A chance to meet two Presidents
For several months Barack Obama has attempted to jumpstart his fundraising by creating several contests. Whether three guests won an exclusive dinner with the President or you received the red carpet treatment at a fundraiser with actor George Clooney, the promise was that all this was available with a donation of as little as $3.
But buried at the bottom of the e-mail of this and all his other contest announcements is a proviso which reads something like this:
No purchase, payment, or contribution necessary to enter or win. Contributing will not improve chances of winning. Void where prohibited. Entries must be received by May 29, 2012. You may enter by contributing to Sponsor (or) enter without contributing.
(continued at Examiner.com…)
The real life of ‘Julia’
In a blatant pitch to woo female voters – presumably the base of the Democratic machine – the Obama re-election campaign came up with the “Life of Julia” concept. Poor Julia is seen suffering through a life of government dependence from age 3 when she’s enrolled in Head Start (I suppose by Julia’s unseen parents) to age 67, when she “retires comfortably” on Social Security.
Of course, this little slideshow has been unmercifully (and rightfully) parodied by Lee Stranahan into the Life of Rover, given a conservative rebuttal by the Heritage Foundation, put under a libertarian remix, and become fodder for endless Twitter shots using the #Julia hashtag, some of which are featured at the tail end of this article by Meredith Jessup in The Blaze. It seems like every time Obama tries to go viral with a hashtag, conservatives have a ton of fun with it.
My question, though, is why Obama’s so worried about the female vote. One thing the President has going for him is a fair amount of personal likability, as the First Family has been carefully scripted to appeal to women as a happy nuclear family. Granted, the Obama children are far younger than President George W. Bush’s twin daughters, but it seemed like every time one of the Bush twins misbehaved it was made into news – on the other hand, a recent Mexican trip for Obama’s older daughter Malia had its accounts scrubbed and sanitized after word got out about the 13 year old’s journey south of the border.
But women have been hard hit by the poor economy, and oftentimes the female handles the bills in the family. Whether they’re a single mom or part of the rapidly disappearing nuclear family of Mom, Dad, and two kids, women have found that over the last three years it’s been getting harder to make ends meet.
And there’s also intention behind making ‘Julia’ a single mom – you may notice that there’s no husband in the picture when she has ‘Zachary.’ (Does that sound like a focus-grouped name or what?) Of all the women who voted in 2008, it was single women who came in most heavily for Obama – a 70-29 margin. If he loses even 10 percentage points on that total, Barack Obama has to know that his re-election bid is toast. But single women haven’t been exempt from the stagnant economy, either.
In reviewing the ‘Julia’ slides, there’s also no question that the Obama campaign is playing the class envy card to the hilt, even in this example. At 17 Julia could lose her public education funding to “pay for tax cuts to millionaires,” for example. And Julia’s life is doomed if we even cut one penny from these bloated federal programs or dispense of Obamacare, as several slides warn.
But would it? What if Julia’s parents didn’t send her to Head Start but took the time to read to the child – or better yet, made the investment of time and effort to homeschool her – even as they sacrifice the tax burden of helping to support the public education they aren’t using? Chances are Julia would still be able to enroll in that college. (I’m also curious: if Julia’s going into web design, is a four-year degree even required? It seems like she could acquire those skills in a two-year associate program at a community college.)
And perhaps her parents, if they raised her right, would instill in Julia the work ethic to get her to avoid taking out thousands of dollars of student loans because she would have learned to be responsible for the results of her own education while working her way through college, along with the moral compass to wait until the right stage of life to marry Zachary’s father before they have the little rugrat. Until that point she would pay for her own contraception, thank you. (Needless to say, abstinence is free.)
That work ethic would come in handy when Julia opens her own business because she will have to work twice as hard to overcome the roadblocks in her way – not because she is a woman, but because of all the red tape an overbearing bunch of pencil pushers throw in her path. She would also have the pride to not accept work simply from the set-asides given to a female-owned business, but because she does a damn good job of it. It’s the only way she would know.
And Julia would retire comfortably because she lived a reasonable but frugal lifestyle, investing wisely in her future despite government’s best efforts to confiscate every dollar she made. Julia and her husband of over 40 years would enjoy the sunset of their lives despite never receiving a Social Security check from a bankrupt system.
But perhaps my favorite parody of Julia came from the Facebook site AttackWatch:
The Gaps of Julia
At 1 year old: Under President Obama, Julia’s posts “I hate Obama!” on her Facebook page. She is investigated by the Secret Service for threats against the President. (That’s one precocious child!)
At 16 years old: Under President Obama, Julia goes goth and changes her religious affiliation to “Wicca.”
At 18: Under President Obama, Julia realizes she’s learned more on her own than she ever has at public school and registers as a Republican voter.
At 19: Under President Obama, she realizes her Pell grants don’t cover anything but a small tuition, so she takes out student loans to supplement her income.
At 23: Under President Obama, Julia begins her career as a web designer. Despite what Obama said all those years ago, she’s still paying hundreds a month on her student loans. She makes her payments on time, but rising taxes have made it difficult to eat much more than rice, beans, and ramen. She’s happy to know she can sue for wage discrimination, except that she’s making more than her male coworker who regularly attends Occupy Wall Street meetings. Since he’s known to go into work stoned, she’s inclined to believe the pay difference is because of her performance.
At 25: Under President Obama, Julia has worked as a web designer for the past four years. She’s chosen to be responsible with her health and family planning, and doesn’t want to drain the system by using other peoples’ money for her sex life.
