Anthony Brown – Page 5

Brown’s ‘molehill’ problem

It’s not quite to the level of Senate President Mike Miller’s 2006 comments about burying Republicans upside down, but Anthony Brown showed the arrogance of the current state regime recently in a Washington Post story by John Wagner:

Brown told the crowd Thursday that he considers the primary “the bigger objective” in a state in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 2 to 1.

“We take that hill, and then we’ve got a little bit of a mole hill to take in November,” Brown said.

Larry Hogan has been trying to make fundraising hay out of Brown’s remarks:

We’ve seen a wave of support in the last 48 hours, further solidifying what we’ve known for a long time: Marylanders are sick and tired of arrogant career politicians like Brown who are more concerned with their own political goals than the wellbeing of average families and job creators. We are ready for honest leadership that is focused on the serious problems facing our state.

It’s clear that despite what he may think, Marylanders do not believe that Anthony Brown deserves a promotion to be the next governor of our great state.

Granted, it’s a little harder to define Brown as arrogant or say anything else negative about him without being possibly defined as racist or even anti-veteran since Brown served in the Army, including a stint in Iraq as a legal consultant. (The subject of the Wagner article was a new veterans’ support group backing Brown.) Given that a persistent problem facing returning veterans is finding work in the civilian workforce, one would think they would refrain from supporting a candidate who saw so many jobs and so much wealth leave the state, doing little to stop either from happening. Yet, despite that fact, many Marylanders don’t care until it affects them and if you live in the I-95 corridor the chances are pretty good that it doesn’t – or at least not enough to get riled up and vote for the opposition party.

But I contend there is a formula for success in this state, and it involves some bold new initiatives. For example, eliminating the income tax is one piece of the puzzle, but it presents a chicken-and-egg question: assuming a Republican win shows there’s a mandate for the change, one has to show there’s the prospect for a Republican win that’s broad enough to scrape off about 20-25 Democrats in the House and 8-10 in the Senate to create a workable coalition. I’ve run the numbers: splitting all the contested General Assembly races 50-50 leaves Republicans with deficits of 50-91 and 18-29 in the House of Delegates and Senate, respectively. We would have to win a vast majority of contested races to secure even a bare majority. (That can be a project for 2022, once we re-elect a governor who will draw fair districts.) In the TEA Party election of 2010, the Democrats won 62 of 101 contested House races and 20 of 28 for Senate, so 50/50 would be a huge win.

The other day I gave some turnout statistics, and they showed that gubernatorial election turnout is trending downward among all parties. As uninspiring as the current crop of Democrats appears to be, there’s somewhat of a chance that turnout among Democrats will fail to make 50% – it was under 55% in 2010 and has slipped downward for several cycles in a row. (Note also that a certain percentage of Democrats cross over in top-ticket races.) If Republicans can be excited enough to bring turnout to a level achieved in Presidential years (roughly 80%) they have a great chance of success. It’s that simple, because all the polls in the world are done based on what the pollsters believe the turnout will be on Election Day. If they assume 60% of Republicans turn out and we get 80%, that will shock the world because that predicted double-digit defeat will become a whisker-close win. And make no mistake: the media will be polling to favor their editorial slant and dispirit the opposition.

So if you couple the bold new initiatives with the explanation of why they will succeed in making the average Marylander’s life better, victory can be achieved. I’d like to come out of the ground a couple years early and see that shovel shoved right back into Mike Miller’s face. Let’s show the arrogant bastards that we can win this state, and leave that little molehill as the pile of dirt we displaced in our resurrection.

“You make less, government takes more.”

We haven’t heard a whole lot from gubernatorial candidate Ron George lately. Certainly part of the problem was a lack of campaign money to get his message out, complicated by this side job he had of being a Delegate during the session. (According to the Maryland Legislative Watch website, out of all the votes available Ron was absent for just one – albeit an important one for SB134 – on January 28. Heather Mizeur also was out one day, March 13, and missed a total of eight votes. Both should be commended for that attendance record despite the crimp it certainly put in campaigning.)

But all along George has maintained perhaps the most comprehensive platform, and to be quite honest Ron’s impressed me in the race as one of the work horses as opposed to one of the show horses.

So it was nice to see the succinct line I quoted as the title as the lede to a recent release from George:

You make less, government takes more. That is Martin O’Malley’s economic model. News broke this morning that the number of state employees making over $100,000 grew in the last year alone by 20% (Maryland Reporter, May 13, 2014). This follows a trend that O’Malley started in 2007 at the start of the recession. As the recession began, other governors such as Tim Kaine cut their administration’s payrolls and budgets, but Martin O’Malley drastically increased the pay to his staff. Over the course of an eight year recession, he has increased government spending by 36%! In his first five years alone, O’Malley decreased the private sector by a net of 73,000 jobs, yet government grew by 26,500 jobs. I know. I was there on the front lines. As your next governor, it is a trend I plan to stop.

Help me build a new Maryland. One that stops the taking and starts the growing. While others running sat wishing someday to be governor, I rolled up my sleeves, got in the fight, exposed waste, won battles for secure drivers licenses, a tech tax repeal, lower boat excise tax, and helped kill 240 of the 320 taxes proposed.

The latter portion alluded to his eight years in the General Assembly. Unfortunately, Ron missed an opportunity: it’s “O’Malley/Brown.” Have to tie those two together since they are essentially peas in a pod.

But all this – and more – is true of Maryland over the last eight years; moreover, it’s not just a fiscal phenomenon. Government in Annapolis has taken our local control of zoning matters, threatened counties which, in their belief, don’t spend enough on education – talk about bullying! – restricted our Second Amendment freedom, increased the surveillance state, and placed an unneeded moratorium on a viable and vital development for portions of our state. Would all of this have happened under an Ehrlich/name your 2010 Republican successor administration? Perhaps, but I doubt it.

And Ron must be raising a little bit of money as he retained a young man new to the region as his Communications Director. As he is a graduate of the University of Toledo, I would wager Casey Cheap is familiar with my birthplace, so that immediately piqued my interest. Perhaps a George-driven economy could bring a few more from the Midwest?

I also noticed one more thing about the George release:

Each donor will receive a call from me personally.

It seems like the “smile and dial” should really be on the soliciting end, but it appears Ron is taking a page out of the Dan Bongino playbook and calling to thank individual donors. While he’s free to call me anytime anyway, let me say that if you think Ron has a good message he could certainly use the financial support. It’s not like he’s built up thousands of Facebook likes from a vague message of “change” without a ton of substance behind it.

Coming from behind?

Hey, what do you know? After saying my piece yesterday I got an internal poll. (Well, actually Jeff Quinton got it, but I can use it to make my point.) I did receive the presser which alerted me to the fact that Larry Hogan was polled to be within striking distance of Anthony Brown.

One other aspect of the Wilson Perkins Allen internal poll that I thought interesting was the “blind ballot test” question (page 2 here), where an ersatz candidate with Hogan’s background leads a Brown stand-in by a 45-44 margin. Yet, as Quinton points out, we don’t have the crosstabs or other information to correlate with the actual electorate. Using a 2010 turnout model – which may well be overstating Democrat turnout this time around and underestimating the GOP’s – and cross-referencing it to current partisan registration gives a model reflected below:

Democrats – 2,055.678 (55.2%) x 54.84% = 1,127,334, or 56.1% of electorate
Republicans – 952,320 (25.6%) x 62.45% = 594,724, or 29.6% of electorate
unaffiliated/others – 716,830 (19.2%) x ~ 40% = 286,732, or 14.3% of electorate

2,008,790 voters means first to a million wins. But the polling should reflect these numbers on a partisan basis; in fact I would be inclined to add a couple points to the GOP column so we really are punching a little beyond our weight. O’Malley fatigue may keep some Democrats home and motivate the Republicans.

