The sprint to the finish
Standing as we are eight weeks out from the primary, if you were to consider the primary campaign calendar analogous to the general election calendar, we are at Labor Day. In the fall campaign, Labor Day is considered the point where people begin to pay attention to the election and start to make their final decision.
Because this is a Presidential election year, Republicans and Democrats in most of Maryland will only have a few choices to make when primary voting arrives in late March. (Some will also have local races to consider.) In seven out of eight districts for both parties voters will have a choice for Congress, while all Maryland voters who participate in the primary will select their party’s standardbearer for the U.S. Senate seat. Only Republicans will have a choice for President as no one stepped forth to challenge Barack Obama on the primary ballot. There is also only one Republican running in the First Congressional District – incumbent Andy Harris – while Dutch Ruppersberger enjoys a similar free ride in his Second District Democratic primary. Convention delegates are also at stake for both parties in each Congressional district.
Now that the stage is set, it’s very likely that only two or three GOP presidential candidates will be left standing by the time the race reaches Maryland on April 3. The good news is that Maryland and the District of Columbia may be pretty much the only game in town that day. Wisconsin voters will be much more mindful of the effort to recall Governor Scott Walker and, depending on whether the Texas legislative districts go to court or not, their scheduled April 3 primary is likely to be pushed back.
Odds and ends number 42
As you likely know, this is the post where I pick out a few items worth a paragraph or three but not a full post. So here goes.
Polling is in the news these days – sometimes as a real reflection of the political scene, and sometimes just to make news and push a particular agenda. There are two recent polls which I believe reflect the latter.
I’m usually not too trusting of polls in which I can’t find a political or geographical breakdown, and a recent Washington Post poll fits this bill. Taken simply as a sample of 1,064 adults in Maryland, the Post poll gives Martin O’Malley a 55% approval vs. 36% disapproval – compare that to the 53-40 split in the recent Gonzales Poll, which I can easily ascertain subgroups and methodology in. Other disagreements: a 50-44 split in favor of gay marriage on the Post poll vs. a 49-47 split in favor on Gonzales and the “key issue” question: the economy was the top choice of 49% in Gonzales but only 32% on the Post poll.
Without seeing the methodology besides the sample size, my guess is that the local Washington D.C. area was oversampled by the Post. Obviously the economy is better there than in some other portions of the state, and since the area is more liberal than the rest of the state (hard to believe, but true) the other numbers seem to point in that direction as well.
The votes are finally cast, and the filings nigh
And it’s about time. It will be interesting to see as the evening wears on whether any of the candidates who are currently in will exit the field after today’s New Hampshire primary.
But closer to home, we found out that both parties are now represented in all eight Congressional districts, so no incumbent gets a free ride in November. Andy Harris filed today to retain his First District seat, while Republican Charles Shepherd of Gaithersburg filed to run in the Fourth Congressional District to fill out the puzzle. As of now, here’s the breakdown of how many are in each Congressional primary:
- First District: 1 Republican, 2 Democrats
- Second District: 4 Republicans, 1 Democrat
- Third District: 4 Republicans, 2 Democrats
- Fourth District: 1 Republican, 3 Democrats
- Fifth District: 3 Republicans, 2 Democrats
- Sixth District: 7 Republicans, 4 Democrats
- Seventh District: 3 Republicans, 3 Democrats, and 1 unaffiliated (who is automatically advanced to the General Election in November)
- Eighth District: 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats, and 1 Green Party (also automatically on November’s ballot if nominated by the Green Party.)
- U.S. Senate: 10 Republicans, 9 Democrats
At this point, with a day and a half to go, the only two incumbents to not have primary opposition are Andy Harris in the First District and Dutch Ruppersberger in the Second.
Another interesting item is the number of General Assembly members now running:
- State Senator Nancy Jacobs is running for the Second District Congressional seat.
- Delegate Tony O’Donnell seeks the Fifth District Congressional seat.
- The Sixth District race is a no-holds-barred firefight with representatives from both General Assembly chambers: Delegate Kathy Afzali jumped in today to join Senators Rob Garagiola and David Brinkley.
- The U.S. Senate race now officially features State Senator C. Anthony Muse, who also filed today.
We also have yet to hear from Delegate Pat McDonough, who made overtures to both the Second District Congressional and U.S. Senate races over the past year. But there’s still this afternoon and all day tomorrow; however, it’s more likely any member of the General Assembly won’t wait until the last minute because the 2012 session commences tomorrow as well. Former Senator and current Maryland GOP Chair Alex Mooney hasn’t filed as of this writing, either.
