be a case made that Craig’s running mate, Eastern Shore native and resident Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, was a huge factor in his success here, but the fact remains that this area I live in was one of the two areas Hogan was weakest (the other being southern Maryland, where Charles Lollar resides.) These are votes Hogan will need, and surely many will migrate his way because he’s the Republican nominee.
On the other hand, Anthony Brown got a majority of the Democratic vote and carried all but a few counties. Those three on the Eastern Shore, plus Carroll County, aren’t places Brown would expect to win in November anyway – except perhaps Kent County, which was the lone county Heather Mizeur won and which only backed Mitt Romney by a scant 28 votes in 2012.
The path to victory for any statewide Republican candidate is simple, because Bob Ehrlich did this in 2002 – roll up huge margins in the rural areas and hold your own in the I-95 corridor. Ehrlich won several rural counties with over 70% of the vote in 2002, and got 24%, 38%, and 23% in Baltimore City, Montgomery County, and Prince George’s County, respectively. When that formula didn’t happen in 2006, he lost.
Granted, demographic changes and other factors may not allow Larry Hogan to pick up 65% of the vote in Anne Arundel County, 61% in Baltimore County, or 56% in Charles County, but it’s possible he does slightly better in Prince George’s and may hold some of those other areas. Turnout is key, and we know the media will do its utmost to paint Anthony Brown as anything other than an incompetent administrator and uninspiring candidate – as the natural successor to Martin O’Malley, who has done a wonderful job further transforming this state into a liberal’s Utopian dream at the expense of working Maryland families, one would have expected Brown to have picked up at least 60% of the Democratic primary vote.
Yet you can bet your bottom dollar that even the most diehard Mizeur and Gansler supporters may hold their nose but will still push that spot on the screen next to Anthony Brown’s name. They may have several points of contention with Brown on key issues, but the other side will push those aside to maintain power.
Perhaps Natalie Tennant over in West Virginia had misgivings for a moment about inviting Elizabeth Warren for a fundraiser, but she realized that there is a segment of her would-be supporters who would gladly contribute more to her campaign to meet Senator Warren, despite the fact they are on opposite sides of a particular issue. To Warren, the end goal of holding that seat in her party’s hands and maintaining a Democrat-controlled Senate was more important than conformity with the one place where Tennant may go against leftist orthodoxy.
If we’re to upset the apple cart here in Maryland, we have to deal with the obvious flaws in Larry Hogan’s philosophy and platform at the most opportune time – when he takes office.
I’m breaking into my normal Sunday to bring you the latest polling on this race.
While it’s not precisely what Maryland Republicans are hoping for, there is a little crack as the Hogan electoral door is slightly ajar. Bear in mind that a projected matchup polled by the Washington Post last month had Brown leading 51-33, so his support is retreating while Hogan’s has grown. Perhaps people are realizing what I wrote last month on Brown’s lead:
It’s a counter-intuitive result when you look deeper into the poll’s questions to find that Democrats want the next governor to lead the state in a different direction from Martin O’Malley by a 58-34 margin. Yet they have given Anthony Brown a significant primary lead and would presumably back him in the general election.
Then again, it’s very rare that Maryland votes in its own best interests anyway – they would rather genuflect to an all-encompassing government which distributes crumbs in an arbitrary and capricious manner, depending on the favored status of prospective recipients, than breathe the air of freedom and opportunity for all. But there’s always a first time, and as for the rest some areas of the state still have common sense.
So Hogan has picked up a little bit, but more importantly Brown has been driven under the 50% mark. Conventional wisdom holds that an incumbent under 50 percent is in trouble, so this should be added motivation for conservatives to work for an upset.
In this time of crisis on the southern border, it’s worth having an idea of what the long-term effects can be. While the source of the information is the immigration hardliners at the Center for Immigration Studies, the figures don’t lie. This is particularly noteworthy as Maryland is one of the top destination states for immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.
So the trends are disturbing, as most of the statistics cited by CIS would suggest the influx of illegal aliens would be a drain on the system – among current immigrants from those nations, they are more likely to be lacking a high school diploma and either live in poverty and/or be enrolled in some sort of welfare program despite holding a job at about the same proportion as native-born Americans.
Granted, the CIS figures are released by an entity that bills itself as “low-immigration, pro-immigrant.” But imagine that 20,000 of these new immigrants find their way to Maryland – what does that mean for the state’s financial situation? This is particularly troubling long-term as the Anthony Brown platform includes at least $9.15 million in state money to give student loans to children of illegal aliens. Obviously more such children will mean more of a strain on that program as well as other supplemental income programs Maryland taxpayers already provide.
For too long business has looked the other way as illegal aliens came in, willing to take jobs for lower wages than the native-born. But now the conditions are a little different because the use of child labor is frowned upon and a larger proportion of those crossing the border are minors, many of whom are unaccompanied.
Having an immigrant underclass is nothing new in American history. Leading into the Great Depression, the immigrant population hovered around 13 to 15 percent before declining under 10 percent for most of the remainder of the 20th century. In fact, we are only now beginning to reach the point where we were a century ago insofar as percentage is concerned.
But the question going forward is whether they will assimilate as well as their European forefathers did, and based on how we’ve done over the last 30 years since the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty, I can’t see the new wave of immigrants doing much to become Americans. Yet they don’t mind accepting our dollars.