Also remember that the rerun of Bob Ehrlich for a third time may have kept a few GOP stalwarts home, just as the 1998 rematch between Ellen Sauerbrey and Parris Glendening was far less exciting than the 1994 version. 1994 was a wave year for the GOP, and there are some signs 2014 may be the same if the GOP doesn’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as it has done before. Certainly turnout was better on all fronts in 1994: that year 64.93% of Republicans, 60.98% of Democrats, and 46.34% of “declines” turned out. Democratic turnout has slumped 8.37% from its 1998 peak, while Republicans have dropped 4.99% from their 2002 high-water mark in gubernatorial elections. Strictly unaffiliated voters have dropped off 8.35% from their 1994 high point.

For Republicans, turning out at 2002 levels could mean an extra 50,000 votes and perhaps that would swing some local races.

While playing with the numbers is fun for any candidate, there is that minor detail of getting past the GOP primary, and the poll doesn’t indicate whether Hogan remains in the GOP lead. Reputable polls so far have shown that Mr. Undecided is the clear favorite, but it’s impossible for him to win here in Maryland so someone else will have to prevail. It’s likely that whoever wins will not have a majority in the race, so he will have a lot of fences to mend.

But while Hogan and his cohorts have been speaking on the economy – and rightfully so – a close second in importance to many voters is education. This is why what David Craig had to say yesterday at Townhall.com was important. An excerpt:

If (former GM executive turned author) Bob Lutz is a car guy, then you can call me an “education guy.” I spent 34 years in Maryland’s public schools as a teacher and an assistant principal. My career started as our nation was on top, coming off an age when we sent men to the moon and returned them safely to the earth. There were no waivers, no Common Core, no ‘No Child Left Behind,’ and no U.S. Department of Education.

What I had back then, and what Governor Pence needs now, and what my home state of Maryland urgently needs, is to give control to teachers in the classroom. Maryland has rushed head first to adopt every federal program in the last several years including Obamacare, Common Core and EPA stormwater regulations, to name a few. The results are always the same – poor execution, millions of dollars wasted and excessive regulation and taxes.

Here is a simple message to anyone concerned about making education work for students and not education bureaucrats. Let teacher’s (sic) teach, let them do their job.

Nobody will ever capture a child’s imagination in the classroom from Washington D.C. Common Core is bean counters and bureaucrats run amok. They will destroy our education system. No amount of tinkering or re-branding will ever fix it. End it and return control of the classroom to teachers and local school boards.

Craig is perceptive enough to sense the concern that Indiana is adopting Common Core under another name. Yet the question sure to come up in any debate is how we would do without the federal grant money. I can also guarantee Craig will be painted as heartless and out-of-touch if he questions the wisdom of expanding pre-kindergarten, even with its dubious benefits.

Try as some might, education is not a one-size-fits-all commodity. What works well for Dylan in Maryland may not do the trick for Amy in California. And while I’ve had some thoughts in the past about education I still think are worth pursuing, we have to backtrack from where we’re at in order to get pointed in that right direction. The next generation is all we have at stake.

Running out of steam?

I don’t think anyone else has picked up on this, but in the middle of an otherwise boilerplate appeal for donations I came across this tidbit, from May 8:

The incredible response our campaign has already received demonstrates that Marylanders are ready for a change.

In our first 100 days, we have raised over $533,000 from more than 2,400 donors, raising more — with three times more contributors — than one of the leading Democrats in the race, Attorney General Doug Gansler who raised just $306,000 in the first 100 days of his campaign.

In fact, we have over twice as many donors in our first 100 days than Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown did – proving that with broad grassroots fundraising support, this race can be won.

Let’s roll the tape, shall we? Here was Hogan on April 11:

In the first reporting period of his campaign for governor, Larry Hogan raised $422,000 in mostly small donations from more than 1,800 individuals. The sheer amount of money raised puts the Anne Arundel County business owner and grassroots leader on par with where Lt. Governor Anthony Brown was at this stage of his campaign but with nearly twice the number of donors.

The early haul puts Hogan ahead of where Attorney General Doug Gansler was 68 days after his announcement and approaches the combined amount raised by his Republican challengers in the last calendar year.

If you translate the message as I do, this means he’s still behind Brown and ahead of Gansler. But the latter isn’t as relevant because Doug had much more money available to him when he formally launched a gubernatorial campaign because he was unopposed in 2010.

More importantly, I’ll remind you that Hogan actually raised nearly $454,000 in the first 68 days, according to a published report. (His campaign finance form shows total receipts at just over $487,000, which includes a $100,000 loan to himself and over $30,000 from various other internal sources.) That translates to just under $6,700 per day and makes the income rate over the last month of about $2,500 per day look fairly weak. One would think the frontrunner would be doing better in fundraising per diem as the election gets closer.

This is particularly true because the social media end of Hogan’s campaign continues on its 2014 pace of about 130 new “likes” a day. But those social media accolades aren’t translating as well into checks. And considering Larry spent far more on the race than anyone else during the early days of the campaign, to a point where his cash on hand was probably equal to or somewhat behind David Craig’s, one has to wonder if the wave has crested. Some of the discussion we had on Saturday pondered that very point.

It will be most helpful once we get “apples-to-apples” financial statements at the end of the month. But not participating in debates and assuming all of your grassroots will be covered by social media seems to me an odd method of running a serious campaign. It would be interesting to see the internal polls of the candidates because I’m not convinced that Hogan remains the frontrunner after such a lackluster month.

Change Maryland, or pack up and go?

It seems to be the question on the minds of many people, including gubernatorial candidate Larry Hogan. His campaign noted on Wednesday that:

Gubernatorial candidate Larry Hogan this evening said the following of today’s Gallop (sic) poll that half of all Maryland residents would leave if they could, worse sentiment than all but two states.

“We know from Change Maryland’s Taxpayer Migration Study that under Martin O’Malley and Anthony Brown, more than 6,500 businesses and 31,000 residents fled Maryland’s crushing taxes, fees, tolls and regulations. Now, we learn that nearly half of Maryland residents would leave our state if they could.

This tragic situation is the direct result of the failed policies of Martin O’Malley, Anthony Brown and Doug Gansler and one-party control in Annapolis. The only way to make Maryland a state where people not only want to live but can afford to live again is to end the reckless fiscal policies of the past eight years.”

The two states cited as being ahead of Maryland in this Gallup Poll were Illinois at 50% and Connecticut with 49% – Maryland was third at 47%. None of our neighboring states made the top or bottom 10 in the survey release.

So the logical next question I had was whether people are acting on this desire to vacate our premises, and in a number of areas they are. For the most part, what they have in common is that the nine counties where I found slow to nonexistent growth – or even a decline – is that they are among Maryland’s most rural. (Baltimore City also makes this list, and it shares many of the same economic problems as its rural brethren.) This data is gleaned from Census Bureau estimates of population in both 2012 and 2013, compared with the official 2010 count.

Out of 23 counties and Baltimore City, the state’s population grew at a modest 2.7% clip between 2010 and 2013. But five counties lost population overall: Allegany and Garrett in western Maryland, and Caroline, Kent, and Somerset on the Eastern Shore. Others which lost population between 2012 and 2013, according to Census estimates, were Baltimore City and Queen Anne’s and Talbot counties on the Eastern Shore.