At 31: Under President Obama, Julia and her husband decide they’re financally secure enough to have a child. Julia wishes she could be a stay-at-home mom, but she can’t because men’s wages have been stagnant for 50 years now and they can’t live solely on her husband’s income. She slips and lets the tax payers pick up the tab for her maternity leave. Both her and her husband’s taxes go up the following year. They consider selling their house to move into a condo half the size.
At 37: Under President Obama, Julia’s son Zachary starts kindergarten. She’s there to see him off at the bus stop because she quit her job, deciding the slight bit of extra pay wasn’t worth it since taxes and highly-regulated child care costs were so high. She and her husband fight more than they’d like, but remain close. Zachary eats better than they do, they make sure of that.
At 42: Under President Obama, Julia decides to start her own at-home business to try and bring in at least a meager extra income. She finds that Obama’s tax cuts for small businesses help, but his extra excise taxes on manufacturers and healthcare and income do not. It’s not a zero-sum game; she’s losing money. She wants to help people, so she hires another worker, but has to lay him off after a year because she can’t afford the healthcare costs.
At 65: Under President Obama, Julia submits an application for Medicare. She’s eagerly granted acceptance.
At 66: Under President Obama, Julia develops a brain tumor. She submits an application to Medicare, which is denied. “Due to age,” and “See Quality of Life (QoL) Regulations” stick out through her watered eyes. She chokes and sobs. She hugs her 70 year old husband when he returns from work. They cry together, in bed, just holding each other. “We tried,” Julia whispers to her husband.
At 67: Under President Obama, Julia passes in her husband’s arms. Full of anger that his ailing wife was denied care from the Obamacare Government because of costs, he takes his wrath to Facebook. He writes, “President Obama, I can’t stand everything you’ve done!”
At 71: Under President Obama, Julia’s husband is investigated by the Secret Service for threats against the President.
President Obama has now been president for at least 67 years.
You might laugh, but the sad fact is that millions of gullible voters will lap up the Obama Kool-Aid and believe he’s only trying to help the middle class. He’s helping them, all right – helping them become poor and dependent on government handouts of some sort.
MDGOP 2012 Spring Convention in pictures and text (part 2)
If you want to read part 1 first, here you go.
It was a cloudier morning once we got underway Saturday. Just as an observation, though, I’ve always wondered why we put all these signs out front of our convention site when it should be presumed we would be voting for the candidates.
I suppose this is helpful to those who come in the morning to find the location for the convention.
For those of us who stayed overnight and chose the option, however, we were treated to a hearty breakfast and, after Harford County Executive (and “unofficially official” candidate for Governor in 2014) David Craig exhorted us to “be unified” we heard former state MDGOP official John Gibson, who now works as the regional political director of the Northeast Region of the RNC, discuss the “Path to 270.”
Gibson contended that President Obama has fewer paths to 270 than he did in 2008, when the “issues matrix was in their favor.” As examples, John believed President Obama couldn’t count on states where the Democrats were boldly saying they had a shot, like Georgia or Arizona.
Instead, with job approval numbers plummeting among a number of key demographics, President Obama is stuck having to secure his base instead of trying to get new voters. Just watch where he travels, said Gibson.
Among states Obama won last time, Indiana is already conceded to be “out of reach.” Other states which could come into play after Obama wins in 2008: North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
After attending an interesting seminar on petitioning techniques and social media, I walked over to the convention hall to get this shot. Little did we know that some hours later passions would be high in that room.
But first we began the convention session with a welcome from Calvert County Chair Frank McCabe and a series of reports, beginning with Senator J.B. Jennings.
You’ll notice my county was in the back of the hall, so the convention hall pictures will be few and far between.
But Senator Jennings walked us through his description of the session, noting that the budget wasn’t completed on time and recounting the final hours before sine die. While Speaker Mike Busch couldn’t get the House to extend its session and Senate President Mike Miller was trying to reach agreements on a budget, the Senate GOP took the opportunity to filibuster the tax bills. Still, the budget is $700 million more than it was last year, said Jennings, and “it’s not a doomsday.”
We were also alerted to the possibility of a Special Session the week of May 14, so we should “keep the heat up” on Democrats, said Senator Jennings.
Delegate Tony O’Donnell contended Democrats “dropped the ball big time.” It was a wonderful thing to behold, he continued, especially because Democrats couldn’t count on gaming bill votes from Republicans in the House.
O’Donnell urged us to “make (the Democrats) pay a very high political price” and called 2012 a “great opportunity to change the dynamic in this state.”
After Chair Alex Mooney essentially repeated his statements from the night before, we received the National Committeewoman’s report from an emotional Joyce Lyons Terhes, who reflected on her enjoyment of almost 30 years of working with the Maryland Republican Party – not that she was really going anywhere. She had simply followed through on her vow to serve just two terms as National Committeewoman and would take on new challenges.
And she’d lost none of her passion at the stump, telling us “we are going to get rid of Barack Obama.” If Maryland can do it, she said, so can the rest of the nation.
Louis Pope called Joyce a “friend, mentor, (and) shining example” in opening his National Committeeman report. The RNC is in “good shape,” said Pope, and he asserted his belief “we are technologically ahead of the Democrats.”
In somewhat of a pitch for re-election, he also informed us that his job is to “bring resources to Maryland.” Regarding this fall’s campaign, he hoped the media underestimates Mitt Romney.
