Tag: Gonzales Poll

Death penalty opponents work to sidestep referendum

Note: this is my first article posted at the Watchdog Wire.

After seeing several of their other pet issues derailed for months due to spirited referendum efforts by opponents, those who wish to rescind the death penalty in Maryland are trying to take advantage of a provision in the Maryland Constitution to protect a bill to repeal the state’s little-used death penalty from having its fate decided by voters. Polling numbers suggest they have cause to be worried: last month’s Maryland Poll by Gonzales Research pegged support for the death penalty from 49% of those polled, with 44% in opposition.

Yet Article XVI of the Maryland Constitution exempts bills with an appropriation from the referendum process, and a small portion of the crossfiled measures House Bill 295 and Senate Bill 276 both state that:

For Fiscal Year 2015 and each Fiscal Year thereafter, the Governor shall include in the annual budget submission $500,000 for the (State Victims of Crime) Fund, redirected from General Fund savings resulting from the repeal of the death penalty.

That provision would amount to less than 1/1000 of 1% of the overall state budget, but in a strict reading of Article XVI of the state Constitution this clause would seem to preclude any effort for repealing the death penalty in Maryland from being acted upon by the voters in 2014. Passage of the bill is nearly a certainty given the Senate and House versions of the bill respectively have 21 and 67 co-sponsors – 24 Senate and 71 House votes are needed for passage.

(continued at the Watchdog Wire…)

The Sobhani story

If you are old enough to remember the 1992 election, you may recall that the usual two-player Presidential game had a party-crasher by the name of Ross Perot. Eventually after a few campaign fits and starts Perot got 19% of the national Presidential vote and allowed Bill Clinton to win with just 43 percent (incumbent George H.W. Bush received 38 percent.) Some say that the eventual result would not have changed even without Perot, and perhaps my little piece of anecdotal evidence bears that out – I voted Perot but had he not been there I would have held my nose and voted for Bush. On the other hand, I also talked my spouse at the time out of voting for Clinton and into Perot. (Or so she said.) Still, there’s a part of me which believes Bush may have hung on to beat Clinton if not for Ross Perot and the Reform Party. (Which, by the way, is trying to make a comeback in Maryland.)

So after writing on Friday about the recent Gonzales Maryland Poll (which posted yesterday) I saw a couple items on independent U.S. Senate candidate Rob Sobhani. This in particular piqued my interest.

 

Perhaps Mr. Sobhani has a unique sense of humor I don’t understand given his Iranian heritage and loyalty to it, or Dan Bongino took him out of context. But then there was another item I spied on my Facebook page and alluded to in my previous link that led me to do a little research on the political donations of one Rob Sobhani. I’ll get to that shortly.

Worthy of note in this context is that Sobhani has run for the Republican nomination for Maryland’s U.S. Senate seat on two previous occasions – 1992, when he finished 5th out of a crowded 15-person field behind eventual GOP nominee Alan Keyes, and 2000, where he was runner-up to Paul Rappaport in an 8-way race.

Yet in his first FEC report on June 30, Sobhani recorded some typical expenditures. The timeline is as follows:

  • On February 5, the campaign paid Sullivan and Associates for legal services. They were paid again in May.
  • The Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies was paid $21,000 on March 10.
  • Presumably the polls were agreeable, since Sobhani paid a total of $142,171 to both Savanna Communications and Arno Political Consultants for petition services from April through June.
  • In addition he began a marketing campaign prominently featured on this website, at a cost of $1,800.
  • Finally, he hired Igoe and Associates as a consultant on June 15.

With the possible exceptions of Sullivan and Associates and hy.ly, the firms Sobhani used are fairly reliable Republican backers. But that doesn’t add up with his pattern of personal political donations.

I went to Opensecrets.com and pulled up a lengthy file of Sobhani’s political giving over the last 22 years. During a 15-year stretch from 1991 to 2006, Sobhani donated a total of $9,400 to a group of candidates which were almost exclusively Republican, with the one exception running as an independent. He also gave a total of $9,340 to the state and national Republican parties. His last donation to a Republican was to Michael Steele in 2006, who ironically ran for the very Senate seat Sobhani is trying for now.

But after a five-year hiatus, Sobhani started giving again – to Democrats. First was Milad Pooran, who was an also-ran for the Sixth District nomination won by John Delaney. Pooran was endorsed by a number of leftists including Howard Dean and Keith Ellison, the lone Islamic member of Congress. Just before the June 30 deadline, Sobhani doubled down and donated $250 to Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen, who represents the Memphis area. Most notably, Cohen sponsored a amendment reducing infrastructure funding in Afghanistan.

Perhaps it’s a way to burnish his independent credentials, but this seems quite curious for a guy who used to be a Republican to have gone so far to the left, at least in his political giving.

