Surveying the wreckage?

The great thing about the 2022 Maryland Republican primary is that it drove Brian Griffiths out of the party – ironically, he’s leaving six years to the day that I resigned from the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee. That’s sort of funny because his reasoning was very similar to mine but he did it six years later because Dan Cox, a Trump-endorsed candidate for governor, and Michael Peroutka, who once ran for President as the nominee of my Constitution Party, both won Republican primaries. (Peroutka is running for Attorney General with the tagline, “Liberty forever, mandates never.”) In both cases, it was over Donald Trump.

Where Griffiths and I differed was that I was fed up with Larry Hogan well prior to the 2018 election. (Hogan careened rapidly downhill in the two years from 2016 to 2018 to the point I voted for the Libertarian.) When it came down to Hogan vs. Trump, he went the other way. For all Donald Trump’s flaws, at least he didn’t sell out good candidates in 2018 like Larry did; then again Hogan already had practice in selling out Eastern Shore farmers and Western Marylanders invested in the opportunity to create jobs in the energy industry by allowing fracking. And that reverse Midas touch Larry had back in 2018 really came out in this one since I’m sure he wasn’t interested in backing either Cox or Shalleck. Well, he can go vote for his dad again.

But the point of surveying what could be called the wreckage to some is to ask the question: where are all the “party over everything” people now? Are they going to be like Griffiths and take their ball and go home? Had I still been in Maryland, I may have been inclined to vote for Dan Cox and if I had I would have finally had a winner in a contested gubernatorial primary – truth be told, though, as an outsider who didn’t have a vote anyway I would probably have been okay with Kelly Schulz or Jim Shalleck winning their respective primaries. But the heads exploding in certain segments of the Maryland GOP are a spectacle to behold.

I lost with Brian Murphy in 2010 and with David Craig in 2014, although the “insurgent” in that 2014 primary would likely have been Charles Lollar. Yet those who backed the more conservative aspirants in those elections were always told by the “party over everything” crowd that staying home on Election Day was a vote for Martin O’Malley, Anthony Brown, or whoever. So guess what, Audrey Scott types – now you have Dan Cox or you have Wes Moore, so suck it up, buttercup. We had to.

In 2016, I thought for sure Donald Trump was going to lose, but after looking at it through the lens of history I found I misread the electorate. If you look at Wes Moore’s policies and consider them a state-level rehashing of what’s failing a few miles west down U.S. 50, that’s how you win the election.

I will give the Maryland GOP credit for one thing though: they only spotted the Democrats five Senate seats; unfortunately, they also gave away over thirty House seats so next year’s House of Delegates will probably look depressingly like about a 100-41 split, while the Senate should end up around 33-14 as usual. I think Maryland needs to go in a deep depression along the south end of its I-95 corridor as the federal government is rightsized to take care of that problem with its state government – either that or just burn down the Maryland GOP entirely by giving the DC statehood people the vote they demand by retroceding most of DC to Maryland as it should be, but all that is for another election to resolve.

On running the state

One concern I see and hear after the surprise Larry Hogan victory is that we don’t want all of the Ehrlich retreads running the state government now that the GOP is back in charge. As it turns out, Hogan – the Secretary of Appointments for Ehrlich – selected another Ehrlich official, Secretary of General Services Boyd Rutherford, as his lieutenant governor and has tabbed James T. Brady and Robert Neill as integral parts of the transition team. Brady worked as a member of the Parris Glendenning administration and Neill is a Republican-turned-Democrat who served in the Maryland General Assembly for 18 years, sandwiching a term as Anne Arundel County Executive. Reports are that outgoing Harford County Executive David Craig, who also sought the GOP nomination for governor, is also being considered for a role.

This is all well and good, I suppose, since a stated goal of the incoming Hogan administration seems to be one of bipartisanship. But my question is how much it will build the Maryland Republican party if we tab Democrats for positions they’ve already had over the last 8 and 40 of the last 44 years? Building a farm team doesn’t just come from elected officials and I’m sure that fresh eyes in a lot of positions will do a lot of good.

The Democrats lost, so let’s act like winners and put good conservatives in charge of state departments, To do otherwise leaves the potential that we will have another opportunity to build on success slip away in 2018, dooming ourselves to more years in the wilderness. In short, let’s use the electoral broom we just received to sweep these offices clean like Martin O’Malley did. It’s the least we can do to push this state in the right direction.

The most popular Republican in Maryland

I don’t have a poll to show you, but I do have a website.

Today I was alerted to the existence of a new political website which makes the case that the next Congressman from the First District should be a woman: Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio. Gleaned in large part from her recent run for lieutenant governor on the David Craig ticket and set up to resemble an actual campaign site, the website is the brainchild of political activist Phil Tran. Tran points out that current Congressman Andy Harris is voluntarily term-limiting himself and believes Haddaway-Riccio would be the best logical successor.

I decided to start a movement. In the event that Congressman Andy Harris decides to voluntarily limit his terms, we need to have a formidable successor ready to go. That successor is Delegate Jeannie Haddaway!

Jeannie Haddaway is a great role model for young women (and men alike!). She will serve Maryland’s Eastern Shore and the Baltimore suburbs with grace and dignity in a Congress that desperately needs such qualities.

Plan ahead or plan to fail. Please sign the petition to draft Jeannie Haddaway for Congress! We are also selling shirts to support the movement!

(I know David Craig didn’t use the full name, but I prefer to refer to her with the married professional variation she used for the House of Delegates, Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio.)

It’s fun to note that Tran has both 2016 and 2022 listed as the prospective dates for the campaign, and each presents different opportunities – as do other points on the calendar, as I’ll illustrate.