There was very slow growth (less than 1% between 2010 and 2013) in Carroll, Dorchester, and Worcester counties, the latter two also representing the Eastern Shore. While no county on the Eastern Shore matched Maryland’s overall growth, Wicomico came the closest at 2.2% and is now barely 1,000 citizens smaller than Cecil County, the largest of the nine Eastern Shore counties.

Perhaps it’s a little easier to see the reason if you compare unemployment data over the last several years with the growth (or loss) in population. All five counties which lost population overall have an unemployment rate persistently above state average, with most of the rest experiencing slow growth or a loss between 2012 and 2013 also suffering from above-average rates. (Carroll and Queen Anne’s counties are the two exceptions; however, other bedroom suburb counties such as Charles, Howard, and Harford counties are still growing.)

It all presents a sort of vicious cycle: people leave because they perceive a lack of opportunity, which leads to other employers closing up shop and people leaving as the economic pie shrinks yet again. It’s been my contention that the state’s onerous policies on growth and the environment, particularly in more or less undeveloped areas like the Eastern Shore, are retarding the potential of these areas to grow on their own so people look for greener pastures. Those who are raised in rural areas are either heading to the more developed areas of the state or abandoning it entirely.

One thing I haven’t heard a lot of discussion about during this gubernatorial campaign is the concept of local control. Maybe they haven’t expanded on this yet, but the range of solutions I hear from all of the candidates is one of a top-down nature. Certainly there is a place for action from the state, particularly on tax and fiscal policies. But where is the passion for restoring local control? I hear a lot about this on the educational front thanks to Common Core, but what about other areas like planning and zoning? Where is the push to let the counties be their own tiny laboratories of policy experiment such as the states were meant to be before the federal government decided to run the whole ball of wax over the last 20 to 25 years?

I know better than to expect such rhetoric from the Democratic side of the aisle, because their sole intention seems to be consolidating government at the expense of the common man, creating in average Joes the serf-like dependence on those for whom power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. So it’s up to the conservatives in the race to explain how they would have the state step aside and allow those rural counties which seem to be the biggest victims of state policy to flourish like some of their more urban counterparts.

Meanwhile, Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum suggests his own bottoms-up approach.

Slings and arrows: criticizing a “timid” approach

I wasn’t sure just what I was going to write on tonight, but thanks to Charles Lollar I have some blog fodder. It’s the kind of thing that happens when the race establishes a front-runner and those who aren’t king of the mountain try and climb up the hill.

Here’s what Charles Lollar had to say regarding Larry Hogan’s comments, quoted in the Washington Post, about his plan for “prudent” tax cuts:

All the Democrat candidates agree with Larry on this, that we should be “timid” in cutting taxes and putting government on a diet. Lt. Governor Anthony Brown has said the state “can’t afford” even a modest reduction in the corporate tax.

Ken and I believe on the contrary that the time is over for Republicans to advocate tinkering around the edges of our bloated state budget, our confiscatory tax policies, and our corrupt and inefficient state government.

It is time for bold reforms that go to the core of our problems here in Maryland. That is why Ken and I turned to Dr. Art Laffer, who helped turn around our national economy in the 1980s, to vet our plan to eliminate the state income tax.

We have looked at the numbers, and we know we can achieve this step by step over the next five years, without putting at risk the services Maryland citizens expect their state government to provide.

Government is overhead on the economy. When you tax income, you reduce economic activity. Our objective is to restore economic vitality to Maryland, so families and small businesses will want to come here, invest, and grow.

Lollar and Timmerman are also vowing to eliminate the “rain tax,” the death tax, and the latest increases in the gasoline tax. So let’s look at what is at stake.

It’s difficult to quantify what chucking the “rain tax” would actually save because it does not affect all Maryland citizens equally. Sitting in Wicomico County, I pay no “rain tax” because our county hasn’t been forced to adopt one. Annual rates for counties which were mandated to adopt the fee range from one penny to $170.84, depending on location. Of course, we could go into why we are forced to come up with this when other states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed successfully fought the mandate, but that’s for another time.

As far as eliminating the “death tax” goes, according to the fiscal note for this year’s House Bill 739, which set in motion a four-year process to recouple Maryland’s estate and inheritance taxes with federal law, these two taxes combine to create approximately $200 million a year in revenue for the state – a significant amount, but barely 1/2% of the state’s FY2015 budget. In short, we could easily eliminate this as a rounding error.

The gasoline tax, however, is another matter. By the end of Lollar’s first term, the increased tax is expected to bring $685 million in annual revenue, not counting the roughly $700-800 million the existing tax has taken in annually over the last decade. The intent of increasing the tax was to build light rail in Baltimore and metro Washington – note that by FY2019, O’Malley’s budget projected the Maryland Transit Authority would be allocated nearly as much as the State Highway Administration receives (page 33 here). Currently the MTA gets about 56 cents for every dollar that goes to SHA; by FY2019 it would be 92 cents. Just keeping the MTA at its current 56 cent rate to SHA for FY2019 would save about $405.5 million; reducing them to the 25 cents per dollar MTA/SHA rate exhibited in the FY2007 budget (Bob Ehrlich’s last, see page 19) would save $752.7 million. Guess what? There’s your gas tax increase.

In looking at the two example budgets, which happen to be the final ones presented by the respective governors, it’s remarkable that income tax has remained a fairly constant portion of the revenue. Its share was 23% of Bob Ehrlich’s $29.6 billion FY2007 budget and 22% of Martin O’Malley’s $39.3 billion FY2015 proposal. (In terms of real money, though, the income tax increase is $1.999 billion, from $6.552 billion to $8.551 billion.) Over time, we have to figure out what to cut and how to grow the economy to backfill $8.551 billion in revenues if the state income tax goes away.

But let’s assume we can hold the budget where it is, rather than grow it at a 5% annual rate as Martin O’Malley has been doing for the last few years – a trend we could easily assume Anthony Brown would continue. Rather than looking at a $47.8 billion FY2019 budget, $8.5 billion higher than today’s, we would be in a position where other revenue sources could indeed grow to obviate the need for an income tax. Even as people prosper and have more income, the state would get a cut from increased sales tax revenue and perhaps even additional property taxes as housing becomes more valuable in a growing, thriving state.

Yet all of this is academic to a degree. Even if Republicans split 50-50 on all the contested races this year in the Maryland General Assembly, they would remain the minority by 91-50 in the House of Delegates and 29-18 in the Senate. Most of the Republicans who won would be replacing the centrists of the Democratic delegation, so those remaining Democrats would be farther left than ever. We would need Reaganesque leadership to shepherd tax cuts through that body, particularly after those aggrieved Democratic constituencies begin taking a haircut on the budget. (If you thought the grumbling about the “doomsday budget” from the Left was bad, the caterwauling on this would be deafening.) If Charles Lollar (or, for that matter, David Craig, who is also suggesting the elimination of the income tax) can get it done, the prospects are there for voters to further reward both them and the Republicans in general in 2018 – an important election because the winners will draw the next set of redistricting lines.

So I would prepare to be a little disappointed if you’re expecting our income taxes to magically disappear the moment Charles Lollar is sworn into office. However, he makes a good point in that we should be making bold initiatives, because being cautious isn’t really getting us anywhere. If you’re going down, go out with your guns blazing and don’t spare any bullets.

WCRC meeting – April 2014

We didn’t have our president, who got struck in traffic returning from across the Bay, and our slated speaker had a conflict and sent his regrets. Even the treasurer had to take a rain check on the meeting. Yet the remainder of us persevered and we had our last meeting until the day before the June 24 primary hearing from a number of candidates who may well reach the end of the electoral road that day.