It’s a political tradition stretching back decades, but the debate over how executive debates will be conducted is generally as interesting as the debates themselves.
In a Thursday news dump before the Independence Day holiday, the Anthony Brown – Ken Ulman campaign proposed three debates “maintaining the tradition set from previous gubernatorial elections… this schedule will reach more Marylanders by ensuring that all of the debates are broadcast statewide.” Basically, one would be on WJZ out of Baltimore (co-sponsored by the Baltimore Sun), one would be on WRC in Washington (co-sponsored by the Washington Post), and the last would be on Larry Young’s WOLB-AM morning show in Baltimore, “partnered” with the Kojo Nnamdi show on WAMU-FM. All three would be broadcast statewide on either Maryland Public Television or NPR. A lieutenant governor debate would be added, at an unspecified location in western Maryland.
Larry Hogan blasted the Brown-Ulman proposal:
We think that the voters of Maryland deserve the opportunity to know the differences between us. We have accepted every invitation received to date without any restrictions whatsoever as to the format and have also called for debates in all regions of the state.
We have said we would be pleased to participate in debates on all the Baltimore, Washington, Salisbury and Hagerstown television stations and before any important organization anywhere in Maryland.
We believe the people of Maryland deserve a real clear choice for a change and we plan to give it to them. They deserve to hear from both of us and we hope Anthony Brown will agree to frequent, substantive and real debates on the serious issues facing our state.
Interestingly enough, Hogan has agreed to three forums so far, sponsored by the Maryland Municipal League, Maryland Association of Counties, and WBFF-TV, which is Baltimore’s Fox affiliate. Personally I think it’s a good start. As there are over two dozen television stations in the Maryland and Washington, D.C. markets, it’s not realistic to think that each can sponsor its own debate but I think the idea of one each for Baltimore, Washington, Hagerstown, and Salisbury covers the state very well.
But the devil is in the details and in the political reality: Brown is about 15 points ahead – or so polls suggest – and has far more money to spend than Hogan does. So it’s in Brown’s best interest to let the air out of the ball and limit debate. He can afford to bombard the airwaves with commercials which define the message as he wishes to – look for a reworking of his record and lies about how bad things were under Bob Ehrlich, and the fewer debates and appearances where he can misspeak or make a gaffe, the better for him.
And there’s also the question of opening up the debate to other candidates. At this point there’s only a Libertarian candidate in the race besides Hogan and Brown, but it’s possible we could get a Green Party candidate or independent run. Do the minor party aspirants get a place at the table? Depending on who else decides to run, the answer from Brown may be “yes” – not only does it splinter the opposition to have a Libertarian in the race, it also leaves less airtime for Hogan to make good points or Brown to mess up. If a Green Party candidate comes in, though, the answer may become “no” because they tend to take from Democrats.
I suspect that Larry Hogan may be talking to some empty chairs at some of the venues where he’s accepted invitations. But even if he does have to accept Brown’s terms, the key will be in the moderation and questioning. Someone from the Washington Post or Baltimore Sun will be sure to pitch items in Brown’s wheelhouse, so there should be voices from other media outlets as well. I can think of a good conservative member of the “new media” who might have a question or two to ask.
In the drive to unify a party after a contentious primary in certain quarters, state party Chair Diana Waterman put out a message at once congratulatory to the primary winners and conciliatory to the losers. It was the standard boilerplate stuff until I ran across this passage:
There has been much said and debated in social gatherings and on Facebook about “Party over Principle or Principle over Party.” I do not believe that supporting the elected nominees of our Party and following your principles are mutually exclusive. While a candidate may not agree with you on 100% of the issues, they will always be more in line with your beliefs than the liberal Democrat will ever be. We must elect more Republicans if we want to have any hope of challenging the stranglehold of the Liberals in Annapolis!
Our only hope to be victorious on November 4th is TO UNITE. Not voting for the Republican in the General is the same as casting a vote for their Democrat opponent. Do not give the Democrats one iota more of an advantage over our candidates. (Emphasis in original.)
Those who have followed Maryland politics for awhile know why the subject comes up; if not, it came from a video put out some years back when Audrey Scott was running the show.
In general I agree with Diana on this one because she’s exactly correct. In a universe where there are a finite number of votes out there and one entity already has a numerical advantage, all other entities do themselves a disservice by not participating because their decision makes it even easier for the majority to prevail. If I have a classroom with 20 votes and 11 support Jack, six support Jill, and the other three blow with the wind, but find only about 10 of those members actually participate, it’s a reasonable assumption that if those six supporting Jill hold together – and vote – they have a fighting chance to win.
Excluding the Central Committee race, I had three contested races and I didn’t vote for a single winner; in fact, those who voted for all winners in all races are probably few and far between. So unless you’re one of those fortunate souls – and that number was immediately trimmed by 57% in the gubernatorial race because that many voted for someone other than winner Larry Hogan – you will have to make some compromises in order to vote Republican. (David Craig handily carried Wicomico County, though, so in that sense I voted for one winner.)