First, though, it’s my understanding that Andy Harris would stay in Congress twelve years – under his proposed Constitutional amendment, Congressional members would be limited to twelve consecutive years. I think the three terms statement is a misunderstanding since I was told twelve years at the time Andy ran the first time for Congress, and had personally asked him for clarification since. Twelve years was always the answer I received. But there are a lot of other ways Jeannie could go in the interim.

Let’s look at 2016 for a second. It’s a Presidential year, so there won’t be a lot on the ballot. While I hope Andy Harris gets some Congressional help this year, it’s likely he will either remain the lone Maryland Republican federal elected official or perhaps have Dan Bongino as second fiddle if the Sixth District votes in its best interest. (Obviously, if Maryland voted in its best interest they would have a full GOP delegation, but I’m talking in real terms.) In any case, I don’t think Harris is leaving after just three terms.

But there is an intriguing race which could develop. Remember in early 2010 when the rumor that Barbara Mikulski was passing on re-election caught fire? Well, with the increasingly likely prospect of Republicans taking over the Senate, and the fact Mikulski’s not getting any younger (she will turn 80 a few months before the 2016 election) it could lead to an open Senate seat for the first time since 2006. Needless to say, every Democrat in the state and their brother (and sister) will be salivating at the chance for the brass ring, but who else is on the GOP bench that has run statewide? You could say Bob Ehrlich, but he’s been rejected twice by statewide voters.

Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio as the Republican Senate nominee in an open-seat scenario, particularly if the Democrats have a bloody primary because most are running from cover? Maybe she’s not as conservative a candidate as I’d prefer, but I think she’s electable in Maryland and it’s a move that would make sense if she wanted another statewide bid. She would also have the advantage of needing less time to ramp up a campaign since it’s likely Mikulski would wait until the last minute to announce her intentions to the world.

If Jeannie wanted to wait until 2018, she would have even more options. One would hope that she doesn’t have to worry about a run for governor because Larry Hogan is the incumbent, but the possibility of a match against Anthony Brown is there. Unfortunately, no Democrat governor has lost a re-election bid in Maryland in about forever (okay, actually 1950 – and ironically, William Preston Lane lost over tax increases) so that may not be the best play.

After running for office statewide, it would perhaps be seen as a demotion to run locally, but there’s the chance Addie Eckardt may only want one Senate term as she will be in her mid-70s by that point. Granted, we will hopefully have two new GOP Delegates who could move up if Eckardt wants just one bite of the apple, but my suspicion is that 2018 was always eyed as the time Jeannie would make the jump. A win there could keep her in the limelight for 2022, when Harris would be through his twelve years, the 2014 gubernatorial winner would be term-limited out of office, and – if Mikulski finally decided to retire at the age of 86 – that Senate seat would be again up for grabs.

Another possibility for 2018 would be to take on Ben Cardin in a Senate race, but assuming Ben wants to stay on he would be tough to beat – although, at 75 years of age and perhaps in the minority he may decide to ride off into the sunset as well.

It’s clear that Jeannie’s selection as David Craig’s running mate opened a lot of eyes around the state (and brought out a few long knives) so it’s no wonder Phil Tran is promoting her as a possibility for higher office. She isn’t the longest-tenured or most conservative Republican candidate in the state, but she has the right experience and didn’t hurt the Craig ticket, which simply didn’t have the resources to compete against a deep-pocketed opponent who made no critical mistakes.

Running for lieutenant governor didn’t turn out to be a success short-term, but it’s obvious a lot of people now think highly of her long-term prospects.

Team players

I’ve heard a lot of talk about nominees who are RINOs and sitting out the election because so-and-so won the primary and they don’t want to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” and it always amazes me because this doesn’t happen on the other side. Here’s a case in point from a fawning AP story by Steve LeBlanc about Senator (and potential Presidential candidate) Elizabeth Warren.

Now, Warren is continuing her fundraising efforts, with a planned Monday event with West Virginia Democratic Senate hopeful Natalie Tennant. Tennant, West Virginia’s secretary of state, is vying with U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller. Capito is favored and holds a hefty cash advantage.

Capito’s campaign has also been quick to target Warren, calling her “one of the staunchest opponents of coal and West Virginia’s way of life.”

Warren has conceded that she and Tennant — who, like (Kentucky Democrat Senate nominee Alison Lundergan) Grimes, has criticized Obama’s plans to limit carbon emissions from the coal industry — don’t agree on everything, but can come together on economic issues facing struggling families.

So it’s obvious that the Democrats have their own 80/20 rule, but unlike some on our side they don’t take their ball and go home based on the non-conformance of the 20.

We had our primary, and at the top of the ticket there were 57% who voted for someone else besides our nominee – many of those live here on the Eastern Shore, where David Craig received 49.6% of the vote and carried seven of the nine counties. There can be a case made that Craig’s running mate, Eastern Shore native and resident Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, was a huge factor in his success here, but the fact remains that this area I live in was one of the two areas Hogan was weakest (the other being southern Maryland, where Charles Lollar resides.) These are votes Hogan will need, and surely many will migrate his way because he’s the Republican nominee.

On the other hand, Anthony Brown got a majority of the Democratic vote and carried all but a few counties. Those three on the Eastern Shore, plus Carroll County, aren’t places Brown would expect to win in November anyway – except perhaps Kent County, which was the lone county Heather Mizeur won and which only backed Mitt Romney by a scant 28 votes in 2012.

The path to victory for any statewide Republican candidate is simple, because Bob Ehrlich did this in 2002 – roll up huge margins in the rural areas and hold your own in the I-95 corridor. Ehrlich won several rural counties with over 70% of the vote in 2002, and got 24%, 38%, and 23% in Baltimore City, Montgomery County, and Prince George’s County, respectively. When that formula didn’t happen in 2006, he lost.