But Shawn Jester did a fine enough job running the meeting – with a little help from his right-hand man – that we learned a few things along the way and made a couple decisions.

With no speaker, once the formalities of doing the Lord’s Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, and welcoming of guests were out of the way, we immediately cut to Dave Parker’s Central Committee report.

Parker told us that one of our own received an award from the state party, and as if on cue our Charles Carroll Award winner strode in the door. For a half-century of service, the state GOP honored Wicomico County’s “Mr. Republican” Blan Harcum. It was the “highlight of the convention,” said Parker. Harcum later added that it was “invigorating” to see so many new people in Bethesda.

But a lot of other things went on as well: the resolution condemning HB1513 was approved by unanimous consent, which was a rare time the procedure was done correctly, said Dave. He added that Diana Waterman helped play a part in the bill’s demise. Dave also assessed the bid for regional chairs as “not ready for prime time,” although it had been tried on a couple prior occasions. All in all, Parker called it “a good convention.”

Dave then passed out the flyer for the Allen West event in September, and explained how things would work that day – at least tentatively. We don’t know the sequence of West’s events before and after ours, so those details need to be firmed up.

Although it was not as well attended as we would have liked, Parker also called our Lincoln Day Dinner “successful.” It highlighted the “best crop I’ve ever seen” running for office.

I interrupted the flow a little bit by asking a question whether we should try to schedule a Super Saturday based on the West visit, figuring it would be a draw for other counties. The reason I brought it up at this meeting was that I knew we wouldn’t have a WCRC meeting for almost two months, so they should be aware if it comes up as a Central Committee issue.

Yet there were a number of events on the horizon for the post-primary summer, said Dave: the Tawes Crab and Clam Bake and our Farm and Home Show topped the list, with the WCRC Crab Feast coming in the weekend after Labor Day (as we were reminded later.) We also needed to set up our headquarters with some new volunteers. Before the primary, the MDGOP is sponsoring a forum on May 31, to be televised by WMDT-TV, Channel 47.

One other missing ingredient we needed to begin work on, concluded Parker, was a “get people to the polls” plan. Woody Willing pointed out early voting was June 12-18 at the Civic Center.

From there, we heard from all the candidates in the room regarding their campaigns. Among the door-knocking, fundraisers, and events, there were a few highlights.

Dr. Mark Edney, who is running for Central Committee and was one of our proxy carriers, remarked about his “great weekend at the convention” and the “ton of energy” there. He also raved about Sunday’s event for Mary Beth Carozza that he attended.

Delegate Charles Otto, who serves with scheduled speaker Mike McDermott in the House of Delegates, asked us to remember he still represents Wicomico County until the second Wednesday in January. He noted that at least 56 of the 141 Delegates next year will be new, as the others either retired or sought new positions, also assessing the state faced “challenging times” because they were increasing spending 4.8% while revenues were only increased 1.8%.

Dr. Rene Desmarais, a candidate for Delegate in District 37B, remarked on his interesting weekend as well. He was at the convention Friday night before departing to a medical conference on Saturday where he heard from four gubernatorial candidates, plus Jeannie Haddaway representing David Craig. While he said the Republicans all did a very good job, Desmarais called Doug Gansler “incoherent” and noted Anthony Brown made promises for the next 8 years he couldn’t keep over the last 8 – Brown also refused to answer questions, added Rene.

Circuit Court candidate M.J. Caldwell was late – he had come from a First Baptist Christian Church meeting with over 600 people on police concerns. He pointed out the vast gulf of experience between himself and his recently-appointed opponent, and stated he was “highly recommended” by the state bar – a distinction his opponent did not share.

(Personally I think if the guy’s last name were Jones he wouldn’t have sniffed a judgeship.)

Introducing himself to the group, District 37B hopeful Allen Nelson made the case that Martin O’Malley was a “scary individual” who was painting industries as villains. He brought up what he thought was a better idea – in Delaware, farmers have significant input in creating regulations.

Two events brought up by candidates will be held the same day, May 10: District 38B candidate Carl Anderton, Jr. is hosting a meet-and-greet at Main Roots Coffee and County Council District 2’s Marc Kilmer will have his event later at the residence of Bob Laun. Anderton also touted the new balanced budget for Delmar, which came with no tax or fee increases.

Carl also believed his leadership of the Maryland Municipal League was a “great experience.” And when challenged later about what to tell a Republican Norm Conway supporter, Carl pledged to speak with this gentleman himself.

Speaking for the David Craig campaign, Ann Suthowski said that the gubernatorial candidate will kick off a day in Salisbury Thursday at the annual Prayer Breakfast before meeting with public safety officials and granting a pair of media interviews.

With the candidates covered, we reviewed some past events.

Shawn Jester believed the Salisbury Festival was “a fantastic event” but it brought up the need for a new party banner to replace one that’s several years old and looks it. We voted to do just that.

And on a question which was brought up by membership, we decided not to take a formal position on city redistricting, although a few members who spoke up (including me) supported the five-district idea. It brought up a brief discussion about candidate recruitment, with Larry Dodd conceding “we fell asleep at the wheel” for a couple cycles. Our next chance will be the fall of 2015.

First, however, we have to get through this cycle. Because our usual fourth Monday falls on Memorial Day next month, as is common, we will not meet again until primary eve June 23. Attendance may be back to normal as candidates will be working the streets hard for last-minute votes.

Campaign 2014: a (second) look at finance

If this post looks fairly familiar to you, I’ll explain why.

Back on January 22, I did the original post which bears the “look at finance” title above. Because I wanted to keep the same format while adding the newest information from Larry Hogan as a compare and contrast, I’m essentially reprising the earlier post with the additional information. If Larry Hogan can do apples-to-oranges comparisons of campaign finance, I can too. Everyone will be even with the pre-primary report due at the end of next month, but for now this will have to suffice.

*********

For each category, I’m going to do a rank order among the seven gubernatorial contenders who have filed a campaign finance report. Six of these were filed in January covering 2013, with the seventh being Larry Hogan – he announced his campaign in late January so his first report was due last week and covered the period through April 8. For the purpose of this exercise, I’m ignoring the minor candidates who did not file a campaign finance report as they are generally perennial candidates who raise little money.

To begin this comparison, it helps to know how much was raised during the 2013 period, which is about a week off the actual calendar since it ended January 8, 2014. For Hogan this runs from February 3 to April 8 – it’s a much shorter timeframe but has the advantage of being much closer to the primary.

Anthony Brown (D) – $4,019,803.13
Doug Gansler (D) – $1,487,704.79
Heather Mizeur (D) – $493,173.55
Larry Hogan (R) – $487.073.56
David Craig (R) – $249,808.75
Ron George (R) – $130,159.00
Charles Lollar (R) – $65,329.67

Another piece of this puzzle which interests me is trying to figure out an average contribution. But rather than count the actual number of line items, I decided it was easier and far faster to assume there would be a certain number of contributions per page. This is the number of pages of contributors each report had.

Anthony Brown (D) – 358
Heather Mizeur (D) – 202
Larry Hogan (R) – 197
Doug Gansler (D) – 125
David Craig (R) – 58
Ron George (R) – 46
Charles Lollar (R) – 36

So if you assumed 17 contributors per page, the average donation per contribution would comes out like this for the 2013 reports. In Hogan’s case, there are two provisos: his report is formatted a little bit differently so there are only about 12 per page; in addition, he loaned his campaign $100,000. So his average will be based on those revised numbers.