But something I’ve studied over the years is the big, big difference between Republicans and Democrats in this state. As I noted Monday, the fiscal difference between a guy who believes there is $1.75 billion in fraud and waste to be had in the state budget and a guy who wants to spend additional millions and could grow the budget as much as $16 billion over four years is stark. I understand the whole “lesser of two evils” argument, but there are only two people with a realistic chance of winning and the stand has to be made sooner or later. Larry Hogan wasn’t my dream candidate, and I suspect we would have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he doesn’t drift over the political center line, but given the choice between him and Anthony Brown it’s a no-brainer. Those who backed Martin O’Malley because they didn’t like how centrist Bob Ehrlich was and thought we needed to be taught a lesson – well, class was dismissed.
I repeat again: this is an “all hands on deck” election. Even adding up the totals for all four GOP gubernatorial candidates, the sum doesn’t match the vote total Anthony Brown got in a contested Democratic primary, so it’s obvious there’s work to be done. You know it and I know it, but the labor needs to be put in.
Yet I’m going to encourage you to take an evening off on July 17 and spend it with a Congressman who knows a little something about agriculture. The Dorchester County Lincoln Day Dinner features Rep. Frank Lucas, who is the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. He will be speaking to the gathering, which will be held at the East New Market Fire Hall in that community east of Cambridge. Tickets are $70, but the menu promises to be outstanding.
Here’s the problem with being a conservative Republican. It’s a little bit like an adage we heard during the Long War against terrorism – we have to be successful 100% of the time or else there is no success.
This brings me to the situation in Mississippi, where Chris McDaniel had an apparent victory snatched from him because those who would nominally be Democrats decided to vote for the establishment Republican incumbent, 76-year-old Thad Cochran. Cochran has spent nearly half his life in the United States Senate, but lost the initial primary by 0.5% to McDaniel. In many states (including Maryland) that would have been the end, but Mississippi election rules demand a runoff when no candidate attains a majority and Cochran won the rematch with thousands of black voters switching allegiance to support Cochran. One member of the Congressional Black Caucus has already said “we have expectations” for Cochran – but promised to campaign for his Democratic opponent.
A friend and supporter of mine sent this e-mail, saying it made her “angry and confused,” and asked me for comment. First of all, it’s another reason why I’ve stopped giving to party organizations and simply give to individual candidates.
But it’s also another illustration of what Angelo Codevilla calls the “ruling class” spending thousands to maintain its grip on power – perhaps it’s the one bipartisan effort in our nation’s capital right now. He wrote a fine piece on this very situation, and thanks to the folks at Blue Ridge Forum for pointing it out.
Now I will cheerfully tell you I’m not the be-all and end-all of political experts – after all, if I were I think I may have been able to pull off the most recent election. But it seems to me that the overall lack of growth in the Republican Party on a national scale isn’t because they’re too conservative, but because they aren’t conservative enough. Most people who leave the party don’t switch to the Democratic column but to independent or unaffiliated status.
So there was an election in Mississippi where the chances were really good the Republicans would retain the seat. If you asked conservatives around the country who they thought would be the better Senator, I would guess the vast majority would say Chris McDaniel – if for no other reason than to oust a 36-year Washington incumbent. You would probably get the same response in Mississippi, which is why the Cochran side had to appeal to Democrats to maintain their hold on the seat, smearing the TEA Party along the way. (Never mind that the TEA Party is one key reason Senate Republicans are even sniffing the chance for a majority this year.)
More than ever, after this McDaniel debacle the clamor will rise for a third party. Obviously Democrats would love this because it would guarantee perpetual power for them, even if they’re not a majority of the voting public. As we see time and time again, Democrats stick together regardless of who wins their primaries. Here in Maryland, the Doug Gansler and Heather Mizeur supporters won’t take their ball and go home like disaffected Republicans do – they will pull the “D” lever right down the line beginning with Anthony Brown. He may not be their preferred candidate, but as long as the goodies keep flowing they really don’t care.
Having said all that, though, I think the rumors of the TEA Party’s demise are a little overblown; however, it is developing its own ruling class. That’s the problem, because when it was just about activism we were at our most effective.
One thing I’m not hearing much about in the Mississippi race – granted, I’m not on the ground there so take from it what you will – is any GOTV effort on McDaniel’s part. There was a lot of money spent on political ads, but perhaps the most effective spending was that done on the robocalls and flyers which whipped up the black vote. That spending gave the most benefit to Cochran – yet no one wants to take credit for it! Wonder why?
Some years ago, Republicans were pilloried for an ill-advised robocall here in Maryland to benefit one of their own, despite the fact it was the doing of a former Democratic chief of staff and rough-and-tumble operative. Hopefully the Mississippi media will be as curious about the origins of that Cochran robocall as Maryland’s was about the Ehrlich one, and justice will be served as it was with the Ehrlich robocall.
I suppose the lesson our side has to learn is that you can never take anything for granted except for one fact: those in power will stop at nothing to keep it. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Update: And now we get the prospect of vote buying – by Republicans. We can joke all we want about Democrats securing votes from the graveyard, but thanks to the lust for power by the Beltway establishment, our hands are forever sullied as well.
While I mentioned the other day that not much fresh news would come from the political races until after the Independence Day holiday, that doesn’t mean that “Maryland’s top conservative blogger” (at least according to David Gerstman, contributor to Legal Insurrection) won’t have his say on things. I wanted to open up by taking a look at Larry Hogan’s “Hogan’s Plan” for the state’s finances.
Over the course of the primary campaign I was critical of Hogan for having such a vague “to-do list” of priorities he would have as governor, and this wasn’t a whole lot better. Be that as it may, I’m going to try and work with it in the real world anyway.