Granted, demographic changes and other factors may not allow Larry Hogan to pick up 65% of the vote in Anne Arundel County, 61% in Baltimore County, or 56% in Charles County, but it’s possible he does slightly better in Prince George’s and may hold some of those other areas. Turnout is key, and we know the media will do its utmost to paint Anthony Brown as anything other than an incompetent administrator and uninspiring candidate – as the natural successor to Martin O’Malley, who has done a wonderful job further transforming this state into a liberal’s Utopian dream at the expense of working Maryland families, one would have expected Brown to have picked up at least 60% of the Democratic primary vote.

Yet you can bet your bottom dollar that even the most diehard Mizeur and Gansler supporters may hold their nose but will still push that spot on the screen next to Anthony Brown’s name. They may have several points of contention with Brown on key issues, but the other side will push those aside to maintain power.

Perhaps Natalie Tennant over in West Virginia had misgivings for a moment about inviting Elizabeth Warren for a fundraiser, but she realized that there is a segment of her would-be supporters who would gladly contribute more to her campaign to meet Senator Warren, despite the fact they are on opposite sides of a particular issue. To Warren, the end goal of holding that seat in her party’s hands and maintaining a Democrat-controlled Senate was more important than conformity with the one place where Tennant may go against leftist orthodoxy.

If we’re to upset the apple cart here in Maryland, we have to deal with the obvious flaws in Larry Hogan’s philosophy and platform at the most opportune time – when he takes office.

The age-old argument

In the drive to unify a party after a contentious primary in certain quarters, state party Chair Diana Waterman put out a message at once congratulatory to the primary winners and conciliatory to the losers. It was the standard boilerplate stuff until I ran across this passage:

There has been much said and debated in social gatherings and on Facebook about “Party over Principle or Principle over Party.” I do not believe that supporting the elected nominees of our Party and following your principles are mutually exclusive. While a candidate may not agree with you on 100% of the issues, they will always be more in line with your beliefs than the liberal Democrat will ever be. We must elect more Republicans if we want to have any hope of challenging the stranglehold of the Liberals in Annapolis!

Our only hope to be victorious on November 4th is TO UNITE. Not voting for the Republican in the General is the same as casting a vote for their Democrat opponent. Do not give the Democrats one iota more of an advantage over our candidates. (Emphasis in original.)

Those who have followed Maryland politics for awhile know why the subject comes up; if not, it came from a video put out some years back when Audrey Scott was running the show.

In general I agree with Diana on this one because she’s exactly correct. In a universe where there are a finite number of votes out there and one entity already has a numerical advantage, all other entities do themselves a disservice by not participating because their decision makes it even easier for the majority to prevail. If I have a classroom with 20 votes and 11 support Jack, six support Jill, and the other three blow with the wind, but find only about 10 of those members actually participate, it’s a reasonable assumption that if those six supporting Jill hold together – and vote – they have a fighting chance to win.

Excluding the Central Committee race, I had three contested races and I didn’t vote for a single winner; in fact, those who voted for all winners in all races are probably few and far between. So unless you’re one of those fortunate souls – and that number was immediately trimmed by 57% in the gubernatorial race because that many voted for someone other than winner Larry Hogan – you will have to make some compromises in order to vote Republican. (David Craig handily carried Wicomico County, though, so in that sense I voted for one winner.)

But something I’ve studied over the years is the big, big difference between Republicans and Democrats in this state. As I noted Monday, the fiscal difference between a guy who believes there is $1.75 billion in fraud and waste to be had in the state budget and a guy who wants to spend additional millions and could grow the budget as much as $16 billion over four years is stark. I understand the whole “lesser of two evils” argument, but there are only two people with a realistic chance of winning and the stand has to be made sooner or later. Larry Hogan wasn’t my dream candidate, and I suspect we would have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he doesn’t drift over the political center line, but given the choice between him and Anthony Brown it’s a no-brainer. Those who backed Martin O’Malley because they didn’t like how centrist Bob Ehrlich was and thought we needed to be taught a lesson – well, class was dismissed.

I repeat again: this is an “all hands on deck” election. Even adding up the totals for all four GOP gubernatorial candidates, the sum doesn’t match the vote total Anthony Brown got in a contested Democratic primary, so it’s obvious there’s work to be done. You know it and I know it, but the labor needs to be put in.

Yet I’m going to encourage you to take an evening off on July 17 and spend it with a Congressman who knows a little something about agriculture. The Dorchester County Lincoln Day Dinner features Rep. Frank Lucas, who is the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. He will be speaking to the gathering, which will be held at the East New Market Fire Hall in that community east of Cambridge. Tickets are $70, but the menu promises to be outstanding.

A post-primary look back

I actually started this a couple weeks ago, when writing about Ron George’s last stand, and just added to it here and there every couple days – if only to keep it atop the queue. Regarding Ron, it was unfortunate that such a good candidate couldn’t get much traction in the race.

But as the race comes to an end for three of the four gubernatorial hopefuls, I’m convinced that my initial instinct was correct and there was really only money enough for three candidates. Blaine Young saw this early on and, despite a solid period of fundraising, opted to drop out of the gubernatorial race and focus on a local campaign for the newly-created Frederick County Executive post. “We have a tendency to eat our own,” he said.

To me this is yet another legacy of the Ehrlich era, which in some respects set our party back several years.  With the most direct connection to that administration, Larry Hogan was perhaps the second-most natural successor – besides Michael Steele, who took a pass in 2014. More and more I see 2010 as a completely missed opportunity in this state, and its domino effect is hurting us in 2014.