Doug Gansler (D) – $700.10
Anthony Brown (D) – $660.50
David Craig (R) – $253.36
Larry Hogan (R) – $206.04
Ron George (R) – $166.44
Heather Mizeur (D) – $143.91
Charles Lollar (R) – $106.75

Something I found intriguing, particularly in Lollar’s case, was the fact that several contributors were serial repeaters. Some campaigns seem to have a feature where a donor can use an automatic monthly withdrawal, but in Lollar’s case it appears to be through PayPal and a large share of his backers tended to use that feature. That made for dozens of pages of expenditures on individual PayPal fees, which doesn’t seem to be a very efficient use of what turns out to be hundreds of campaign dollars a few pennies at a time, particularly on a $10 monthly donation.

Now let’s look at where the overall take came from. In all cases, the overwhelming majority of funds came from individual donations. But Charles Lollar took the cake there.

Charles Lollar (R) – 100%
Heather Mizeur (D) – 99.53%
Ron George (R) – 98.12%
Doug Gansler (D) – 97.5%
David Craig (R) – 93.19%
Anthony Brown (D) – 91.65%
Larry Hogan (R) – 78.51%

I think there is a glaring mistake in Lollar’s totals, though, as I think the $6,000 transferred in from Blaine Young’s shuttered gubernatorial campaign probably should count as being from what the Board of Elections calls “Maryland candidates or slates” and not as an individual contribution. Based on overall 2013 totals, that would actually put Lollar near the bottom of the list. But he’s not the only one who made mistakes, as I found PAC money interspersed with individual contributions on a number of reports, along with missing addresses and the like.

In Hogan’s case, the $100,000 loan figures into the sum. While it doesn’t reflect in these totals, for interest of disclosure it should be noted that Hogan made another $5,000 in direct donations, $25,000 more came from LLCs affiliated with Hogan’s business interests (more on that later), and another $18,838.64 was made in in-kind donations. In all, 30.6% of Hogan’s money came from his own pocket.

Without changing the Lollar numbers, here’s the percentage of contribution some of these six received from other candidates or slates.

Anthony Brown (D) – 3.27%
David Craig (R) – 0.64%
Doug Gansler (D) – 0.52%
Larry Hogan (R) – 0.08%

The others received none.

But how about state PACs? I would have thought they comprised a much larger share of the pie, but none of the candidates received more than a tiny percentage of PAC money.

Anthony Brown (D) – 3.13%
David Craig (R) – 2.8%
Larry Hogan (R) – 0.88%
Heather Mizeur (D) – 0.44%
Doug Gansler (D) – 0.42%

Neither Ron George nor Charles Lollar were beneficiaries of PAC money. Obviously in terms of actual dollars there’s a huge difference between Brown and Craig, but percentage-wise they are fairly even.

Oddly enough, though, Ron George leads in the percentage coming from political clubs. I think it’s based on one contribution.

Ron George (R) – 1.88%
Anthony Brown (D) – 0.21%
Heather Mizeur (D) – 0.04%

Again, it’s a matter of scale – Brown’s largess from political clubs is nearly fourfold more in actual dollars. The lieutenant governor is also the sole beneficiary of federal committee money, to the tune of $69,000.

Since individual contributions are such a large part of the game, though, I wanted to take a closer look at where they came from. To that end, I decided to categorize appropriate donations into one of five categories, if they fit – most did not, while some fit more than one.

percentage from LLCs, LLPs, trusts, and other similar financial arrangements
percentage from law firms, as I could reasonably ascertain same (inexact, to be sure)
percentage from unions, although most give as PACs and I didn’t track those this time
percentage from businesses
percentage from out-of-state – in contrast to a federal race where out-of-state money is to be expected, it struck me that some campaigns leaned heavily on donors outside Maryland

I’ll start with the LLC category, which is being addressed for the next election cycle. Some believe it’s too easy to skirt contribution limits by maxing out a donation as an individual then shelling out more under the guise of an LLC. Each candidate got some LLC money, but some more than others.

David Craig (R) – 25.16% of individual contribution money
Larry Hogan (R) – 24.5%
Anthony Brown (D) – 17.58%
Doug Gansler (D) – 14.2%
Ron George (R) – 4.69%
Heather Mizeur (D) – 3.56%
Charles Lollar (R) – 0.58%

Heather Mizeur is low on some of these categories because individual contributions from certain entities, like LLCs and businesses, could not be counted toward her matching funds for public campaign financing. Larry Hogan received a lot of individual contributions, but many of them exceeded the $250 allowed to be counted toward the match.

I sort of expected this result from law firms, although percentages were lower than I figured on.

Doug Gansler (D) – 3.6%
Anthony Brown (D) – 0.73%
David Craig (R) – 0.6%
Larry Hogan (R) – 0.27%

They were the only four receiving contributions from what I reckoned were law firms. Even if I were wrong on a few, Gansler took that category with ease.

The same was true of unions, where Democrats Anthony Brown (0.59%) and Doug Gansler (0.07%) were unsurprisingly the leaders.

And if you thought pay-to-play was the rule in Maryland, well, you may be correct. The individual share from businesses went like this.

Anthony Brown (D) – 17.38%
David Craig (R) – 15.33%
Doug Gansler (D) – 12.6%
Larry Hogan (R) – 7.43%
Ron George (R) – 5.09%
Charles Lollar (R) – 2.85%
Heather Mizeur (D) – 0.17%

Maryland may have one of the worst business climates in the country, but the big, established players must like the way competition is curtailed in the state. Some of the largest businesses in the country gave big checks to Brown and Gansler, with health care businesses propping up Brown and some large technology firms backing Gansler.

Finally, I thought it was telling who got support from out-of-state. This may be controversial because I counted Washington, D.C. addresses as out of state and surely some business people who are Maryland residents wrote checks based on their place of business. But I had to draw a line somewhere and the results are telling to me. These figures represent the percentage of individual contribution money drawn from out of state.

Heather Mizeur (D) – 36.63%
Doug Gansler (D) – 32.67%
Anthony Brown (D) – 25.55%
Charles Lollar (R) – 7.09%
Larry Hogan (R) – 5.65%
Ron George (R) – 4.11%
David Craig (R) – 3.87%

In the cases of Brown and Gansler, it seemed like much of their out-of-state take came from the District of Columbia, while Mizeur’s came from all over the country. Yet if you considered Takoma Park and Silver Spring as part of another state (sometimes we here on the Shore consider them another country) I believe Mizeur would have been over 50 percent. Does everyone in Takoma Park have an extra Benjamin to spend on her race? Seems like it.

This final category shows that Maryland Republicans can’t seem to nationalize this statewide race as they could recent federal races with Dan Bongino and Andy Harris, for example. This is a pity because what better encouraging message to conservatives than a Republican winning in Maryland?

*********

Now to the present day.

In going through the Hogan report, I noticed a few interesting items regarding the LLCs which contributed to his campaign: a number of them shared the same address. The worst offender: a group of LLCs which list as their address the domicile of St. John Properties. Combined, these LLCs gave $30,000 to the Hogan campaign as well as $5,500 to David Craig. And they’re bipartisan, since Anthony Brown and Doug Gansler also have contributions from that same address – it may be the nerve center of political donations in the state. In Hogan’s case, he even rents his office space from St. John.

While he has a dog in this fight as one of those who’s running for the state’s highest office, I’ve found Ron George is a good go-to expert on campaign finance laws since he helped write many of the reforms taking effect next year. So I asked him about this situation as it relates to those in the race. Replied George:

The LLC loophole allowed Brown to get around $68,000 from one guy that created many LLC’s. That will stop after January 2015, but even though we increased the aggregate total limit, there will not be one because of the recent Supreme Court ruling. The limits to each candidate will still be law but we increased the $4,000 amount.