Our final morning speaker was a bit of a surprise, but Congressman Andy Harris told us that “any time out of Washington is good” to him. Warning us that “the end is not on sight on this recession,” Harris opined that “all the issues are on our side” this election.
Delving into the energy issue, Harris blasted the idea of subsidizing wind energy, saying it’s not viable without subsidies. On the other hand, “we can be energy independent in 12 years if this President would have a real energy policy.”
“We have got to take America back,” said Andy.
Nor was he sparing criticism of state government. Harris predicted that once Martin O’Malley is through with his last term, people will be “ready for a new day…Marylanders will be sick and tired of what’s happening in Annapolis by 2014,” Harris concluded.
We began working on bylaw changes at this point, and completed two of the four proposed by voice vote – with a few scattered opposition shouts – before breaking for lunch. The MDGOP now officially has a Bylaws Committee to take care of a year-old oversight and allowed proxies to come from anywhere in a county rather than having to be in the same legislative district as the absent member.
The master of ceremonies for our luncheon was Frederick County commissioner and talk radio host Blaine Young. In his opening remarks, he contended “I don’t think the economy is getting any better” and gave us a quick rundown of how he got to where he is as a former Democrat.
He then presided over our annual awards, with the following winners:
- Charles Carroll Award (Republican Man of the Year): Neil Parrott
- Belva Lockwood Award (Republican Woman of the Year): Ella Ennis
- William Paca Award (Republican Youth of the Year): Matt Proud
- Aris Allen Award (Voter Registration): St. Mary’s County
- Samuel Chase Award (Outstanding County): Howard County
Our keynote speaker was Dan Bongino, who Young glowingly referred to as a man whose word has value.
Bongino began by noting that the concepts of “establishment” and “anti-establishment” are “all buzzwords.”
“If you want labels, join the Democrats,” said Dan, “We believe in ideas (and) labels only serve to divide us.” And division was part of the Obama strategy because “they’re devoid of ideas,” Bongino said. For our part, “we won the battle of ideas long ago,” Bongino stated.
A lot of Dan’s remarks spoke about the perception of fairness. We needed to embrace that debate, he believed, and while we should “respect the political genius” of Martin O’Malley and Barack Obama, Bongino was passionate about the educational system. He thought his daughter’s (public) school was great, but those kids in inner-city Baltimore and Prince George’s County deserve a shot as well. They are our kids, too, said Bongino.
Dan also criticized educational priorities. “Forget about environmental literacy – let’s be literate first,” he stated. Teachers are working in a “flawed system,” said Dan. Democrats “sold kids out to special interests long ago.”
In the end, though, Bongino believed “our state is worth saving.”
“It’s our fight…against an ideology which will destroy the very fabric of the country,” concluded Dan.
We also heard from several of the eight Congressional candidates.
Andy Harris believed the state wanted him to be the “last Republican standing.”
Eric Knowles, who’s running against John Sarbanes, made a good accounting of himself. The bartender believed he may be the least wealthy person running but made the case “I want to get this by the sweat of my labor.” We are part of the three percent who fight the battles, said Eric.
Faith Loudon noted her 4:1 registration disadvantage but was “figuring on an army of 76,000 Republicans” come November. “We are in a war.”
Similarly, Tony O’Donnell noted “we have a big challenge ahead of us…but it can be done.” Steny Hoyer is not invincible, in part because he’s no different than Nancy Pelosi.
Once lunch was done, we came back for the afternoon session and the two key votes. First, though, we had to wrap up business on the proposed bylaw changes. One dealing with proxies was remanded to the newly-formed Bylaws Committee after a contentious amendment to the proposal was introduced, and the other, which added conviction of a felony to the list of reasons for dismissal from a Central Committee, passed without objection.
I am quite aware, though, that this is the part you were waiting for.
The procedure for nomination and election of both the National Committeewoman and National Committeeman is as follows: a brief nominating speech, followed by two seconding speeches (about a minute per), and then remarks from the nominee.
Personally, I thought the nominating and first seconding speech by Ambrose’s supporters were a little bit weak and not really as well-received as they should have been. Dave Parker’s wrapup seconding remarks were nicely pointed, giving respect to Audrey’s role in the party but stressing it was time for a change.
I didn’t take a lot of notes for the remarks because I was sitting on pins and needles, but Nicolee hit on the themes of her campaign in terms of building the party.
The same order of presentation was set for Audrey Scott, and she had some heavy hitters on her side. Outgoing NCW Joyce Lyons Terhes introduced her, and state Party Treasurer Chris Rosenthal provided the initial seconding speech.
But it was the final one that riled the crowd up, when the very young man giving it made the remark that we should not “send a girl to do a woman’s job.” I didn’t hear the next 10 to 15 seconds of his speech over the boos and catcalls that remark provided. In truth, that probably lost Audrey a few votes.
And one thing I noticed about Audrey’s speech was that she finally claimed to have only raised a million dollars, which is relatively close to the truth. Audrey backed off her $2.5 million claim – wonder why?
(Honestly, if she didn’t feel the heat that the questioning of her financial claim provided, don’t you think she’d have continued to state the $1.5 million and $1 million Victory 2010 figures?)
Finally, it was time to vote. When Heather Olsen asked me my gut feeling I thought it would be inside 60-40 but wasn’t sure the vote would go the right way. Perhaps it was based on the loud, boisterous group of Audrey supporters right behind me. But once the voting began I started feeling better.