So Hogan starts out about 15 points down, just like Ehrlich ended up in 2010. How does he close the gap?

Out of the box, he’s taking the approach which he used a little bit in the primary: Anthony Brown as incompetent.

Driving up negatives is generally a conventional wisdom play, but there are a couple downsides. First of all, Brown is, well, brown and the inevitable comparison to Republicans picking on Barack Obama will occur. I also don’t see the counter of a positive agenda from the Hogan camp, which seems to be focusing more on undoing things than doing new things.

I mentioned Ron George early on and it was interesting how he accepted his defeat, as a letter to his youngest son Tommy:

Tommy, I lost. But that is okay. Many took my ideas, and I know those ideas will help our state. Your dad is now able to go camping with you and have more time with you, and that alone makes me glad I lost. I can go on trips with you and Mom visiting your nieces and nephew, and I look forward to that also. I did what God asked of me and did my best and that is all we are to do. I never wanted to do anything that took time from you, so I am happy to say I am not a governor but I am Tommy’s dad. Love you, Dad.

Perhaps had Ron been given a do-over, he may have decided to devote full-time to running for governor. Surely he had people to run his business, but while David Craig had a staff to help him do his job as County Executive, Larry Hogan the same for his business, and Charles Lollar was granted extended leave from his duties, Ron had to also function as a Delegate. That was 90 days basically off the trail in the formative part of the campaign. It may be disappointing to me because it was one of two decisions that cost him my vote and endorsement; otherwise Ron had perhaps the best overall platform and he came very close to getting both from me.

But Ron ran the best campaign insofar as staying issue-based and not going off on personal attack tangents.

For David Craig, he pretty much spent the last three years trying for this. Obviously the blogger meeting he had early on didn’t do him much good.

There have been people who opined privately that Craig should have attacked Hogan earlier, just as there are people who believed attacking Charles Lollar was a mistake. I would place myself in the latter camp, but what did Craig in was the lack of money to overcome Larry Hogan’s advantage there. Once Larry got the public financing, the race was over and Craig couldn’t chip away at the double-digit lead.

It’s the Charles Lollar supporters I worry about, as in my opinion they are most likely to stay home in November. Charles tried to convince them otherwise:

Wow, family, what an experience! I can honestly say that the past 16 months have been filled with such excitement and joy as my family has had the chance to meet so many good people across the state of Maryland. I could not be happier with the extended family that I have acquired as a result of this campaign. While the results may have not been exactly what we wanted at least we know that there were many out there who share our vision for a better Maryland and a New Way Forward. From the bottom of my heart I want to thank everyone who played a role in making this such a successful campaign.

As many of you know there is still more work for us to do. A New Way Forward for Maryland is still out there for us to obtain and together we can make this happen. I want to congratulate Larry Hogan on a job well done as well as David Craig and Ron George for successful campaigns of their own.

I look forward to coming together in unity to win the state of Maryland and I urge all of my supporters to do the same and ensure unity within our state across the board.

It makes me wonder what Charles will do with the next few months, although his July 5th event for supporters and volunteers will likely have a lot of clues.

Looking down the ballot a little bit, there were some interesting upsets from both parties.

Two incumbent Senators lost in their primaries as ambitious House members ousted them: Republicans David Brinkley and Richard Colburn were knocked off. By the same token, many of the nine House members who were defeated were victims of redistricting: Republicans Joseph Boteler, Don Dwyer, Donald Elliott, and Michael Smigiel, and Democrats Keiffer Mitchell, Melvin Stukes, Michael Summers, Darren Swain, and Shawn Tarrant. Mitchell and Stukes were drawn, along with winner Keith Haynes, into one Baltimore City district.

In particular, Boteler was one of the good guys, and the reigning monoblogue Accountability Project Legislator of the Year. That district’s voters made a serious mistake by pushing him aside.

Aside from the shocking margin of Addie Eckardt’s victory, the Wicomico County results were pretty much what I expected. Obviously I was disappointed by Muir Boda’s loss but apparently county Republican voters like mushy moderates. If things hold as expected, we will still have a significant GOP majority on County Council but it won’t always govern like one.

It should be noted, though, that my advertisers went 3-1 for the primary. Mary Beth Carozza easily had the most primary votes in District 38C and Chris Adams and Johnny Mautz paced the field in District 37B. Mautz carried three of the four counties, with Adams second in all four (Rene Desmarais won Wicomico County.)

This brings up one of my favorite comments along the way in the campaign, from an old NetRightDaily colleague of mine, Richard Manning. It was in response to a Facebook post I put up to promote this post.

(A)ll those ads along the side pay Michael for his great work. He should be commended that he has created something from nothing that has enough value that people want to advertise on it to reach his readers. That is the essence of the entrepreneurial spirit that those on the right claim to embrace.

So that brings me to the final race, which was my own. I posted this on the soon-to-disappear Facebook page for my campaign:

I’d like to thank my supporters. Looks like I’m going to come up one spot short this time, but with so many good people running I knew I was the most vulnerable incumbent because I only made it by a little bit last time.

So after November it looks like I may have some free time on my hands – or maybe not.

It does look like the Central Committee will have a little more TEA Party influence because Julie Brewington and Greg Belcher got their start as part of that movement, so that’s good.

As I’ve said all along, this will be my last election as a candidate. I was only planning to run this term anyway, and I would have definitely preferred to go out a winner. But I came home and got a hug from my treasurer, who happens to be my fiance. So everything is okay. I lost an election, but elections don’t define me anyway. In fact, in some respects this can be liberating.

Obviously there’s still the prospect of my involvement with the Central Committee, at least as secretary (it can be a non-voting position.) If they wish, I’m happy to stay on in that capacity.