I also wanted some clarification on how the $250 matching funds worked, and Ron had that answer as well:

All “individual” donations (in Maryland law that means those from private individuals) can only be matched “up to” the first $250. So, yes, an aggregate amount of $500 can only have the first $250 matched.

The reporting periods became law this year, thus a couple more were added. The BOE software is keeping track of the matching fund qualifying money in a separate spread sheet.

Based on the numbers I found, and even deducting for the overage on many contributions – which ranged up to the maximum $4,000 allowed and then some in one case – it appears Hogan has, or shortly will have, enough seed money to fully qualify for matching funds in the primary.

But a glaring figure stuck out at me. As of the close of the reporting period, Larry Hogan had $167,748.15 on hand. I’ll grant Larry’s spent a lot on media already, but just as a reminder this is what the others had back in January:

David Craig – $154,577.02
Ron George – $15,449.89
Charles Lollar – $5,731.35

If David Craig simply held serve and raised enough to cover his expenses for the first three months of the year, the two are basically even going forward. Obviously Ron George and Charles Lollar lag well behind, but since he had the chance to respond to my question George added this assessment of the situation:

Hogan is still playing the perception game. Many started to think he had a lot of money so they began to back him, but even his numbers are not so good. If he did not donate to his own campaign, he would be at my levels. That puts it in perspective. My three months of not fundraising did hold me back. But people should not count me out. It is still wide open and Hogan sent many fundraising letters out when I could not. I had a responsibility to serve my oath of office to which I was elected. Many felt I should have resigned like Palin did so I could raise money, but I felt I owed my constituents that voted me in.

As a gentle correction to Ron, Sarah Palin didn’t resign as governor until after she and John McCain lost in 2008. I think he was thinking of Bob Dole in 1996.

But Ron’s assessment of Hogan’s situation isn’t all that far off if you back out the nearly $150,000 Hogan has provided directly or indirectly to his campaign. Unfortunately for George, money is fungible and right now that cash is sitting in Larry’s campaign account ready to use, along with the possible volunteers that spending nearly $6,500 on Facebook advertising can whip up. It’s also why Hogan has a fairly significant lead in the polls despite the fact he’s not been queried much (if at all) on key issues like education, the environment, the Second Amendment, and agriculture.

The campaign playing field should be leveled May 27 when all of them have to file the first pre-primary report. For all contenders save Hogan, it will cover the time period since the 2014 Annual Report was due; in Hogan’s case we can combine this recent report with the next one to show an apples-to-apples compare and contrast with all the candidates on both sides. It’s about time.

Too clever by half?

It’s unfortunate the press conference wasn’t a couple weeks earlier, because the announcement had all the makings of a great April Fool’s joke. Unfortunately, the joke has been on Maryland taxpayers so earlier today Congressional candidate Dan Bongino and gubernatorial candidates David Craig and Ron George made their endorsement of Anthony Brown for governor of the Nutmeg State, Connecticut.

Having it on April Fool’s Day may have helped with media coverage, though. The main rags of the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post didn’t give the rally any coverage aside (at least not yet) with the only mention a three-day old piece in the Sun.

Be that as it may, I get the point that the tongues were firmly in cheek this morning. Then again, people like me only represent maybe one percent of the electorate and aside from perhaps a slight thought about the monetary aspect of the money blown on the initial iteration of the Maryland Health Connection website, those who have maintained their health insurance throughout may just shrug their shoulders. We’re all used to government boondoggles. The joke may be lost on them.

In an effort to make news out of this, Ron George put out a release noting “Ron George joins Dan Bongino to Endorse Brown/Ulman for Connecticut.” The first paragraph packs most of the punch:

When Obamacare was rammed through a partisan Democratic Congress, no one was happier than Maryland Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown. He leapt at the opportunity to get out from behind his boss’ shadow and prove why he was the most capable candidate for the next Governor of Maryland. Two years and $260 million taxpayer dollars later, Anthony Brown is dodging any and all responsibility for the failed Maryland Health Exchange and is part of an administration that is actively covering up this massive scandal. Anthony Brown’s solution to the mess he created is simply to spend hundreds of millions more in taxpayer dollars to adopt the “Connecticut” model of government-run health insurance.

Naturally, Ron didn’t mention David Craig, who was also there – as shown on his Facebook page.

Jeannie Haddaway, David Craig, and Ron George attend a rally endorsing Anthony Brown for governor of Connecticut, April 14, 2014. Photo from Craig campaign.

Honestly, I’m not sure this is more than a blip on the radar. But as time goes on, the question which really should be asked is whether the Connecticut system, which was designed for a state roughly half Maryland’s size, will fit out of the box. More importantly, where will the extra millions needed to make this work come from? We’re already a long way in the hole just to buy the original pig in the poke, so what will give? Will it be insurance rates, reimbursements to providers, or the old standby of sticking it to future generations by raiding other funds and bonding to backfill the hole?

It’s almost too bad Doug Gansler didn’t stop by to make it a bipartisan backing of Brown for governor of Connecticut. Instead, he’s choosing to spend a little money on a simple website which asks the question “did Anthony Brown come clean today?’ (It’s also handy for gathering contact information via the attached “petition.”)

If we really wanted to improve the prospects for those who rely on health insurance coverage in Maryland, how about talking about measures which could open the market up more? After all, Barack Obama allowed some to keep their “substandard” plan that they liked, so what are the standards now? Make everything available, from bare-bones catastrophic coverage on the one side to something that pays for two hangnails a month among the other elements of a “Cadillac plan” on the other, and the market will find its level. I’ll bet it doesn’t waste millions of our tax dollars, either.

Update: Added David Craig:

Today’s announcement was an opportunity to highlight the failed policies of the last seven years and Anthony Brown’s inability to successfully lead Maryland’s healthcare exchange.

Jeannie and I believe the best solution to this disaster is for Anthony Brown to resign like Kathleen Sebelius, the former HHS Secretary.

2014 Wicomico County Lincoln Day Dinner in pictures and text

It wouldn’t be a Wicomico County Lincoln Day Dinner without the guest of honor, now would it?

But it was that and much more as about 100 people enjoyed the festivities last night in Salisbury. I was a little disappointed in the attendance, but those who missed the affair missed some stirring words from both our four featured speakers – the GOP gubernatorial candidates – save Jeannie Haddaway pinch-hitting for David Craig, who was in Frederick tonight – and Delegate Mike McDermott.

Our event is set up so guests have an opportunity to talk to candidates before and after the proceedings. So before dinner was underway, acquaintances were made and renewed, such as Delegate Ron George speaking with the newly-goateed Delegate Charles Otto.

I like that look on Charles. Meanwhile, Larry Hogan and wife Yumi spoke to Wicomico County Council member Joe Holloway. I believe fellow Council member Bob Culver is back to camera.

As I noted earlier, Jeannie Haddaway was taking the place of David Craig and visiting her alma mater. In the background is Larry Hogan’s LG pick, Boyd Rutherford.

Candidates were also taking advantage of the space provided for literature and signs.

Things began to get going when the Union troops and band arrived in the room.

This heralded the arrival of our sixteenth president, who is a popular subject. In this case, it was with Senator Rich Colburn (left) and John and Gail Bartkovich. Gail is the outgoing Council member from District 3, while the good doctor John was our county chair for several years.

One new wrinkle we added this year was a Union band, described by Lincoln as “the Eastern Shore detachment of the 3rd Maryland Irregular Regimental Band,” which played traditional music during the prelude to the ceremonies.

The troops sat behind Lincoln as he made his remarks, with a little banjo accompaniment toward the end.