In Maryland, the governor perhaps has the most power of any such chief executive in the country – particularly if he wants to get serious about cutting the budget. The General Assembly can’t come back with a larger budget total, although they can tweak around the edges to some extent. So let’s go with the baseline established by Martin O’Malley when he set the FY2015 budget that takes effect tomorrow at $39.224 billion. Hogan promised that:
On day one, he will begin to run the government more cost-effectively and honestly. The Hogan-Rutherford administration will implement the recommendations of past audits, conduct additional independent audits of every state agency, and immediately get to work eliminating duplication, fraud, and waste to make sure that every cent of taxpayer money is spent efficiently.
By his reckoning, there is “$1.75 billion in waste and abuse” in state government. Figuring this with my public school math, that is 4.46% of the state budget – which seems like a nice little chunk of change until you realize the difference between the FY2015 and FY2014 budgets is $1.886 billion. In other words, the “waste and abuse” only accounts for about the same amount of money as an average annual increase. Something tells me there’s more low-hanging fruit than that. Yet Hogan says:
By cutting the waste and abuse from state government, he will be able to save the taxpayers of Maryland billions of dollars without having to cut our priority programs and agencies. It is a simple solution to a problem that has plagued our state for the last eight years, and it will enable him to cut and eliminate the regressive taxes that have crushed middle-class families and small businesses.
Nothing is ever that simple, but on the other hand his opponent is willing to blow up the budget with millions and millions of dollars in additional spending. If Anthony Brown simply maintains the Martin O’Malley glide path of 4% budget increases each year, this is what the next four budgets would look like:
FY2016: $40.793 billion
FY2017: $42.425 billion
FY2018: $44.122 billion
FY2019: $45.887 billion
Compared to level-funding the budget, that’s an additional $16.331 billion in tax dollars needed and you can bet your bottom dollar the Democrats will take all that and more from hard-working Maryland families.
The other part of Hogan’s Plan deals with business climate:
Maryland’s unemployment rate is 75% higher today than it when the recession began. In fact, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation ranked Maryland #41 in the nation for business climate. The main reason for this unfortunate reality is that it costs too much for job creators to stay in or come to Maryland. He will reduce the burden on job creators, open Maryland for business, and make our state more competitive with others in our region. The Hogan-Rutherford administration will overhaul the Department of Business and Economic Development to focus on aggressively attracting and retaining job creators in order to bring more and better-paying jobs to Maryland.
This is where the lack of specifics is really aggravating, particularly when Hogan’s vanquished opponents directly addressed the issue by proposing corporate tax cuts. In the FY2015 budget, corporate taxes bring in $1.011 billion so eliminating them entirely is affordable if you assume Hogan has the $1.75 billion of waste and fraud elimination in his pocket. Now THAT would turn some heads, but Hogan refuses to make the commitment.
Let’s look at Brown’s “Competitive Business Climate Tour” plan, though. There are nine “areas of focus” therein, but I’m going to focus on five of them:
Tax Liability: Reform our tax code to ensure that it reflects our current economy, enables state and local government to adequately fund our shared priorities, and encourages job generating investments in Maryland.
If you want the tax code to reflect our current economy, rates should be decreased to match the zero growth Maryland is enjoying right now. Unfortunately, it will instead be certain to “enable…government to adequately fund” all the brilliant schemes these liberals come up with. And don’t be surprised if combined reporting isn’t among those items designed to “encourage” investment in the state by hiking taxes on national companies.
Cost and Reliability of Energy: Promote the cost-effective generation of energy and improve the reliable delivery of energy through the grid to businesses and residents while transitioning to more sustainable energy sources.
There’s either one of two ways to go here: we get a “grand bargain” where fracking is finally allowed on the western end of the state in return for “investment” in wind turbines off Ocean City (perhaps via a tax on natural gas producers), or we just get the necessary subsidies to make these unsightly and inefficient wind turbines and land-wasting solar panel farms a reality. Look for the “renewable energy portfolio” to increase the percentage of “sustainable energy sources” to levels unsustainable for utilities to address without huge increases in consumer bills.
Cost of Living: Expand access to affordable housing and healthcare, healthy food options and cost-effective transportation to create a reasonable cost of living for all Maryland families.
When you see the words “expand access to” they really mean “spend more on,” with two exceptions: expanding access to “healthy food options” will involve the elimination of those options deemed unhealthy, such as fast food outlets. You will eat your broccoli and like it. The same goes for “cost-effective transportation” because, for many, transportation will become cost-ineffective: gas taxes will increase in order to subsidize mass transit, which is only cost-effective to the inner-city user whose farebox donation isn’t nearly enough to cover its cost.
And just how is a “reasonable cost of living” determined by the government? To me, that is determined by the market and the desires of those families as to their priorities.
Reliable and Predictable Legal System: Provide a civil justice system that allows deserving individuals to get justice and hold wrongdoers accountable while ensuring that awards are fair and equitable.
That is called tort reform, and the chances of pigs flying in Maryland are probably far higher than passage and enforcement of anything of the sort – especially if Brian Frosh is elected as AG.
Small- and Medium-sized Business Access to Working Capital: Ensure all viable small- and medium-sized businesses have access to affordable capital by working with lenders and businesses to maintain a strong environment for growth.