But this will be the last time I have to go through all the hassle of getting a treasurer, filing campaign finance reports, and so forth. In the next few days we’ll close the campaign account, file the necessary paperwork to wind up this committee, and it will be time for a new chapter in political involvement.

So in a few days this (Facebook) page will also go away. Congratulations to the winners and hopefully many of those who tried but fell short will try again. But this will be it for me on the ballot.

Again, I appreciate the kind words from my supporters and thanks to those who voted for me.

A lot of those remarks have appeared on my Facebook page or in e-mails to me. I appreciate the sentiment, but I have an observation on this whole thing.

Of the nine who made it, six were already on the Central Committee and had name recognition for various reasons. I’ve lived in the county for less than a decade and, quite frankly, had the 2006 election featured more aspirants than candidates I probably wouldn’t have won my first term, let alone the second. Look at the three newcomers who won: two are doctors, and the other ran for the House of Delegates in 2010.

On the other hand, two of the other three who lost had been active in Republican circles but had little name recognition otherwise. Tyler Harwood probably knocked on hundreds of doors on behalf of himself and other candidates and was rewarded by finishing last. Jackie Wellfonder had bought signs and cards, and made her way around polling places yesterday to no avail. The gap between us and ninth place suggests that people just went with the names they knew, and that’s sort of a sad commentary.

I’m not going to lie to you and say I’m happy about losing this election, but I knew going in this time that I would have a hard time keeping my spot. I originally figured that only five or six incumbents would run, but with seven that made it really difficult.

So here we are. Even if I’m selected as secretary again (a non-voting secretary and treasurer are allowed) October will be my last meeting as an elected Central Committee member. It would be strange not having something to do on the first Monday of the month, but life changes and so we have to as well.

I didn’t plan on being a Central Committee member my entire life anyway, but now that this election is over my thoughts are on seeing our candidates through and working where I can to improve the process. It may not be completely universal, but one thing I think I’ve achieved over the last eight years is the respect of my peers.

WCRC meeting – June 2014

It was perhaps one of the more uneventful WCRC meetings in some time, because we chose not to feature a speaker and not much business transpired. Sure, we had the usual Lord’s Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, and Treasurer’s Report, but most of the time was given to those final appeals from all the candidates in the room.

However, we were introduced to two bright and talented young Republicans, as Shadi Jahelka of Mardela High School and Elizabeth Mills from Delmar High School were introduced as our Wicomico County Republican Club scholarship winners. Jahelka plans to continue her studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art, while Mills will be attending Potomac State College in West Virginia.

In a brief President’s Report, Jackie Wellfonder noted we were still looking for a headquarters. And “headquarters is a mess,” said Dave Parker to open his Central Committee report. A couple places we were interested in have fallen through, so we could have to move off the Route 13 corridor we’ve been on for several cycles.

In better news, Parker attended the state Red, White, and Blue Dinner with a mixture of people from Wicomico and Worcester counties. He also pointed out that he had tickets to the Tawes Crab and Clam Bake next month.

Dave also put in his plug for Circuit Court Judge candidate M.J. Caldwell, correctly pointing out “the difference is experience.”

At that point, we made the rounds of over twenty candidates and representatives, who we gave just 2 minutes to make their case. Many of them were those sharing the ballot with me for Central Committee, so let me take this opportunity to wish them good luck. Mark McIver said it best in his remarks: “I can’t say enough about how well our committee ran,” adding it was considered by others to be “very functional.”

Representing David Craig’s campaign, Joe Schanno made an important plea himself: “After tomorrow, we’re all on the same team.”

Essentially the only other business was the announcement by Joe Ollinger that he had tickets for the WCRC Crab Feast September 6 and was looking for volunteers to help out, and a point I brought up about integrating social media into our solicitations for help for upcoming events such as the Farm and Home Show, Good Beer Festival, and Autumn Wine Festival.

In fact, we were done in less than an hour, although many stayed around to work on distributing signs for tomorrow’s election. There are 31 polling places in Wicomico County, so the goal was to cover all of them with the appropriate signs.

We have five weeks until our next meeting, which will be on July 28.

The 80-20 rule (part 2 of 2)

I had originally intended to do a short post noting that Ron George is still in the race and garnered the endorsement of the Conservative Victory PAC, which said of George:

Ron’s plan for economic recovery and development coupled with his knowledge of the issues as a Delegate gives us full confidence that he is the right candidate for the job.

Ron has shown that he knows how to take on Democrats and win when he beat Democrat House Speaker Michael Busch as the top vote getter in their majority Democrat district.  We have great confidence in his ability to draw a sharp contrast between the liberal policies of Brown, Gansler, and Mizeur and our conservative vision for Maryland.

We would like to thank the other candidates and wish them all well on Tuesday, June 24th.

But then I was made aware of a lengthy piece put together by the Ron George campaign, which takes the form of a 16-page newsletter. It’s actually a very nice summary of Ron’s campaign and I wish he had finished it a month or two ago. Had he done so, he may not be lagging in the polls – although polls can be less than meaningful in a low-turnout election as this promises to be.

Being familiar with WordPress, though – as I use the platform to create monoblogue – I found it really interesting that work on this newsletter must have began nine months ago, as the source file comes from September 2013. Maybe at that time he was expecting more fundraising, because the mailing would have been quite pricey.

Knowing that, it’s interesting to speculate why he kept the information on pages 10 and 11 – where he points out reasons not to vote for David Craig and Larry Hogan, respectively – in his pocket for so long. I suppose I should be pleased with that since Ron had hitherto run a fairly positive campaign.