As he always does, Lincoln made remarks which tried to use the words of yesterday to relate to today’s world, leading off with a tale about General George McClellan, one which he concluded by stating the case “the lunatics are running the asylum.”

“Our greatest enemy is voter apathy,” he continued. “It cheats honest citizens.”

And just as the British Empire sparked a revolution by resorting to tyranny, Lincoln called the modern situation “mental torture.” Now, “A lying tyrant is in control,” Lincoln added, “We need to be a stumbling block to tyrants.” But he ended on a hopeful note, believing “America shall not pass away.”

Our county Chair Dave Parker then secured the floor for a number of announcements as well as praise for one outgoing member of our Central Committee.

First of all, we learned that there will be a gubernatorial debate among the GOP candidates here on May 31, at Salisbury University. Once the June 24 primary is history, we will convene for the Wicomico County Republican Club Crab Feast on September 6.

But the huge event was the one slated for September 27. After twice being unsuccessful at getting a Lincoln Day date, we got the next best thing: Lt. Col. Allen West will be appearing in Salisbury for a series of events September 27. Those who attend Central Committee or Wicomico County Republican Club functions already know this, but we put out the formal word tonight at Lincoln Day.

Before we heard from the gubernatorial candidates, we also took a few moments to honor one of the few Republicans in Maryland whose Presidential vote has truly counted – this man served on the Electoral College from Maryland in 1972 for Nixon and 1984 for Reagan. For the better part of five decades Blan Harcum has been a fixture in Wicomico County GOP politics, but after this election he will take a well-deserved retirement from the Central Committee. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” said Blan about his tenure.

And as it turns out, Larry Hogan has known Blan “for a long, long time.” He drew the opening slot among our four, and in doing so decided to play up his experience in both the private sector and executive branch under former governor Bob Ehrlich. “I’ve spent a lifetime challenging the status quo,” Hogan said, accusing our current leaders of “actually causing the problems.” Rather than “be something,” he wanted to do something about them and that was why he decided to run.

Naturally, Hogan spoke about Change Maryland, noting that it “successfully changed the dialogue in this state.” He could sense the frustration with the “huge disconnect” between the people and their government as well as the belief the state was heading in the wrong direction. Regarding the “arrogant, out of touch monopoly” in Annapolis, he believed it was “about time the politicians in Annapolis listened to the rest of us.”

As he has often done in his stump speeches, Hogan returned to three main points: creating jobs, helping out the middle class, and getting government off our backs. He related his day in Salisbury, with stops in several area businesses as well as a Little League opening day and the downtown Easter Egg hunt.

Charles Lollar also told us about his day, one spent taking the fight to Democratic strongholds and crossing paths with Democrat Anthony Brown on three occasions, debating him once. He was inducted into the 100 Black Men of Prince George’s County, heard Brown say at a Howard County forum that “Maryland is doing fine” – while 1 out of 3 in portions of Baltimore are jobless – and went to a Veterans for Democracy meeting back in Charles County where he was “disinvited” to speak because of “political pressure” his name has brought. On top of that, his second daughter is going to her first prom tonight. “I’m not doing this for me…we’re doing this for you,” said Charles.

But his message to the Republicans was that whoever the nominee for governor may be, he has to have the “intestinal fortitude and integrity” to speak our convictions. His basic agenda would be one of economic solvency, installing a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to slow budget growth, and eventually eliminating the personal income tax – a proposal which got him the support of economist Arthur Laffer.

He knew it would be difficult, but concluded that “I don’t play politics very well, but I do enjoy a good fight every once in awhile.” Whoever wins the primary has to care about the ideals of the minority community to earn their votes, Charles stated in closing.

Representing David Craig, who couldn’t be here tonight but was instead over in Frederick County, was his lieutenant governor candidate Jeannie Haddaway. We’re out “covering the state as much as we could,” she explained. Reflecting on the recent General Assembly session, Haddaway remarked that “there are people in Annapolis fighting for you.” Some of the more controversial bills only passed by slim majorities, added Jeannie, because Democrats are reluctant to vote for them but have to contend with their “top-down agenda.” Thanks to what’s gone on the last few years, “our state is in really bad shape,” said Jeannie.

She corrected Larry Hogan’s remark about private sector experience, noting David Craig worked in a factory when not teaching and her own work as a small business owner. Their priority would be to straighten out the budget then “put money back in your pocket” through elimination of the income tax.

Haddaway pointed out 40 percent of Democrats were undecided, perhaps because they didn’t like the options and may consider a Republican who would “try something different.” And even in heavily Democratic districts, Craig had won. “We have won collectively 14 general elections,” she said. “Whoever turns out is going to win this election.” She promised that if Craig won and she became the state’s first Eastern Shore lieutenant governor, “the Eastern Shore will be forgotten no more.”

While he was holding up the flyer for an upcoming event in Ocean City in the photo above, Ron George opened up by discussing running mate Shelley Aloi – like many of us, I met her for the first time tonight. (She and Ron happened to sit at our table, along with our next speaker and his wife and the Parkers.)

Ron spent much of his time talking about the General Assembly: “I felt like I needed Rolaids constantly,” remarked George – but considered it an “honor” to serve with our Republican “warriors.” His pitch was combining his business experience with time served at the “front line” of issues as a member of the General Assembly – one who formed the Doctor’s Caucus “to build consensus” and a related group called the Physician’s Advisory. That group had uncovered waste within the exchange and the failures of health care contractor Maximus early on.

Ron also spoke about his work on the electoral process, closing a loophole for the next cycle so a donor couldn’t form multiple LLCs just to circumvent campaign finance limits. Audits, too, were another major part of his platform since he’d found where Prince George’s County “totally misused” $400 million. “That kind of waste has got to stop.”

George went over a couple parts of his ten-point promise, one which “will fix the drain that Baltimore is” and strive to rebuild the state’s manufacturing base in small communities like ours. “I cannot cut welfare payments unless I have those entry-level, mid-level jobs,” said Ron.

He also made an announcement about a Monday event to be held in conjunction with Dan Bongino and David Craig, endorsing Anthony Brown for governor…of Connecticut. “How’s that (health care) working out for us?” added Jeannie Haddaway.

But the rhetorical storm was brewing.

You knew Delegate Mike McDermott was working on a stemwinder when he noted, “the problem with Democrat math is that they follow Common Core logic.” This after he noted losing the two GOP Senators in 2010, including the seat he seeks, “opened up the floodgates of hell on the social side.” This didn’t count the pilfering of various trust funds or the “blank check” to uncovered patients for the budget.

But once he got going on the “outrage” on the bathroom bill, it was on. “It should be unacceptable to all Marylanders,” he said. We gave each gubernatorial candidate ten minutes – Mike was still going strong after fifteen.

“The tragedy of Maryland politics can be turned around,” he said. “Don’t send a governor to the governor’s mansion without sending them reinforcements” of five Senators. His voice rising, McDermott made the case that North Carolina “worked on making government work for the people” after the GOP took over and raised its business friendliness rating from 46th to 17th in two years. “They’ve brought that state back! It can happen here.”

“If we can’t make the case for change this year,” Mike thundered, “the Republican Party can never make it.”

“We can take Wicomico County by storm! If there was ever a county which needed good leadership and change, it’s this one. I’m tired of being up there, and being in a welfare county…I challenge you to take it back,” an emotional McDermott concluded. He had to dial it back some for the benediction that he delivered.

Our friends in Worcester County have the chance to have a great team in Annapolis: Mike McDermott in the Senate, and Mary Beth Carozza and Charles Otto in the House.