I’ll list the counties each contestant won:
- Ambrose: Anne Arundel, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Carroll, Dorchester, Frederick (unanimous), Montgomery, Washington (unanimous), Wicomico, Worcester. We in Wicomico voted 6-3 for Nicolee.
- Scott: Calvert, Caroline (unanimous), Cecil, Charles, Garrett, Howard, Kent, Queen Anne’s (unanimous), Somerset, St. Mary’s (unanimous), Talbot (unanimous).
The vote was evenly split in Allegany, Harford, and Prince George’s. So Ambrose generally won the center of the state, the western section, and the lower Eastern Shore while Scott heavily carried the upper Eastern Shore and southern Maryland. This can be somewhat explained by Scott residing on the upper Shore and the influence of Terhes on southern Maryland. On the other hand, many of Nicolee’s candidate endorsements came from those who live in the areas she won.
In fact, Scott led in terms of actual votes cast (as opposed to the weighted system we use) until the last two counties reported – they were Baltimore County (won by Ambrose 21-7) and Montgomery (Ambrose 32-15.) In terms of votes cast, Ambrose won 143-123 with a couple abstentions and that translates to a 286-247 total under our system.
I’m going to come back to the Ambrose-Scott race, but I also wanted to report that Louis Pope won re-election handily in a far less controversial nomination and election process. By my tally Pope won the body count 225 to 45, so the weighted vote was probably just as overwhelming. Scott Shaffer only carried his home county of Anne Arundel and Worcester County, while tying in Harford County.
I think Shaffer’s biggest mistake was not getting out and campaigning around the state. We never saw him in our county, and although I disagreed with him on a couple key issues I think what did him in was not knowing the time and money investment which seems to be required to win this contest.
Similarly, those who put a lot more time and effort into winning Delegate and Alternate Delegate seats (or had plenty of name recognition) tended to prevail. In the Delegate race, nine of the ten on the so-called “Maryland for Romney Unity Slate” prevailed, as did six of the ten Alternates. But the one Unity Slate Delegate shut out: Lawrence Scott, son of Audrey Scott. It’s been a tough month for that family. State Delegate Michael Smigiel from the Eastern Shore got in instead. Non-slate Alternates who made it: O.P. Ditch, Jerry Walker, Deborah Rey, and James Calderwood placed fifth, eighth, ninth, and tenth, respectively. Aside from Calderwood, the other three all approached me to seek my vote so they aggressively pressed the flesh and won. (I voted for two of the three who took a few moments to ask.)
I know I’ve gone a long way already on the Ambrose-Scott race over the last couple months, but I want to share something I said to Nicolee – it’s not exact, but paraphrased. I told her that now I expect her not to fudge financial figures or disparage candidates over the next four years or she can expect me to come after her. In fact, Nicolee has an ambitious agenda that I would accept no less than for her to carry out.
Believe it or not, I don’t embrace change just for change’s sake. When you have nothing, though, you have nothing to lose. Despite Audrey Scott’s best efforts in 2010, we got no statewide offices, simply returned to where we were four years earlier insofar as the House of Delegates goes, and lost seats in the State Senate. Yes, the party did better financially but it didn’t do the job where it counts and that’s putting Republicans in the seats of power on a state-level basis.
Instead, we on the local level stepped up our game – without a lot of state help – and elected Republicans to perhaps be the farm team for future runs. But while Audrey counted on the past to give her the NCW position, there are some of us who wished to “progress forward,” as the snazzy Ambrose signs read.
It’s my fervent hope, though, that we channel the passion we placed into the NCW race in a different direction: to take the fight to the Democrats. Now I think we’ve sent the message that youth (like the young political consultant Kristin Shields of Purple Elephant Politics pictured below) will finally be served.
But the Ambrose win, guided by my friend and occasional partner in crime Heather Olsen, was not the only reason I left Solomons Island with a smile on my face and perhaps a joyful tear in my eye from the emotion of the day.
In the midst of all the hubbub of electing national convention Delegates, a process which took an absurdly long time because of a county which shall remain nameless, I approached my County Chair with a request, one that he granted. And since he was not elected as a Delegate to the National Convention, I put into place the next best thing.
When the counties of our Congressional district got together to nominate an elector from the First District, four names were placed into nomination and three gave speeches. Unbeknownst to me – although I realized later he had a previous engagement – the fourth person had left the premises.
Yet the man I nominated won. I’m pleased to tell you that it was the least honor I could give him, but our County Chair Dave Parker will be the Republican elector from the First District. I was told he won in a landslide, and he was as shocked as anyone when I called him with the news. It’s just more incentive to carry Maryland for Mitt Romney, just so he can enjoy the honor of being an elector.
Now THAT is how a convention should go!
Who will they be in it for?
This goes in the category of “I had to laugh.”
Because I have one of the millions of e-mail addresses that makes up Barack Obama’s list of internet friends, I get his campaign missives on practically a daily basis. Yesterday’s was a hoot, and I excerpt here:
Mark your calendar: On May 10th, George Clooney is hosting an event at his home in Los Angeles to support President Obama.
If you donate $3 or whatever you can today, you’ll be automatically entered to be there, too.
We’ll take care of airfare and accommodations — all you need to do is think about who you’d ask to join you for an evening with President Obama and George Clooney.
At least twice in the last few months there was been the enticement of having dinner with the President, but the unwashed masses don’t seem to be coughing up enough $3 donations to make that work anymore. If it were he wouldn’t need a SuperPAC, even though it’s not making a ton of money either.