I thought this statement on two others intriguing as well:

My friend Dan Bongino was about to switch to run for a seat in Congress. And Charles Lollar, besides repeating whatever Dan Bongino said, lacked any understanding of how government worked.

Sounds like George would have passed if Bongino ran, but we’ll never know.

Yet taking a page from the Maryland Liberty playbook, Ron takes decades-old votes and statements from both Hogan and Craig out of context.

Take for example this point:

When running for Delegate in 1990, the Baltimore Sun reported, “Craig said he would work to get the state to give counties greater latitude to raise taxes or lower them, thus reducing their reliance on property taxes” (Baltimore Sun, November 4, 1990). This would have enabled the counties to raise many taxes without approval or debate by the state legislature, which give a greater proper vetting of tax-raising proposals. Mr. Craig’s idea was not a very Republican idea.

Actually, bringing that power to a point closer to the people is a very conservative idea. I would rather fight battles against raising taxes here in Salisbury than up in Annapolis; moreover, counties are exempted or mandated by state fiat on many occasions – chief among them the “rain tax.” As I recall, Montgomery County already had a similar program in place when the state passed theirs. That was an example of a county making their own decision.

Yet there are more recent statements and votes I can take from Ron which would suggest he isn’t exactly the standard-bearer for liberty or conservative principles, either, particularly when it comes to Radical Green. Just check out this screenshot from 2010, when Ron campaigned as “the Green Elephant.” I pointed all this out when Ron was launching his bid. And Ron isn’t exactly trumpeting his support for that key part of the O’Malley “Smart, Green, and Growing” agenda now, is he?

As I have said privately to people who asked for several weeks now, I can easily tell you something good and something bad about each one of the four gubernatorial campaigns. To me, it was a race with no clear favorite from day 1.

So on Tuesday we will come to the end of a long, exhausting slog to secure the GOP nomination for governor. For three of the candidates (David Craig, Larry Hogan, and Charles Lollar) it can be argued they have been running for the last three years. Whether it was the more formal effort by Craig, Larry Hogan’s formation of Change Maryland, or Charles Lollar’s New Day Maryland group, these were hatched at various points way back in 2011. While Ron George may have been considering it for far longer, he’s only been at it for a little over a year – still, it’s a long time in one’s life to work toward what many argue is an unattainable goal anyway.

Aside from having this forum to speak my mind and the passion to follow this campaign practically since its beginning, I’m probably like many other voters in the sense that I have 100% agreement with none of the candidates. Obviously some spoke better to the issues which I care most about better than others, and some have lengthy records I could examine, particularly in a legislative sense. Still, in order to select one I have to compromise on some things, and my vote goes where I judge that I have the least amount of compromise.

Now do I worry that David Craig will run to the center once June 25 rolls around? Yes, of course, and I would for Ron George as well given his abandonment of the “Green Elephant” moniker to secure a statewide nomination. But given his refusal to take a stance on some issues, I think Larry Hogan has already started in the middle, and in many respects so has Charles Lollar. Do we really know what he is telling these Democratic groups to earn their support?

Yet, regardless of who wins, at the end of the day it would be better to have someone you agree with 70 to 80 percent of the time in charge than continue to lose ground with someone who may be right 20 percent of the time (if we’re lucky.)

It’s also worth making this final point. On Wednesday, there will be winners and losers in more than just an electoral sense. Many people have put their hearts and souls into this race but it’s worth remembering that, in our little Maryland Republican community, the guy whose brains you were trying to beat out a month earlier may have to be your best friend in a future fight – so don’t burn the bridges behind you. The long-range goal should be kept in sight as you celebrate the moment of victory.

GOP race for governor turns negative

For most of the last year or so since the first two candidates made it official, the race for the GOP nomination for governor has been relatively genteel. But in the waning days before the primary, the campaign has gone downhill fast. Some would argue the decline started with the Change Maryland/Hogan-Rutherford allegations, but I thought it was a legitimate question because there is a gap between Hogan’s formal announcement and the accounting for his campaign.

But I found it interesting that an e-mail from the address “mdfreedom2014@gmail.com” came to me last evening, alleging the following. It is untouched from its original, with the exception of moving links for flow:

I’ve been following the primary for governor with increasing alarm — Larry Hogan is hoodwinking us. He sounds like a republican but when you actually hear his personal feelings, he’s an Obama Democrat. I was even more upset this morning when I heard he was supporting and promising to uphold gay marriage. It’s ridiculous that we can’t get someone who will defend marraige (sic) at its most basic level. He also seems to be fine with Obamacare and I’ve been told he supports abortion and refuses to stand up for life.

I’m sending you the most disturbing part though and people really need to understand how DANGEROUS this is!! There’s video of Hogan telling the baltimore sun how he supports opening up our borders to illegal immigrants. He also seems perfectly fine with the illegal dream act enticing illegal immigrants to come to maryland. I mean just read that whole last article.

We have a unique opportunity right now to nominate a real conservative patriot to stand up against the O’Malley tax regime, and if we nominate a moderate who’s too weak to present a contrast we’ll blow it completely. Marylanders NEED to understand how dangerous Hogan will be in office and we NEED to get out the word.

For the first part, I don’t see the correlation between the 14-second clip “freedom60” on YouTube gleaned from the Baltimore Sun forum and the allegation. As I heard Hogan say on the clip:

I think we ought to make it a fair and balanced process for people to legally immigrate to the United States. I like the fact we’re a beacon of freedom and opportunity, that people want to come here.

It’s not making sure they are legal before they receive driver’s licenses or encouraging 287 (g) enforcement, but I don’t see that as throwing open the borders, either. The case against Larry, though, is made a little stronger given this from the Carroll County Times:

While O’Malley and Maryland lawmakers have taken up a host of social issues such as same-sex marriage and allowing people who are not in the country legally to pay in-state tuition if they have paid state taxes, Hogan isn’t interested in trying to make any changes on those issues.