So ended another Lincoln Day Dinner. It wasn’t quite what we bargained for when we started planning it last year, but those who were there were treated to a good event nonetheless.

Martin O’Malley’s (not-so) greatest hits – how about a new song?

Returning once again to a familiar role of thorn in the side and burr under the saddle, Change Maryland and Larry Hogan took the occasion of the final legislative session under Martin O’Malley to remind us of his underwhelming record of “accomplishments” over the last long eight years, wrapped up in one release. All we needed was the bow, as Change Maryland remarked that:

They broke promises to state workers by diverting $200,000,000 from pension funds to plug their budget gap.

They’ve eviscerated local arts funding to hike the film tax credit for Hollywood millionaires.

They raided the Transportation Trust Fund then raised gas taxes to pay for mass transit.

They hiked income taxes on families, small business and large employers.

They blew $125,000,000 of our tax dollars on a health exchange website that still doesn’t work and was never needed in the first place; today, more Marylanders lack health insurance than when O’Malley-Brown took office.

More than 73,000 residents have had their health insurance policies cancelled and tens of thousands more have seen massive increases in their premiums and deductibles.

They put the teacher union bosses that bankroll their political machine ahead of students, parents and classroom teachers.

They’ve badly mismanaged the education budget, as a result inner city schools are falling farther behind, state SAT scores are down and elementary school reading aptitude is flat. And, even the teacher union said their rollout of Common Core was a mismanaged “train wreck.”

Their job-destroying tax hikes on the so-called rich and small businesses – those individuals earning $100k or more – backfired, missing revenue projections.

Some entry level jobs will pay a little more but there will be fewer of them.

There’s a federal investigation into the Anthony Brown Health Exchange but state lawmakers aren’t issuing their findings until well after the primaries.

Thousands of employers are now “paying their fair share” in taxes albeit to Virginia and the Carolinas; about 6,500 companies have left Maryland taking with them more than 100,000 jobs.

Likewise, more than 31,000 Maryland residents left for more affordable states, taking $1.7 billion each year out of our economy; among these were thousands of seniors on fixed incomes who can no longer afford to retire near their families.

It costs you more when it rains and more again when you drive to the beach.

Describing the O’Malley era as one where, “(i)n nearly every quality of life measurement our state is worse off than it was seven years ago… even areas that showed modest improvement came at a horrendous financial cost due (to) Martin O’Malley and Anthony Brown’s mismanagement and one-party rule in Annapolis,” it’s clear that Hogan isn’t too enamored with the last seven years.

But while Hogan strives to “get the government off our backs and out of our pockets so we can grow the private sector, put people back to work and turn our economy around,” we’re more or less supposed to take his word for it. Obviously some of these items he complains about from the outside will be ones he may well find useful when he takes over the governor’s chair. For example, he (or anyone else for that matter) will have to figure out how to backfill the pension funds, live with the increasing minimum wage (which, for all his charms, he won’t be able to get the General Assembly Democrats to rescind), and roll back taxes and fees to previous levels yet keep the budget in balance. That aspect may actually be the easiest because he would set the budget. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with Obamacare for at least the first two years of anyone’s term, and probably longer.

However, I have a prediction for you. If the budget gets smaller – or even if it’s level-funded – you will hear a howling like you’ve never heard before from the special interests, press, and Democrats (but I repeat myself) who will be out marching in the streets against the heartless Republicans. Remember why we had a Special Session a couple years ago? It was because we passed a “doomsday budget” that was “only” $700 million higher than the previous one, and despite GOP objection we ended up raising spending another $500 million. Again, that was with a budget increase! Heaven help us if we actually proposed spending less money!

So those we elect in 2014 need to be ready and be stiff of spine because those Annapolis fat cats are going to come after us. We threaten their existence on the government teat and they know it. Having a $125 million boondoggle of a health exchange isn’t helping, which is why that scandal is being swept under the rug just as fast as the broom can collect the dirt.

In this part of the state we have some opportunities to chip away at the Democrats’ overall advantage. We’ll have to wait until 2018 to win back the District 37A seat – which will be held for the time being by a woman who I predict will have the same reliably far-left voting record as her predecessor – but aside from that we can speak our piece by ejecting two members of the General Assembly who will occasionally vote the right way when they get the hall pass to do so, but can be replaced by two members who we know will stand up for our interests. We can confound the Democrats’ cynical redistricting ploys by elevating Mike McDermott to the Senate and getting the fresh new ideas of Maryland Municipal League president Carl Anderton, Jr. into the House of Delegates.

Changing the state means pulling our weight, and the Eastern Shore can do most of its part by leaving just one Democrat east of the Chesapeake for the next four years.

Pockets lined, no blame assigned

So after six months of saying things are fixable, the state of Maryland is finally throwing in the towel on its online health exchange and using the technology which supposedly works for Connecticut? And it only cost us $125 million that we will likely never see again? But that’s not all – according to the Washington Post story by Mary Pat Flaherty and Jenna Johnson:

It was not immediately clear how much more money Maryland may have to invest to get a fully functioning system, according to the two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the changes.

Can anyone say blank check? I think gubernatorial candidate and Delegate Ron George might be able to:

We cannot allow the O’Malley/Brown administration to get away with wiping this scandal under the rug and forget that over $260 million taxpayer dollars were doled out to large corporate special interests in exchange for a broken website. The Maryland Health Exchange never stood a chance because the administration approached the Affordable Care Act as a pile of federal money they could convert into favors for political allies and donors. We have been taken to the cleaners by these vendors.

I ask the Attorney General to take the primary contractors, including prolific O’Malley/Brown donors Maximus Inc, to court to win back our wasted tax dollars. As a sitting delegate, I call on the Department of Justice to appoint a federal prosecutor to begin investigations into how these vendors contracts were procured and at what stage these vendors knew the exchange was never going to effiectively operate. The citizens of Maryland deserve a full and thorough investigation into the collapse of our state exchange.

Not to be outdone, the Larry Hogan campaign chimed in:

The O’Malley-Brown administration was one of the first and most vocal proponents of the new healthcare law, touting itself as a national model for the Affordable Healthcare Act. Lt. Governor Brown, the O’Malley administration’s point man on the rollout, was eager to take credit for prior to the rollout. Yet the news out of our state since the day the exchange opened has been nothing short of embarrassing and now, Lt. Governor Brown and the rest of the administration has done nothing but seek to evade accountability.

After learning of the state’s plans to scrap its exchange entirely (the only state to do so), the Hogan-Rutherford campaign urges that the Lt. Governor should have no further dealings with the exchange, that all of Lt. Governor Brown’s and the administration’s correspondence with those in charge of the exchange be made public, and that an independent, thorough audit of what happened in this horrible failure be conducted immediately, the findings of which made available to the public prior to the November election.

Unfortunately, the chances of a “full and thorough investigation” or “independent, thorough audit” are roughly equal to the probability of the glue factory reject winning the Preakness. This guy named Anthony Brown is having those skids greased for his ascension to the Maryland political throne, which is odd because one would think his opponent, the Attorney General Doug Gansler, could take advantage of such an investigation. He sure seemed to go for the headlines in many previous cases.

But let’s say the state somehow manages to prevail in court. All that will do is tap out the liability insurers the vendors use, and of course they will either have to raise their rates for all small businesses or come hat in hand to the government, or both. Welcome to the modern America.

So we ask again: while you can’t say everything was perfect back then, just what was irretrievably wrong with the system circa 2008? It’s pretty obvious the 2014 system isn’t working all that well.

And then you have this video:

Let’s see if it can go viral.