I suppose that’s the risk you run when pandering to the food stamp generation. So Obama needs a little bit of star power now, and anyone with half a brain for popular culture knows that when one uber-liberal Hollywood star has a political event, a whole flock of them (along with assorted other beggars and hangers-on) show up. So the thought in the Obama campaign must be that a million people will cough up $3 to show up at George Clooney’s house to be laughed at as that giant sucker who won the contest. Maybe they’ll put the winner in a closet so they can have the real party and stick their hands into the Obama stash.
Unfortunately, the same fundraising approach is being used by the Romney camp (as is the dinner one) and it’s beginning to make me wonder if our culture is just too starstruck and obsessed with celebrity to think rationally anymore. It used to be that people donated money because they believed in the candidate, but what message does it send out when one can donate a trivial amount to be entered into a contest as the longest of shots to have to rub elbows with the President? Okay, the chance to see the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Patriot’s Day wouldn’t have been a bad enticement for me but I resisted. It would have been a good game to watch, too. (I wonder if Romney stayed for the whole thing? Reason number 8,564 I couldn’t be a politician: if I go to a ballgame I am there until the final pitch. I don’t care if they play 20 innings.)
We all know Barack Obama decries the Citizens United decision out of one side of his mouth while eschewing campaign finance limits with the other. But if people want to donate against their self-interest in the slimmest of hopes of hobnobbing with Hollywood elitists, Obama is all for that. And considering no one has to report donations under $200 to the FEC, no one will really see where the money comes from, just that they’ll have the cash to spend on glossing over the Obama record.
Something tells me there’s something for George Clooney in this too. Those elitists really hate spending time with real people from flyover country, so I’m guessing there’s a Department of Energy grant or farm bill earmark somewhere chosen especially for him. Good luck to the person selected from among all the donors, because the rest of us are going to lose if Obama wins.
A fork we stick in Rick
So it ends, not with a bang but more of a whimper.
The news that Rick Santorum has opted to suspend his campaign just two weeks before a multistate primary where opponent Mitt Romney would be expected to do well in all the states – except possibly Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania – coupled with the withdrawal in all but name by Newt Gingrich over the weekend (“he had more things to hit with than I did”), means that Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee come September. Sure, Ron Paul is still in the race but he hasn’t won a primary yet.
Obviously that’s frustrating news to Santorum backers (like The Other McCain) as well as residents of the five states (including Delaware) who were expectantly awaiting their turn in the national spotlight, but it also brings up a couple interesting questions.
- Who will be the second banana on the ticket? We saw a rejuvenated Republican Party for a brief time in 2008 when Sarah Palin was selected, so one would hope Romney assuages conservatives with a strong pick.
- Will the electorate in the remaining states which have not conducted primary elections embrace Mitt as the nominee?
I don’t know what the rules are for ballot withdrawal in the remaining states, but it’s quite likely that the last four standing (Romney, Paul, Gingrich, and Santorum) are on the ballot in 17 of the 19 remaining states (Nebraska and Montana are caucus states.) And we can look back at Virginia for a case study in just how much anti-Romney sentiment was out there – in a contest limited to Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, Romney couldn’t even carry 60 percent of the vote. Had it been Santorum or Gingrich on the ballot straight up against Romney, Rick or Newt may have carried the state.
It would be quite surprising now if Romney didn’t get a clear majority of the votes, but the depth of anti-Romney sentiment may be most expressed in states where Santorum or Gingrich were thought to be strongest (most likely Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Indiana, and South Dakota among remaining primary states.) But this ceding of the Presidential field could also have a detrimental effect on conservatives in downticket races as well – one example being the U.S. Senate primary in Indiana where moderate Senator Richard Lugar faces a primary opponent in Richard Mourdock.
But all the talk of a possible brokered convention and a white knight coming in to save the GOP will now be replaced by emotions from anger at the establishment to outright despair from the Right that Romney can’t win and we’re doomed to another four long years of Barack Obama. Yet if every conservative in the country came out and voted, we would win because Democratic turnout tends to lag behind Republican regardless of whatever tricks the Democrats try to pull. It’s simple math – around 40 percent of the country self-identifies as conservative while only 20 percent or so self-identify as liberal. Even if the squishy middle splits evenly, we win.
And it’s not like the incumbent has much of a record to run on, unless you define record deficits, record number of adults out of the work force, and record high gas prices as records to brag about. Obama has those.
So here we are: Obama vs. Romney. It wasn’t my personal choice (since I voted for Santorum after all my other good choices split the scene) but that’s the way it’s going to be.
And now for something (almost) completely different:
I have it on very good authority that someone familiar to local voters is going to jump into the First District Congressional race. That’s all I’m going to say for now, but watch this space for more details.
The next step
Now that the primary is behind us and the Maryland General Assembly session will come to a screeching halt by midnight Monday evening, there’s an obvious focus on the three races we will have at our local level: the Republican nominee (most likely Mitt Romney) for President vs. Barack Hussein Obama, the U.S. Senate race featuring Dan Bongino against political lifer Ben Cardin, and the Congressional race which will pit Andy Harris against the most likely Democrat winner, Wendy Rosen (who, by the way, was once a Republican.)