“It’s not something we need to revisit at all,” Hogan said, adding that voters approved both of those laws on the ballot in 2012.

Well, voters can be hoodwinked – after all, a slim majority voted against their best interests on a host of issues in 2012, beginning at the top and working down.

It’s been apparent from a few weeks into the campaign that Larry Hogan was more centrist than the rest, which is why he studiously avoided making statements on several key issues and skipped forums where such questions could be asked. Message control has been key, even on two mailers I’ve received over the last few days. They both say essentially the same thing, although his idea of “reforming” Common Core on one morphed into putting a “halt” to Common Core for the second. He also went from the original “spending-first approach” to “lower taxes” to “lowering taxes across the board.” I think the polling is showing that approach resonates with voters.

Not to say Hogan is immune, since some of his most prominent backers stretched way out on a limb to equate a bad vote on a bill with support of a mileage tax which was proposed much later – an attack picked up by the Maryland Liberty PAC, making for some odd bedfellows in the Maryland political world.

But rather than work on catching the first place contender, David Craig must be hearing footsteps from behind. It’s an effort to make conservatives question Charles Lollar.

Craig Lollar mailer

It’s unfortunate that Craig doesn’t list the documentation on these charges, but I can review all three as Lollar threw an unnamed “former campaign staffer” under the bus for the NRA grade, a naivete on how Planned Parenthood can shift money around, and a promise to “push forward” with the Purple Line in front of a pro-transit audience after being against it elsewhere.

This is the quote regarding Planned Parenthood that I’m sure Craig used, from the Gazette:

(Lollar) said he would make sure groups such as Planned Parenthood could not use any tax dollars to pay for abortions, although they still could receive and use public money for other women’s health services.

Ask yourself: if someone paid your car payment, wouldn’t it be easier to spend your income on groceries? If government pays for “other women’s health services” then PP has more money to provide abortions. It’s that simple, and remember – the card simply says Charles “supports funding Planned Parenthood with taxpayer’s money.”

But Lollar struck back with his own e-mail:

When you hear accusations about me such as those that appeared in a campaign postcard distributed by another Republican candidate recently, please ask yourself the following questions:

  • Who was on NBC 4 last Sunday boldly stating my position against the Purple Line. How could I possibly be in favor of spending $5 billion on it? Watch the debate (at 27:00).
  • Who just received an endorsement from Protect Marriage Maryland, the only Republican gubernatorial candidate to receive their endorsement? In the words of the endorsement,“there is no other ticket that will defend marriage and protect our religious rights to the same degree that the Lollar-Timmerman ticket will.” How could I possibly allow Planned Parenthood to use taxpayer dollars for abortions? (You can also view the PMM endorsement on their website.) (Emphasis in original.)

Regarding the Purple Line, I suppose it depends on the definition of “affordable.” He’s also taken to using the hashtag #BratTheVote, referring to Dave Brat’s recent upset of Eric Cantor in Virginia.

Still, I wish the four had stuck to defining and attacking the real enemy: the Maryland Democratic Party machine.

Wading into an issue

At the intersection of sports and politics is where Larry Hogan and I both resided last night.

I’ll start with Hogan, who reacted to the news about the U.S. Patent Office cancelling some older Redskins trademarks in this manner:

Larry Hogan slammed today’s decision by the US Patent and Trademark Office to cancel several of the Washington Redskins’ trademarks. The GOP gubernatorial frontrunner is a native of Landover in Prince George’s County, home to the 82-year-old National Football League franchise.

According to Hogan, “Whether you’re a fan of the Redskins, the Ravens, or God forbid, the Cowboys; today’s unprecedented action by the US Patent and Trademark Office should offend anyone concerned about Constitutional limits on government power and free speech. This matter should be decided upon by the Redskins and their fans without the politically-motivated interference of pandering state and federal politicians,” Hogan said.

As I found out by reading this piece from ESPN, though, we’ve been down this road before. And the trademarks affected are ones the team registered between 1967 and 1990 – the current logo is not one. I agree with Hogan on the sentiment, and I suppose it may pick up the Redskin vote to some extent.

I was more offended by this Tweet from my alma mater, noted at the end of the ESPN piece:

We went through this whole controversy a few years after I graduated, but the difference is that Miami University actually interacts with the Miami tribe – yes, there is a Miami Indian tribe, which mainly resides in Oklahoma but is native to the region encompassing southwest Ohio. During my time there we had “Chief Miami,” a mascot who would do a native-based dance in full regalia and lead the football team out on horseback. I still think the name change was a gutless bend to political correctness, but it is what it is.

As for the gubernatorial race, I suppose Hogan’s coming out in opposition to the name change is better than David Craig’s baseball realignment plan. (Me? I would make the NFL more geographically logical, but that’s a topic for another day. For the most part I like the divisions, although I HATE interleague play and the designated hitter.)

The real sport for both those guys has its league championship next Tuesday.

More guv news

The last time I did this I went top to bottom in the polls, so today I’ll reverse the order, It’s also because I liked the first item best. Indeed, in this instance Ron George really was the only candidate who got it right. He pointed out a recent AP story about the loss of manufacturing jobs and how that has hit Reading, PA hard, then noted:

This weekend’s Associated Press (June 15, 2014) report proved Ron George is the only candidate in this race who was right about the central missing component for fixing Maryland’s economy and closing the income gap. Ron is the only candidate who has made manufacturing a key component of his Maryland economic portfolio. With Maryland’s tax climate ranked dead last in the nation for new capital intensive manufacturing firms and 46th for labor intensive manufacturing firms, it’s no surprise Maryland’s GDP growth is 0%. At every step of this campaign, Ron has provided the most comprehensive, free market oriented plan.