When I read this, I immediately thought: nice little financial institution you got there, be a shame if something happened to it. It’s the market’s job to figure out if a business is capital-worthy, not government’s.
My gosh, Larry Hogan, you have to do better than this. There are so many holes and code words in Brown’s plans that it should be easy to come up with something actually viable for keeping businesses and people from leaving the state.
To be honest, I took these photos on Tuesday intending to add them to my coverage – then promptly forgot and posted it anyway. But it doesn’t hurt to have a second look back before moving forward. There’s really not going to be a lot of fresh news until after the Independence Day holiday anyway, plus it also proves the adage that every picture tells a story.
So I’m going to lead with this one I also posted to Facebook.
It’s interesting to see this pile of Anthony Brown signs, which as I recall were pretty much all of the Brown signs I saw. Now one person suggested that they were originally set within the 100′ limit then relocated against the tree, which is possible – but I doubt it. Instead, my thought was someone left the pile of signs earlier that day or the previous night intending to have the first volunteer at the site place them in the morning – sort of like someone decided to have a insurance exchange website intending to have the thing actually work and not waste millions of dollars.
If you don’t get the small details, the large stuff bites you in the ass.
Speaking of signage, I did not count how many signs were out there on the grounds of the Civic Center, but I would suggest the ratio was perilously close to one for every other voter. Interest seemed to be quite low.
I took that picture about 5:00 after I arrived about 4:30. (This was an election day I had to work – I couldn’t alter my schedule enough to avoid it.) There were literally three people working the polls when I got there – M.J. Caldwell’s wife Pam, a lady representing Circuit Court appointee Jimmy Sarbanes, and Jim Jester, who was doing double duty with an Andy Harris shirt and Mike McDermott sign. This is one of the busier polling places in the county, and only three people were there.
If I saw 100 people vote in the time I was there, it was a lot.
Speaking of M.J. Caldwell, the Republican voters of this county need an education. I would expect about 60-65% of Democrats to blindly support someone named Sarbanes, but 43% of Republicans? Really? Someone selected not on qualifications, but on name recognition by a political hack governor we can’t stand? Get real. That has to turn around in November.
Even the news coverage was lackadaisical. Channel 47 did a live remote, but they never came out to talk with us. They probably showed the pictures of an all-but-empty polling place to an audience which can be charitably described as second-best in the market.
In terms of poll workers, it did pick up after a time. Jackie Wellfonder came along to work this poll.
Turned out the face-to-face didn’t do either of us much good because we got about the same amount of votes, and that wasn’t enough.
Josh Hastings was unopposed in his primary, so all he had to do was await the winner on the GOP side.
His opponent will be Larry Dodd, who had someone there eventually but he wasn’t the social type.
Having worked polls a few times here, I know that after about 7:00 it’s pretty well done for the night. So there were a gaggle of people with Hastings who got to talking down the way on the Democratic side, and a few of us for the GOP. It’s not like we had voters to convince, as maybe 20 stopped by during the last hour.
At the very end, Carl Anderton dropped by to retrieve his signs as did Jim Mathias. They had a nice conversation, although I didn’t get a picture. I was even bipartisan and helped Jim pick up some of the Democrats’ signs.
I was in a group which went on to The Cellar Door to check on the returns, but it wasn’t really a good night for most of us as you now know.
There were a couple things I learned, though. First and foremost is that Facebook is worthless as a campaign aid unless you want to pay through the nose. Social media isn’t really social anymore; it’s become commercialized like everything else. I had 60 likes for my Facebook page, which isn’t much but it at least gives me insight on how my posts did. (By comparison, Jackie Wellfonder also had a similar page and got 100 likes – but about 60 fewer votes.)
I placed a total of 41 posts on the page, although there was one I shared multiple times. My total reach was 2,718 – it’s about 66 per post. Ironically, my best post insofar as Facebook is concerned is the last one I think of as my concession speech, which reached 298 people. A little late, don’t you think? But if you figure a good number of those 66 per post see my stuff time after time, it’s not all that efficient for the investment.
I didn’t have thousands of dollars laying around to get my Facebook page up to 100,000 likes as Change Maryland did, and we only know about the last 30,000 or so because the campaign paid for those – Change Maryland was close to 70,000 when Hogan made it official. So who knows how much he paid for that promotion? More than I had in my pocket.
Anyway, social media isn’t really the way to go. But what is?
The second thing I found out is that the public seems to be unmotivated to find out what people really stand for. In race after race, I saw that those who spelled out their platform in the most complete manner lost to those who were a mystery to voters but had name recognition. It also didn’t necessarily matter how hard you worked – if John Cannon or Matt Holloway went door-to-door I didn’t hear about it, but Muir Boda did and got 18% of the vote to show for it. Tyler Harwood went door-to-door with Greg Belcher (in the same group which at times featured Carl Anderton, Marc Kilmer, and Boda) and finished dead last for Central Committee (Greg was 8th.) Hard work wasn’t its own reward, and no good deed went unpunished – or so it seemed. (Nope, Marc corrected me – it was just his lit, not him.)
In short, I’m not sure I did my job very well on a local level. If I have a mission to educate voters, it looks like I have to work a little harder on it – and so I shall. I suppose the one thing about being a lame duck is that I have no election to worry about anymore, so I can speak my mind perhaps a little moreso than political correctness may dictate.