But we also need to keep a couple things in the back of our mind. One is that the citizens here in our fair city are less than a year away from electing a new mayor. (I say new because, quite frankly, what has Jim Ireton done to deserve re-election? Then again, what did he do to deserve election in the first place?) We will also have the City Council seats currently held by Shanie Shields in District 1 and Debbie Campbell in District 2 to vote upon. (For the sake of this post, I’m going to assume the new district boundaries will mostly reflect the old ones – Lord knows the three-person Camden crew on City Council won’t select a model which makes sense and redivide the city into five Council districts because at least one of them would be out of a job.)
It’s my understanding that Shields will not seek re-election in her majority-minority district, and while it would be a tough sell for a Republican to win there it wouldn’t be a stretch to have a conservative win the seat – the city election is non-partisan and has been for some time now.
And while Campbell has faced opposition in both her initial election bid (Mike Dunn in 2005) and subsequent re-election try (Muir Boda in 2009) it seems like prospective candidates are easier to find when the district elects three seats as they did in 2011 than the one-seat race we have in the other cycle coming up next year. But there’s no reason to leave Campbell unopposed should she decide to run again, particularly since she’s part of the Camden crew.
So far only one person has gone public with his intention to run for city office, but there’s been no fleshing out of his platform up until now and the campaign is still in its earliest stages. Unlike federal or state office, there’s really no need to begin a campaign until this fall considering it covers a city of just 30,000 people.
But those conservatives who are interested should be making the push over the summer in attracting grassroots support and financing for their run. Truth be told, the city seems to have fallen prey to a power struggle between the Camden crew and the mayor as to who’s really in charge, and in my estimation both are fighting over a sinking ship as things currently stand. I’ll grant that a lot of dead weight is being placed onboard by the state and federal governments, which will leave a new chief executive boxed in to some extent, but these aren’t times when the city can be placed on a glide path like it could a decade ago.
Nor is it too early to consider what we can achieve for a number of county offices which haven’t had turnover in decades. While the bulk of county Republicans only came into office in 2006 or 2010 (exceptions are County Council members Gail Bartkovich and Stevie Prettyman), most of the Democrats have been there for well over a decade and their offices may not be getting the fresh leadership they deserve. It’s time to make them earn their office rather than let them cruise in for another four years. A good goal for local Republicans would be to fill up the 2014 ballot – actively seeking a person to run for State’s Attorney, even after the filing deadline, paid dividends in 2010.
Focus on 2012, but don’t forget 2013 or 2014.
Where I went wrong (and right)
Okay, the results have come in and I got some sleep and a day at my outside job to consider them, so let’s go back to my prediction post and see how I did.
I was actually correct in the order of presentation on the top four Presidential candidates statewide, but Mitt Romney exceeded even the pollsters’ expectations when he won just under half the vote. I suppose that inevitability factor may have affected the results because it appears our turnout in 2012 will end up about 20 percent less than it was in 2008, when the race was effectively over by the time we voted. Because few people like to admit they’re backing a loser, I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of voters changed from Gingrich to Romney at the end while other Newt backers stayed home. It also proves Ron Paul has support a mile deep but an inch wide since both well underperformed what I thought they might. I actually missed Santorum by less than a point, although it surprised me that Rick only won two counties (Garrett and Somerset.) I would have thought Rick would carry 4 to 6 of the more rural counties, including Wicomico. But once Romney outperformed it was over.
And you may wonder why I had Fred Karger at 2 percent. I thought he would do better because, as a gay Republican candidate in a state which was bound to be a Romney state anyway, voting for him may serve as a message about the gay marriage referendum likely to appear in November. Instead, he got only less than 1/10 of my predicted total and finished dead last. I also managed to garble up the exact order of the also-rans, but with such a small sample who knew?
That same statewide trend seemed to affect my Wicomico result too because Romney outperformed and Gingrich/Paul suffered for it.
And while I didn’t predict it, I find it quite fascinating that 12 percent of the Democratic primary voters selected “none of the above” rather than Barack Obama. However, that statewide average varies wildly from under 3% in Prince George’s County, about 5% in Baltimore City, and just over 7% in Montgomery County to fully 1/3 of Democrats in Allegany County and a staggering 34.7% in Cecil County. In the last comparable election with a Democratic incumbent (1996) President Clinton only received 84% of the vote (onetime perennial candidate Lyndon LaRouche got 4%) but no county came close to getting 1/3 or more of the ballots against the President.
I didn’t miss the “barnburner” aspect of the Senate race by much as it wasn’t called until nearly midnight. But Dan Bongino carried 34% of the vote and won by 6 points over Richard Douglas. (I called it for two points, but I underestimated the impact of the little eight.) I think Joseph Alexander gets the advantage of being first of the ballot, and that accounts for his second straight third-place finish. The rest? Well, the order wasn’t all that correct but they were mostly only off by a percent or two and I got last place right. And to prove it was a close race, both Bongino and Douglas carried 12 counties apiece.
What mystifies me the most isn’t that Rich Douglas carried Wicomico rather easily, but how much support the other eight received – they collectively picked up almost 100 more votes than Douglas did! I would love to know the mindset of the people who voted for most of these minor candidates. I can see a case for Robert Broadus based on the Protect Marriage Maryland group, but what did the others really do to promote their campaigns? At least I know Douglas had radio spots and reasonably good online coverage.
But I did peg Ben Cardin to within 4 points statewide.
On some of the Congressional races: despite the fact I screwed up the percentages, at least I correctly called the Sixth District winners as Roscoe Bartlett and John Delaney. Both did far better than I expected, and I think part of the reason was that both their key challengers’ campaigns imploded in the last week or two. A week ago we may have had something closer to the numbers I predicted. Think Rob Garagiola and David Brinkley may commiserate anytime soon?