But rather than speculate on what his motives were, I wrote an e-mail to Rob and asked him a few questions point-blank:

  • Since you have run for the Senate before in 1992 and 2000, what made you decide to run as an independent? Was it a case of not having confidence in the MDGOP banner or did the party move in a direction you were uncomfortable with?
  • I noticed your last two political donations were to Democrats after a decade and a half of almost solid GOP giving? What was your rationale in doing so, given you have a message which is somewhat conservative?

I received Rob’s reply yesterday, which I am presenting in its entirety:

Thanks for your interest in my campaign. I am pleased by the support I have received so far and attribute it to the fact that my message resonates with many people in our state who are tired of politics as usual.

With regard to my decision to become an independent, I have lost my faith in both parties to fairly represent people’s needs today. Our economy is in trouble, and I see few solutions offered either by Republicans or Democrats. That is why I am trying something different. I think a lot of people share my thinking on this, let’s see as the campaign continues.

I have personally supported Republicans and Democrats in the past in cases where I believed the individual offered something important in the respective races. We should all be able to declare our independence in this state. Only by creating more jobs and getting our economy going again will we restore the quality of life we’d be proud to pass onto our children. At the end of the day, that is our duty, and it is more important than any party ideology.

I’m sorry Rob feels that way about the Republican Party, as I see it as the most viable vehicle to represent what the people truly want and need to have to prosper – freedom and liberty. And while he’s correct in assessing the fact our economy is in the dumper, the question of whether what he is proposing as a cure will work still needs to be explained a little more to me. Brian Griffiths at Red Maryland makes an interesting case that Sobhani should run for a different office in a post which could otherwise do well as a hit piece:

…to me, the role that Sobhani is suggesting he fill as a U.S. Senator is generally filled by a Governor. Because it is the Governor who is more directly responsible for creating economic development within the state. Furthermore, I sure as heck don’t want a U.S. Senator who thinks that his role is to go to Washington and send the bacon home to Maryland, no matter where the money is coming from.

But the statement  Sobhani makes about adding to races is more telling, and perhaps explains well why he’s gone from staunch support of Republicans to backing Democrats. I’m not sure what Steve Cohen adds to his race since he’s in a D+23 district anyway, but Pooran shares Sobhani’s Iranian heritage.

Yet in order to have a chance to do as Rob says and “restore the quality of life we’d be proud to pass onto our children” it seems to me there should be a set of guiding principles involved. Rob oversimplifies this by saying on his campaign site that:

The parties are both locked into narrow ideological agendas that prevent them from talking to one another or working together for meaningful solutions. As an Independent, I’m not beholden to either political party. I hope to bring people of goodwill from both parties together.

One man’s “ideological agenda” is another’s principles, and among Republicans we should hold these truths to be self-evident and we should sell out our core beliefs to no one. NO ONE. There really is no middle ground between freedom and tyranny.

And don’t we have a President who promised to be “post-partisan?” That lasted about as long as it took for a Republican to show some backbone and be greeted by the President saying “I won.” Compromise, rather than fealty to the principles which made our nation strong, has placed us where we are now.

There is one other observation for me to make, and if Rob chooses to hold his cards close to the vest on this point I suppose I can understand. But it’s another question which should be asked.

Over the last few years in the Senate, there have been two independents: Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. While the are ostensibly unaffiliated, in reality both have caucused with the Democrats as Sanders is an avowed Socialist while Lieberman was once a Democratic vice-presidential nominee and won his seat in 2006 despite losing in the Democratic primary and re-entering the race as an independent.

So let’s say Sobhani defies the odds and pulls the upset. Will he caucus with the Republicans because that’s his traditional political home and the side from which he seems to be pulling more support, or will he caucus with the Democrats based on the fact his Senior Senator is in that caucus? Or will he wait and see other results so he can gravitate to the winning side? Imagine the scenario of Mitt Romney winning the White House but the Democrats controlling the Senate by a 50-49 margin – will he sell his position to the highest bidder like just another business deal?

At some point he’s going to have to choose.

It’s a shame, though, that it appears Dan Bongino doesn’t want to include Rob Sobhani in the debates (at least that’s how the AP story depicts it.) Let Rob’s voice be heard, and let him answer some tough questions. I’m sure I would have some more.

Ben Cardin’s been in office for 46 years, and Dan Bongino has been on the campaign trail for 16 months. If money can buy a Senate seat, I suppose we will find out from a guy who’s barely been at it for six months and only officially announced four weeks ago.

Update: Mark Newgent at Red Maryland has unearthed the pitch sheet Sobhani used to gather signatures. I didn’t know that Rob was “pro-choice and supports gay rights,” did you? I’ll concede that, indeed, these issues are less important than fixing the economy (although Sobhani’s plan is dubious in itself – after all, wasn’t Solyndra a sort of public-private partnership?) but America is also better-served by those who believe in upholding traditional morals.

Poll results disappointing to MD conservatives

The most recent Maryland Poll by Gonzales Research came out on Wednesday, and the results can only be described as disheartening to Maryland conservatives, who have their work cut out for them in the last month of the campaign. (Hat tip to Maryland Reporter for the link.)