One source of relief is that I have a smaller range of people to keep up with for November. I think we could have done somewhat better coming out of this primary, but at least now I know whose feet I’ll have to keep to the fire and who I should be able to count on with a minimum of supervision.
I actually started this a couple weeks ago, when writing about Ron George’s last stand, and just added to it here and there every couple days – if only to keep it atop the queue. Regarding Ron, it was unfortunate that such a good candidate couldn’t get much traction in the race.
But as the race comes to an end for three of the four gubernatorial hopefuls, I’m convinced that my initial instinct was correct and there was really only money enough for three candidates. Blaine Young saw this early on and, despite a solid period of fundraising, opted to drop out of the gubernatorial race and focus on a local campaign for the newly-created Frederick County Executive post. “We have a tendency to eat our own,” he said.
To me this is yet another legacy of the Ehrlich era, which in some respects set our party back several years. With the most direct connection to that administration, Larry Hogan was perhaps the second-most natural successor – besides Michael Steele, who took a pass in 2014. More and more I see 2010 as a completely missed opportunity in this state, and its domino effect is hurting us in 2014.
So Hogan starts out about 15 points down, just like Ehrlich ended up in 2010. How does he close the gap?
Out of the box, he’s taking the approach which he used a little bit in the primary: Anthony Brown as incompetent.
Driving up negatives is generally a conventional wisdom play, but there are a couple downsides. First of all, Brown is, well, brown and the inevitable comparison to Republicans picking on Barack Obama will occur. I also don’t see the counter of a positive agenda from the Hogan camp, which seems to be focusing more on undoing things than doing new things.
I mentioned Ron George early on and it was interesting how he accepted his defeat, as a letter to his youngest son Tommy:
Tommy, I lost. But that is okay. Many took my ideas, and I know those ideas will help our state. Your dad is now able to go camping with you and have more time with you, and that alone makes me glad I lost. I can go on trips with you and Mom visiting your nieces and nephew, and I look forward to that also. I did what God asked of me and did my best and that is all we are to do. I never wanted to do anything that took time from you, so I am happy to say I am not a governor but I am Tommy’s dad. Love you, Dad.
Perhaps had Ron been given a do-over, he may have decided to devote full-time to running for governor. Surely he had people to run his business, but while David Craig had a staff to help him do his job as County Executive, Larry Hogan the same for his business, and Charles Lollar was granted extended leave from his duties, Ron had to also function as a Delegate. That was 90 days basically off the trail in the formative part of the campaign. It may be disappointing to me because it was one of two decisions that cost him my vote and endorsement; otherwise Ron had perhaps the best overall platform and he came very close to getting both from me.
But Ron ran the best campaign insofar as staying issue-based and not going off on personal attack tangents.
For David Craig, he pretty much spent the last three years trying for this. Obviously the blogger meeting he had early on didn’t do him much good.
There have been people who opined privately that Craig should have attacked Hogan earlier, just as there are people who believed attacking Charles Lollar was a mistake. I would place myself in the latter camp, but what did Craig in was the lack of money to overcome Larry Hogan’s advantage there. Once Larry got the public financing, the race was over and Craig couldn’t chip away at the double-digit lead.
It’s the Charles Lollar supporters I worry about, as in my opinion they are most likely to stay home in November. Charles tried to convince them otherwise:
Wow, family, what an experience! I can honestly say that the past 16 months have been filled with such excitement and joy as my family has had the chance to meet so many good people across the state of Maryland. I could not be happier with the extended family that I have acquired as a result of this campaign. While the results may have not been exactly what we wanted at least we know that there were many out there who share our vision for a better Maryland and a New Way Forward. From the bottom of my heart I want to thank everyone who played a role in making this such a successful campaign.
As many of you know there is still more work for us to do. A New Way Forward for Maryland is still out there for us to obtain and together we can make this happen. I want to congratulate Larry Hogan on a job well done as well as David Craig and Ron George for successful campaigns of their own.
I look forward to coming together in unity to win the state of Maryland and I urge all of my supporters to do the same and ensure unity within our state across the board.
It makes me wonder what Charles will do with the next few months, although his July 5th event for supporters and volunteers will likely have a lot of clues.
Looking down the ballot a little bit, there were some interesting upsets from both parties.
Two incumbent Senators lost in their primaries as ambitious House members ousted them: Republicans David Brinkley and Richard Colburn were knocked off. By the same token, many of the nine House members who were defeated were victims of redistricting: Republicans Joseph Boteler, Don Dwyer, Donald Elliott, and Michael Smigiel, and Democrats Keiffer Mitchell, Melvin Stukes, Michael Summers, Darren Swain, and Shawn Tarrant. Mitchell and Stukes were drawn, along with winner Keith Haynes, into one Baltimore City district.
In particular, Boteler was one of the good guys, and the reigning monoblogue Accountability Project Legislator of the Year. That district’s voters made a serious mistake by pushing him aside.
Aside from the shocking margin of Addie Eckardt’s victory, the Wicomico County results were pretty much what I expected. Obviously I was disappointed by Muir Boda’s loss but apparently county Republican voters like mushy moderates. If things hold as expected, we will still have a significant GOP majority on County Council but it won’t always govern like one.