Indeed this is true. I believe the emphasis on manufacturing jobs has been the strength of Ron’s campaign, and it’s sort of unfortunate he hasn’t had the best opportunity to get the message out. Yet there’s also an educational aspect to it as well because people see manufacturing as a job for lower-class people, not realizing one can make a good living working with their hands. Ron is probably a little biased due to his avocation of making things, but he puts in the honest work to be successful.

Local voters will get a chance to speak with Charles Lollar at a meet-and-greet this Saturday evening at what’s now called Adam’s Taphouse Grille along the main drag in Fruitland. The event will run from 5-7 p.m. and feature light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. Adam’s has very good food, so that will be a plus. And as the event organizer notes:

Take this opportunity to meet Charles and learn about his position on the issues and his plans as Governor of Maryland! This is the last opportunity before the primary vote to get to know the candidate.

I’m taking that to mean this will be Lollar’s last trip to this part of Maryland. The Eastern Shore is heavily Republican, but let’s face it: between the nine counties we have 111,986 Republicans and that’s fewer than any one of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, or Montgomery counties.

Fortunately for us, David Craig has a running mate from these parts, and she recently taped a commercial presumably intended for our cable and broadcast media markets.

It’s basically a reminder that Jeannie’s an Eastern Shore native, and doesn’t delve into policy specifics. But it is a reminder that she does well on television.

Larry Hogan also has two more days on the Eastern Shore as part of his bus tour, covering the Upper Shore today and Wicomico County tomorrow (although he had an event here in Wicomico last week as well.) His Change Maryland campaign is pleased with the social media bump his campaign has received from the tour:

In the past week, we’ve had nearly 700,000 people following along with our bus tour on our social media pages – a new record! We can truly feel the momentum building and we couldn’t be more humbled or excited by the incredible support. Thanks to everyone who has liked or commented, come out to see us on the road, and helped us to spread our message statewide!

Obviously not all are Hogan voters, and perhaps many don’t even reside in Maryland. It’s what over $16,000 and counting on Facebook will get for you, I suppose. But the bus looks sharp.

A little change I can believe in (or at least judge on its merits)

I’ve been highly critical of Larry Hogan’s single-track campaign of “jobs, middle class families, and restoring our economy,” not because the concepts aren’t good but because the details were scarce. I got a slight peek behind the curtain last night in an e-mail, so let’s see what we can make of it. The subject line was “Maryland was ranked 49th out of 50.”

For too long, families in Maryland have suffered under the policies of an administration more focused on political gains than the well-being of average Marylanders:

  • HIGH TAXES: Average Marylanders are crushed by the taxes they pay and I will fight to bring tax relief to every Maryland family.
  • EDUCATION: Parents and teachers agree that Common Core is a mess. Its rollout has left students confused, parents out of the loop, and teachers scrambling to learn a new curriculum just hours before having to teach it. We need to hit the pause button on Common Core and give control back to teachers and parents.
  • HEALTHCARE: Under the leadership of Anthony Brown, more Marylanders have lost insurance than gained it under the Maryland health exchange. Maryland was the first state to completely abandon its exchange, which cost taxpayers over $260 million to build, only to waste another $50 million on new technology. We need to get out of this boondoggle completely.

The state of Maryland cannot afford four more years of misguided policies and failed leadership. And after destroying the state’s economy and dropping the ball on his only responsibility, it’s clear Anthony Brown does not deserve to be our next governor. (All emphasis in original.)

With regard to “high taxes,” I was told Hogan would employ a “reduce-spending first approach.” Does this signal a change in response to others who would work to eliminate the income tax, in part or as a whole? Or will this just be tinkering around the edges by simply returning us to where we were pre-O’Malley? Admittedly, that wouldn’t be a bad thing but true leadership would try and do so much more. It’s still sort of hazy on that front.

On Common Core, I had seen where Hogan’s team was making this statement on social media, but this is as bold a statement I’ve seen as a more “official” policy stance. I would like to see the control returned to teachers and parents (as well as allowing money to follow the child wherever his or her parents choose to educate) but in order to do that there needs to be more than a “pause” placed on Common Core. It’s telling that the state doesn’t even call it “Common Core” anymore, as they have changed the terminology to the more innocent-sounding “Maryland College and Career-Ready Standards.” Larry would be fighting the powerful teachers’ union on this one.

I also agree with trying to “get out of this (healthcare) boondoggle completely,” but my caution is that it’s a nice sentiment but we need a plan to do so. We may not do any better under a federal exchange, but any further action would have to wait until the second half of his term when – hopefully – sanity returns to Washington and Obamacare is scrapped for a more market-based set of options.

I’m more pleased to see at least some movement in the right direction on broadening the platform as the primary gets closer. But I have to warn the Hogan team that we can’t win on telling people Anthony Brown “does not deserve to be our next governor.” It won’t work. There has to be an alternative presented, preferably a conservative one, and there has to be a plan to address the criticism sure to come that cuts to government will hurt the poor and downtrodden, with minorities hardest hit.

Unfortunately we live in a state which has voted against its best interests for so long that people are conditioned to vote the same way they always have and then complain when nothing changes. They say jousting is the official Maryland state sport, but I think it’s complaining about how the politicians govern and the Orioles underperform. None of us can put Baltimore in the World Series, but we can change the leadership in the state – personally I think David Craig is the best choice for that, but if Hogan gets the nod consider him warned that the other side will stop at nothing to keep its power. Being bipartisan has to work both ways.