The ‘relative ease’ I suspected for Nancy Jacobs was even easier than I thought. I guess Larry Smith didn’t have nearly the campaign as I believed because he came up short on my prediction about as much as Nancy Jacobs was over – I wasn’t all that far off on Rick Impallaria.
While there is a slim chance I may have the First District Democratic race correct, I was surprised that Eastern Shore voters didn’t get all parochial and support the one Eastern Shore candidate, John LaFerla, over two from across the Bay. He only won Worcester, Kent, and Queen Anne’s counties, and I would chalk most of that up to Wayne Gilchrest’s endorsement. Kim Letke was about 6 points better than I thought and LaFerla was six points worse because he way underperformed on the Eastern Shore. I suspect no small part of that underperformance by LaFerla was his extreme pro-choice stance, as getting the NARAL endorsement doesn’t play well among local Democrats. There is a 136 vote margin out of about 23,500 cast.
Out of the rest, the only one I got wrong was the Eighth District, and I think that was a case of better name recognition than I expected for Ken Timmerman and less of a vote split among the three candidates from Montgomery County.
As for the Democratic incumbents, I could have wrote “over 85%” and still been right, with the minor exception of Steny Hoyer getting 84.8%.
So this is how the races for November will line up. Sometime this evening I will update my sidebar to reflect this:
- U.S. Senate: Dan Bongino (R) vs. Ben Cardin (D – incumbent)
- District 1: Andy Harris (R – incumbent) vs. Wendy Rosen (D – pending absentees and possible recount)
- District 2: Nancy Jacobs (R) vs. Dutch Ruppersberger (D – incumbent)
- District 3: Eric Knowles (R) vs. John Sarbanes (D – incumbent)
- District 4: Faith Loudon (R) vs. Donna Edwards (D – incumbent)
- District 5: Tony O’Donnell (R) vs. Steny Hoyer (D – incumbent)
- District 6: Roscoe Bartlett (R – incumbent) vs. John Delaney (D)
- District 7: Frank Mirabile (R) vs. Elijah Cummings (D – incumbent)
- District 8: Ken Timmerman (R) vs. Chris Van Hollen (D – incumbent)
So out of 19 contested races I predicted 15 correctly, and I stuck my neck out on percentages a few times as well. I missed Romney by 8 points statewide and 9 points here in Wicomico County. I think the “inevitable” mantle made the difference.
But with Dan Bongino I was only 2 points off statewide. Probably my worst guess, though, was being 19 points off with him in Wicomico County. It’s worth noting that the Douglas late-game media strategy seemed to pay off on the Eastern Shore since he carried six of the nine counties and would have carried the nine-county Shore if he hadn’t been blown out in Cecil County by 1,250 votes. Bongino carried five counties with over 40 percent of the vote (Cecil was one along with Anne Arundel, Frederick, Queen Anne’s, and Montgomery) while Douglas could only claim two such counties (Dorchester and Talbot.)
I saw this possibly ending up as a rerun of the 2010 race where Eric Wargotz had more money while Jim Rutledge had more grassroots (read: TEA Party) support. Obviously media reaches a LOT more people quickly than grassroots efforts do in a statewide race, and the money to buy media is a key element of a successful campaign. That’s where Eric Wargotz succeeded, because Jim Rutledge didn’t raise a lot of money and Eric had a sizable bank account to tap into.
But as it turned out the Douglas bankroll wasn’t all that large, and an abbreviated campaign with a spring primary didn’t give Rich quite enough time to build a support base of his own. Those three or four extra months Dan worked on his campaign (at a time, remember, when better-known prospective opponents like Wargotz and Delegate Pat McDonough were considering the race) turned Bongino from an also-ran into a nominee. By succeeding enough to nationalize the campaign Dan made himself into a formidable opponent to Ben Cardin. Had this been a September primary, though, the result may have been different.
Now we have just under seven months until the general election, a chance for the campaigns to take a quick breather and begin to plot the strategy for November victory. For Democrats, it will be a hope that Obama can fool people into believing he’s an effective President and having long enough coattails. On the other hand, Republicans need to point out the Obama record while spelling out their own solutions – that’s where we’ve been lacking in some respects. We need to give people a reason to vote FOR us rather than AGAINST the other SOB.
So start working on those platforms, ladies and gentlemen. If we are to win, we need to not be a pastel Democrat-lite but present bold colors to Maryland and the nation.
WCRC meeting – March 2012
It was a last-ditch effort to garner votes, and we’ll see how much it helps next Tuesday night. But U.S. Senate candidate Richard Douglas was introduced to the Wicomico County Republican Club and was rather well-received.
Of course we did our usual bit of club business, reciting the Lord’s Prayer and Pledge of Allegiance before I read a rather lengthy accounting of the February meeting. We even had a hiccup in the treasurer’s report that I pointed out. But none of it dissuaded the Republican who boldly proclaimed for his opening, “I’m here because I want to beat Ben Cardin.”
To illustrate his point, Douglas took us back about three decades. When he left the Navy in 1979, he took his GI Bill benefits and enrolled at the University of South Florida where a professor told him the Soviet Union would be eternal and America would have to learn to live with it. Well, we saw how that turned out, and while there are those in Annapolis who would have us believe that one-party rule in Maryland is eternal as well, that’s not necessarily so.