It should be noted, though, that my advertisers went 3-1 for the primary. Mary Beth Carozza easily had the most primary votes in District 38C and Chris Adams and Johnny Mautz paced the field in District 37B. Mautz carried three of the four counties, with Adams second in all four (Rene Desmarais won Wicomico County.)
This brings up one of my favorite comments along the way in the campaign, from an old NetRightDaily colleague of mine, Richard Manning. It was in response to a Facebook post I put up to promote this post.
(A)ll those ads along the side pay Michael for his great work. He should be commended that he has created something from nothing that has enough value that people want to advertise on it to reach his readers. That is the essence of the entrepreneurial spirit that those on the right claim to embrace.
So that brings me to the final race, which was my own. I posted this on the soon-to-disappear Facebook page for my campaign:
I’d like to thank my supporters. Looks like I’m going to come up one spot short this time, but with so many good people running I knew I was the most vulnerable incumbent because I only made it by a little bit last time.
So after November it looks like I may have some free time on my hands – or maybe not.
It does look like the Central Committee will have a little more TEA Party influence because Julie Brewington and Greg Belcher got their start as part of that movement, so that’s good.
As I’ve said all along, this will be my last election as a candidate. I was only planning to run this term anyway, and I would have definitely preferred to go out a winner. But I came home and got a hug from my treasurer, who happens to be my fiance. So everything is okay. I lost an election, but elections don’t define me anyway. In fact, in some respects this can be liberating.
Obviously there’s still the prospect of my involvement with the Central Committee, at least as secretary (it can be a non-voting position.) If they wish, I’m happy to stay on in that capacity.
But this will be the last time I have to go through all the hassle of getting a treasurer, filing campaign finance reports, and so forth. In the next few days we’ll close the campaign account, file the necessary paperwork to wind up this committee, and it will be time for a new chapter in political involvement.
So in a few days this (Facebook) page will also go away. Congratulations to the winners and hopefully many of those who tried but fell short will try again. But this will be it for me on the ballot.
Again, I appreciate the kind words from my supporters and thanks to those who voted for me.
A lot of those remarks have appeared on my Facebook page or in e-mails to me. I appreciate the sentiment, but I have an observation on this whole thing.
Of the nine who made it, six were already on the Central Committee and had name recognition for various reasons. I’ve lived in the county for less than a decade and, quite frankly, had the 2006 election featured more aspirants than candidates I probably wouldn’t have won my first term, let alone the second. Look at the three newcomers who won: two are doctors, and the other ran for the House of Delegates in 2010.
On the other hand, two of the other three who lost had been active in Republican circles but had little name recognition otherwise. Tyler Harwood probably knocked on hundreds of doors on behalf of himself and other candidates and was rewarded by finishing last. Jackie Wellfonder had bought signs and cards, and made her way around polling places yesterday to no avail. The gap between us and ninth place suggests that people just went with the names they knew, and that’s sort of a sad commentary.
I’m not going to lie to you and say I’m happy about losing this election, but I knew going in this time that I would have a hard time keeping my spot. I originally figured that only five or six incumbents would run, but with seven that made it really difficult.
So here we are. Even if I’m selected as secretary again (a non-voting secretary and treasurer are allowed) October will be my last meeting as an elected Central Committee member. It would be strange not having something to do on the first Monday of the month, but life changes and so we have to as well.
I didn’t plan on being a Central Committee member my entire life anyway, but now that this election is over my thoughts are on seeing our candidates through and working where I can to improve the process. It may not be completely universal, but one thing I think I’ve achieved over the last eight years is the respect of my peers.
I’ve been highly critical of Larry Hogan’s single-track campaign of “jobs, middle class families, and restoring our economy,” not because the concepts aren’t good but because the details were scarce. I got a slight peek behind the curtain last night in an e-mail, so let’s see what we can make of it. The subject line was “Maryland was ranked 49th out of 50.”
For too long, families in Maryland have suffered under the policies of an administration more focused on political gains than the well-being of average Marylanders:
HIGH TAXES: Average Marylanders are crushed by the taxes they pay and I will fight to bring tax relief to every Maryland family.
EDUCATION: Parents and teachers agree that Common Core is a mess. Its rollout has left students confused, parents out of the loop, and teachers scrambling to learn a new curriculum just hours before having to teach it. We need to hit the pause button on Common Core and give control back to teachers and parents.
HEALTHCARE: Under the leadership of Anthony Brown, more Marylanders have lost insurance than gained it under the Maryland health exchange. Maryland was the first state to completely abandon its exchange, which cost taxpayers over $260 million to build, only to waste another $50 million on new technology. We need to get out of this boondoggle completely.
The state of Maryland cannot afford four more years of misguided policies and failed leadership. And after destroying the state’s economy and dropping the ball on his only responsibility, it’s clear Anthony Brown does not deserve to be our next governor. (All emphasis in original.)
With regard to “high taxes,” I was told Hogan would employ a “reduce-spending first approach.” Does this signal a change in response to others who would work to eliminate the income tax, in part or as a whole? Or will this just be tinkering around the edges by simply returning us to where we were pre-O’Malley? Admittedly, that wouldn’t be a bad thing but true leadership would try and do so much more. It’s still sort of hazy on that front.