I’ll update this post as events warrant in both New Hampshire and Maryland.
Update #1: As of late this evening, this is how the Maryland Republican Presidential primary ballot will shape up:
- Newt Gingrich
- Jon Huntsman
- Fred Karger
- Ron Paul
- Rick Perry
- Buddy Roemer
- Mitt Romney
- Rick Santorum
Not surprisingly, Barack Obama is the lone Democrat on the ballot. All 9 are shown as having filed today.
And by the way, Eric Wargotz IS running – to be a delegate to the national Republican convention from the First District. He has not added his name to the list for U.S. Senate, however.
With just under 50% of the vote in, Mitt Romney was long since called as the winner in New Hampshire. Not surprisingly, he’s strongest in the two counties (Hillsborough and Rockingham) which are closest to the Boston area. Ron Paul is second, but runs closest to Romney in Cheshire County in the southwest corner of the state and Coos County, which is pretty much the northern third of the state.
Update #2: According to the Washington Post, Alex Mooney is taking a pass on the Sixth District race and endorsing Roscoe Bartlett.
So here’s my questions: one, will he again assume the leadership mantle of the Maryland Republican Party? (Hey, I’m just glad I don’t have to go to a special convention just to pick a new chair.)
Second, and more importantly, what’s he going to do with the $100,000 or so he raised? Can he give it to the MDGOP? I know state candidates have the ability to do so when they close out their campaigns, but I don’t know about federal law.
The Sixth District donnybrook
Since I live on the opposite end of the state, I really don’t have a dog in the Sixth District slugfest that now involves an incumbent Congressman in a revamped district taking on three members of the General Assembly and a cast seemingly of thousands. Most of my readers recall the battle royal which took place in the First District four years ago when two sitting members of the Maryland Senate fought each other and the incumbent in a nasty primary skirmish eventually won by Andy Harris. It took him two years, but Harris finally put the seat back into the hands of the conservative electorate of the First District – a base made even stronger with redistricting.
History will eventually reveal what occurs in the Sixth District as the years pass, but there’s one piece of the puzzle I find quite interesting when it comes to two of the contestants. Despite two of the Republicans having ties to the Maryland Senate – Alex Mooney was a Senator from 1998-2010 while David Brinkley has served since 2002 – nearly every Republican member of the Maryland General Assembly hailing from that part of the state supports Brinkley. This despite the fact Mooney is the (outgoing) Chair of the Maryland Republican Party.
Certainly Mooney seems to be the more conservative of the two (a lifetime monoblogue Accountability Project rating of 88 vs. Brinkley’s lifetime 75 rating) but in either case – or if incumbent Roscoe Bartlett wins the primary – most of the “traditional” Sixth would certainly be more in line with their prospective Congressional voting record than the miserable mAP lifetime rating of 10 compiled by Senator Rob “Gas Tax” Garagiola or the probability that any of the other Democrats would be similarly terrible for the district. My question is how Mooney could have burnt so many bridges, and is this a reason why he’s not been the successful fundraiser for the Maryland Republican Party he intended to be?
The chances are pretty good that the Sixth District race will be the most interesting one to follow in Maryland since we won’t have Kratovil vs. Harris round three here in the First. April 4th will be a crazy morning after.
Maryland’s reborn spectator sport: how many General Assembly members will run for Congress?
We don’t have a representative from all eight districts quite yet, but the news that Minority Leader Tony O’Donnell is going to challenge entrenched Fifth District Congressman Steny Hoyer brings up the question of who will be minding the store?
Let’s look at it district by district:
- Obviously the First District has been made more safely Republican, as former State Senator Andy Harris won the seat in 2010 and hasn’t seen any significant Democratic opposition yet. At one time State Senator Jim Mathias was thought to be interested in running, but that may not be in the cards due to a increase in the GOP base there.
- In the Second District, where Dutch Ruppersberger has been in office for several terms, the name originally linked to a run was Delegate Pat McDonough. But he’s been waffling over the last months over whether to run for that seat or a statewide U.S. Senate seat; meanwhile former Senate Minority Leader Nancy Jacobs stepped down from that post in order to explore a Second District run.
- In the Third and Fourth Districts – John Sarbanes and Donna Edwards, respectively – no member of the General Assembly has stepped forward to make a challenge. In those cases, we’ll probably have to wait until they retire.