Rich compared Ben Cardin to a brick in a wall – as the mortar is wearing away, soon the brick would drop from the wall and the remainder of the house would follow. And Douglas wasn’t going to be timid in his role, either, warning “Martin O’Malley is going to be one unhappy fella” when Rich wins. “(He’ll) wish he’d never heard my name,” continued Douglas, because he has a “duty to speak” as a Senator. Douglas promised to be our voice and vote in the Senate.
Trayvon Martin is dead. Did a colorblind society die with him?
Considering the incident in question occurred several weeks ago on February 26, the fact this story has anymore legs than the dozens of other shootings which occur each day makes me ponder why.
I will grant that there are a number of interpretations about what happened, but the end result is that a 17-year-old is dead and there is a bounty reportedly placed on the head of the shooter. But what makes it any different than another case where a teenager is gunned down? In my mind there are two key reasons, and both have significant political import.
A (somewhat) false alarm
On Sunday I received an e-mail from a friend and professional associate of mine wondering aloud if a coup d’etat was being perpetrated:
It appears from my cursory review (I could be wrong, but I don’t think so) that this EO gives this administration complete and utter control, up to and including confiscation, of all farms and equipment, and many, many other items of infrastructure if they, in so many words, choose to do so.
Well, I suppose I’m happy to report that, while the mainstream media has pretty much ignored the Friday afternoon document dump (something they are quite reliable for), Ed Morrissey at HotAir took a closer look at the Executive Order’s effects. In essence, this EO is a rewrite of one (EO12919) signed by President Clinton in 1994, but updated to reflect the new cabinet positions created since.
But there is a problem here; it’s just not the one we think it is.
The law Obama’s EO traces its origin to was passed in 1950, at the start of the Cold War. While the Soviet Union is no more and we have gone through twelve Presidents in that time span (not to mention some more or less undeclared wars and incursions to various points around the globe) the question really should be why, if the update was needed, did President Obama wait until just a few months before the end of his term? Or perhaps another question: why release this on a Friday afternoon when many millions are paying rapt attention to a basketball tournament?
Paul: Caucus fraud ‘possible’
I took a lot of flak for talking about Ron Paul a few weeks back, and I can’t see how he has a path to the nomination. But I was chastised for the fraud allegations his supporters put out with the tacit acceptance of the campaign.
So I was quite interested to see this Stephen Dinan story from the Washington Times on Monday, and the money quote I’m repeating here:
“Sometimes we get thousands of people like this, and we’ll take them to the polling booth, and we won’t win the caucuses,” he said. “A lot of our supporters are very suspicious about it.”
He said he doesn’t have proof of actual fraud, but said it’s a possible explanation.
“It’s that kind of stuff that makes you suspicious, because quite frankly, I don’t think the other candidates are getting crowds like this,” he said.
I suspect the crowds are partially because the candidate has a certain buzz about him, but after seeing and hearing him they may not be convinced he’s worth voting or caucusing for. Needless to say, the online polls and rallies only prove that Paul’s followers may be rabid but not convincing.
However, the problem they present for the other candidates in the race is their attitude: “Paul or none at all.” I beg to differ because staying home is a vote for Obama and that’s the last thing we need.
Yet I wondered why the caucus strategy was ever thought to be a valid one when, even if Paul won every delegate available from the caucuses he wouldn’t even be halfway to the number needed for nomination. Getting 10 to 15 percent of the primary vote isn’t going to work in the four-person race it’s become, particularly once the winner-take-all races begin with Maryland and Wisconsin on April 3rd. (Apparently Texas, which was also slated for April 3, won’t have their primary until late May due to questions about their redistricting winding through their courts.)
So there’s very little chance Paul will win the nomination, but having three essentially conservative candidates split the right-wing vote against the party’s moderate minority means we could have another John McCain or Bob Dole wipeout on our hands. Needless to say, our country can’t afford that.
Sometimes we have to step back and, to use a sports analogy, take what the defense gives us. I’d rather work with a Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, or Newt Gingrich in the White House than another moment of Barack Obama. If Ron Paul can’t win in the places where he’s supposedly strong and can only resort to wondering if he’s being cheated somehow, that’s no path to victory.
Limbaugh ‘slut’ controversy no Fluke
Fair warning – some language NSFW.
Considering that the story took a couple weeks to play out, there’s no doubt that Sandra Fluke’s biggest career move to date has been to be called a ‘slut’ by none other than Rush Limbaugh. If not for that, it’s doubtful anyone outside the world of far-leftist hyper-pro-choice and LGBTQ politics would have heard of her, and Barack Obama wouldn’t have picked up the phone to give her a ring.
In fact, so few knew who she was that it didn’t originally send up red flags to most when Democrats tried to sign her up to testify at a House hearing, portrayed as a 23-year-old Georgetown Law School student. When her original attempt to testify before a House committee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa was rebuffed because, in Issa’s judgment, she couldn’t be properly vetted, Fluke became the star witness in a Democratic show hearing put together by Rep. Nancy Pelosi – a star witness because she was the only witness. Nice effort to hear from all sides there, guys – at least the Republicans asked for your input. It was at that hearing she made the claim that contraception had cost her and others she surveyed a total of $3,000 over the three years she had been at Georgetown Law School, which didn’t cover the expense in their health insurance plan.
Later, however, it was revealed that she entered Georgetown Law in part to challenge the rule regarding contraception coverage. It was also learned that nearby pharmacies sell the most commonly available birth-control pill for as little as $9 per month, putting the lie to the $1,000 per year figure.
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