On Common Core, I had seen where Hogan’s team was making this statement on social media, but this is as bold a statement I’ve seen as a more “official” policy stance. I would like to see the control returned to teachers and parents (as well as allowing money to follow the child wherever his or her parents choose to educate) but in order to do that there needs to be more than a “pause” placed on Common Core. It’s telling that the state doesn’t even call it “Common Core” anymore, as they have changed the terminology to the more innocent-sounding “Maryland College and Career-Ready Standards.” Larry would be fighting the powerful teachers’ union on this one.
I also agree with trying to “get out of this (healthcare) boondoggle completely,” but my caution is that it’s a nice sentiment but we need a plan to do so. We may not do any better under a federal exchange, but any further action would have to wait until the second half of his term when – hopefully – sanity returns to Washington and Obamacare is scrapped for a more market-based set of options.
I’m more pleased to see at least some movement in the right direction on broadening the platform as the primary gets closer. But I have to warn the Hogan team that we can’t win on telling people Anthony Brown “does not deserve to be our next governor.” It won’t work. There has to be an alternative presented, preferably a conservative one, and there has to be a plan to address the criticism sure to come that cuts to government will hurt the poor and downtrodden, with minorities hardest hit.
Unfortunately we live in a state which has voted against its best interests for so long that people are conditioned to vote the same way they always have and then complain when nothing changes. They say jousting is the official Maryland state sport, but I think it’s complaining about how the politicians govern and the Orioles underperform. None of us can put Baltimore in the World Series, but we can change the leadership in the state – personally I think David Craig is the best choice for that, but if Hogan gets the nod consider him warned that the other side will stop at nothing to keep its power. Being bipartisan has to work both ways.
Depending on how you slice the data, the June 24 primary would be a Larry Hogan victory, with the only question being the margin.
The two major Maryland media outlets polled the race earlier this month, and a summary of the results had the same approximate order of Larry Hogan, David Craig, Charles Lollar, and Ron George. But it’s worth also pointing out that the sample size between polls conducted by the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun varied widely.
The Post‘s polling data split into two parts: registered voters and likely voters. And while Hogan had a statistically sizable lead among likely voters, it practically melted away among simply registered voters. Likely voters (with a previous Post poll in February as comparison):
Larry Hogan – 35% (up from 22%)
David Craig – 19% (up from 13%)
Charles Lollar – 13% (up from 6%)
Ron George – 5% (stayed in place)
Among them, Larry Hogan finally climbed ahead of Mr. Undecided, who’s now at 20%. Out of simply registered voters, though:
Larry Hogan – 23% (up from 17%)
David Craig – 18% (up from 13%)
Charles Lollar – 12% (up from 10%)
Ron George – 8% (up from 4%)
Mr. Undecided still leads there with 25%.
What this tells me is that, for anyone but Larry Hogan to win, the campaigns need to push their GOTV effort among supporters. The Post’s sample sizes are exceedingly small – 228 registered Republicans and just 110 likely ones – leading to very high margins of error of 7.5 and 11 points, respectively. And perhaps it’s not coincidental that both Post-endorsed candidates are leading their respective races.
You may also recall that awhile back Larry Hogan touted a poll where he trailed Anthony Brown by single-digits. Unfortunately, the Post did a projected Hogan vs. Brown matchup and it came out 51-33 Brown. It’s a counter-intuitive result when you look deeper into the poll’s questions to find that Democrats want the next governor to lead the state in a different direction from Martin O’Malley by a 58-34 margin. Yet they have given Anthony Brown a significant primary lead and would presumably back him in the general election.
A few days earlier, the Baltimore Sun came out with their poll, which also showed Larry Hogan out in front. They did a similar poll in February as well.
Larry Hogan – 27% (up from 13%)
David Craig – 12% (up from 7%)
Charles Lollar – 12% (up from 5%)
Ron George – 6% (stayed in place)
Again, Mr. Undecided was the clear winner with 37%, and in the Sun‘s case both polls are of likely voters with a much more significant sample size of about 500 voters – it makes the margin of error 4.4%. Except for Ron George, who basically had to disappear from the campaign trail while the General Assembly was in session, every one of the contenders essentially doubled their support in three-plus months.
If you take the most recent polls and combine them using the sample sizes, which gives higher weight to the larger Sun poll, you come up with these figures, which I also compare to a post I did in February:
Larry Hogan – 26.9% (14.4%)
David Craig – 14.5% (9.3%) (-12.4)
Charles Lollar – 12.0% (7.5%) (-14.9)
Ron George – 6.3% (5.1%) (-20.3)
If the undecideds fall along that line, the results would be:
Larry Hogan – 45.1%
David Craig – 24.3%
Charles Lollar – 20.1%
Ron George – 10.6%
I would say there’s a 50-50 chance that Hogan makes it to 50%, given that some who were thinking of voting for one of the bottom-tier candidates (particularly George) may decide to go with the guy leading the most-touted polls. Because Hogan’s already above the 40% mark I think that’s now a prospect, which may help the MDGOP rally behind Hogan as a nominee. Obviously that support wouldn’t be universal, but getting over 50% would be better than just a plurality for unity’s sake.
So it’s apparent that the message of “change,” no matter how vague and shallow – combined with a lot of money out of the candidate’s pocket and a dose of public financing – seems to appeal with Maryland Republicans who, at this juncture, believe Hogan is the best candidate. In order for second-place contender (based on poll average) David Craig to win, supporters of the Charles Lollar and Ron George campaigns would have to abandon that choice to throw their support behind Craig, and that’s a dubious prospect.