- As noted above, Tony O’Donnell is challenging Steny Hoyer in the Fifth District.
- The Sixth District is a bipartisan circus as Democrats gerrymandered the district into being much more Democrat-friendly than the previous rendition, presumably as a favor to State Senator Rob “Gas Tax” Garagiola to run. But the GOP has its share of politicians doing battle, with current State Senator David Brinkley being joined by recently-deposed former Senator Alex Mooney in the fray – a challenge which also leaves the state GOP scrambling for a Chair during an election year. All of them will have to deal with longtime incumbent Roscoe Bartlett.
- So far the Seventh and Eighth Districts, represented by Elijah Cummings and Chris Van Hollen, have also been quiet.
- Along with the possibility of Delegate McDonough seeking a Senate seat against incumbent Ben Cardin, some have also spoke about a primary challenge from State Senator C. Anthony Muse of Prince George’s County.
Obviously some of these running will survive the primary, but it will be an interesting exercise in time management to see how they juggle the prospect of a primary battle with the demands placed on them by the “90 Days of Terror” known as the annual General Assembly session. It so happens the filing deadline is also the opening day of the 2012 session and the primary itself will occur just a few days before sine die. Particularly in the Sixth District, this fact may handicap those serving in the Maryland legislature who face opponents which can devote more time to the race.
There’s no question that serving in legislative office at a local level is considered the best training for higher office: many of those who serve in a local Council or Commission graduate to become Delegates or Senators, and in turn they gain the experience voters seek in electing Congressmen and Senators. Fully half of Maryland’s Congressional delegation once served in the Maryland General Assembly.
Obviously those who are seeking election this time, with the cover of incumbency to protect them if they should lose, hope to add to that total.
Intriguing panel discussion highlights GOP gathering
This is the separate article I promised yesterday, but I wrote it for my Examiner page.
While the main plot of last weekend’s Republican state convention in Ocean City seemed to be the celebration of all things Ehrlich, an interesting sidebar turned out to be a panel discussion by four members of the General Assembly moderated by state party Chair Audrey Scott. The discussion featured three Senators: David Brinkley (District 4), Minority Whip Nancy Jacobs (District 34), and Minority Leader Allan Kittleman (District 9) along with Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio (District 37B).
(continued on my Examiner.com page…)
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Ideas for the right direction
On Thursday the BrinkleyPipkin budget reduction act (in Maryland that’s SB1004, Budget Reconciliation and Balancing Act) had its hearing. When I got the release on this hearing this was the part which jumped out at me:
The Brinkley-Pipkin budget reduction act had a hearing before the Senate Budget and Tax Committee today. By taking significant steps to further reduce spending in this year’s budget process, the Brinkley-Pipkin plan buys additional time to constrain spending to the existing available revenues without the need to raise taxes.
A key feature of the plan is the elimination of built-in statutory increases in state programs. This feature and an additional $75 million in spending constraint over the next three years would allow current revenues to “catch-up” with spending, thereby bringing ongoing spending and revenues into balance.Many lobbyists and county officials testified today against additional cuts to state spending. Representatives of unions also opposed the Brinkley-Pipkin plan of additional cutbacks including the removal prevailing wage from state projects. The majority of citizens and taxpayers who testified supported all efforts to cut back government overspending. (Emphasis mine.)
So once again we have the government and big-government interests (i.e. the lobbyists) vs. the people. The information I was provided also had a chart showing the difference between our current budget path (which will certainly lead to higher taxes) and the Brinkley-Pipkin projections.
In theory, at least, the Republicans’ proposal not only balances the budget but creates a small surplus.
Obviously the counties were there to argue that the budget would be balanced on their backs and perhaps they have a point. But this should also lead the local governments into an effort to prioritize what services they wish to deliver, with the public being involved by determining how much they want to pay. For example, it would fan the flames of the ongoing debate here in Wicomico County regarding the revenue cap the county currently employs.
Government cannot co-exist with a free society as a cure-all. Every dollar taken out of your pocket to pay for services they wish to deliver is a dollar that you cannot use as you wish, despite the fact it was freely given to you. (In more and more cases, however, that dollar was given to you by the same government who wishes to take it away.)
It’s way beyond time to consider that role government has to play and amend it accordingly. Maybe not all of the cuts in the Brinkley-Pipkin proposal are wise, but they can begin this vital discussion of the role our state government plays in our lives.
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