First, the terrible topline numbers here in the state:

  • President: Barack Obama (D) 55, Mitt Romney (R) 36
  • U.S. Senate: Ben Cardin (D) 50, Dan Bongino (R) 22, Rob Sobhani (I) 21
  • Question 4 (in-state tuition for illegal aliens): For 58, Against 34
  • Question 6 (legalizing gay marriage): For 51, Against 43
  • Question 7 (expanding gambling): For 45, Against 46
  • President Obama has a 54% favorable rating, with 32% unfavorable
  • Vice-President Joe Biden has a 47% favorable rating, with 34% unfavorable
  • Mitt Romney has a 35% favorable rating, with 50% unfavorable
  • Paul Ryan has a 36% favorable rating, with 38% unfavorable

Gonzales did not poll on Question 5 (redistricting) or any of the Congressional races; in the latter case it’s likely because the sample sizes would be too small for reliable results. 813 self-proclaimed likely voters made up this sample.

One thing I have always liked about the Gonzales surveys is their willingness to provide the actual numbers. Instead of massaging the results to a certain turnout model, the Maryland Poll is set up to reflect the electorate based on party registration – so 56% of the respondents were Democrats, 30% Republicans, and the remainder unaffiliated. This closely matches the state’s current voter registration totals.

Because of that, some trends can be determined. For example, as a percentage fewer Democrats are behind Barack Obama (81%) than Republicans backing Romney (86%). This is because there’s always been a percentage of Democrats in Maryland who are simply registered as Democrats but often vote for Republicans. It’s President Obama’s 88% approval rating among black voters (which matches their lockstep 88% support) that saves his bacon in Maryland.

On the other hand, though, Democrats strongly back political lifer Ben Cardin (74%) while Republicans are just 60% behind Dan Bongino, their U.S. Senate nominee. The presence of onetime Republican-turned-independent Rob Sobhani is all but destroying GOP chances of posting an upset in the race, since Cardin is only at 50 percent. This is because Sobhani is taking more votes away from Bongino (22% of Republicans) than Cardin (16% of Democrats.) More troublesome is that these numbers are undermining Bongino’s stated intention of making inroads into the minority community, because just 8% of black voters support him but 15% back Sobhani, who was born in America but is of Iranian origin.

Meanwhile, the political correctness bug seems to be biting some of the squishier members of the GOP. While the state party has come out against these issues in a broad manner by supporting the idea of “repealing O’Malley’s laws” the Maryland Poll finds 29% of Republicans are for in-state tuition for illegal aliens, 17% support gay marriage, and 35% are in favor of expanding gambling. Could this be the Bradley effect manifested in a different manner? There’s no way to tell.

Overall these numbers are quite disappointing, but the silver lining which exists in them is now we know where to focus our efforts. For one thing, we are close enough on some races that enhancing GOP turnout could turn the election, particularly on Questions 6 and 7.

It’s also important to remember that a number of Congressional races could hinge on turnout as well. Simply based on voter registration numbers it’s clear that Eric Knowles, Faith Loudon, and Frank Mirabile have the steepest uphill battles but there’s more possibility of an upset from Tony O’Donnell, Nancy Jacobs, or Ken Timmerman. Even Roscoe Bartlett could fall into the “upset” category based on the gerrymandering Democrats did to make his seat endangered for Republicans.

There is one other observation regarding the races I need to make. Given the 19-point advantage Barack Obama enjoys here in the formerly Free State, it’s clear he probably won’t be spending any money in the local Baltimore television market. (Washington, D.C. is a different story because Virginia is in play.) Yet that commercial time is being vacuumed up by the millions of dollars both sides are spending on debating Question 7.

Because of that simple fact, it will be harder for those advocating other ballot issues and downticket candidates to afford television time, and that works against both sides equally. This makes the retail and social media campaigns that much more important because one easy outlet is no longer as readily available.

You may ask why I’m so strident on some of these issues. In my case, there’s a lot of areas where they crossed my line in the sand a long time ago and I’m simply fighting a sort of guerrilla war trying to beat things back where I can. But like Benjamin Netanyahu, we need to pull out our red Sharpie and draw our own line this time around because once that’s passed there is no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Once we allow illegal immigrants in-state tuition, the next thing they’ll want is full amnesty and voting rights – never mind they have broken numerous laws by crossing the border (or overstaying their visa) while thousands who try to do things the correct way are denied or face long delays in receiving what’s due for them. Crime is not supposed to pay.

Once we tell Democrats it’s okay to ignore geography and cynically make up Congressional districts which place people with little in common together for base political interests, there’s no telling what other steps they’ll take to dictate what they determine is fair representation. Obviously political affiliation is a fickle standard, but when only 56% of voters are registered Democrat should they have 88% of the Congressional representation? Obviously it could work out that way even if the state was scrupulously and evenly divided based simply on existing geographic lines, equalizing population, and contiguity, but I suspect it would not.

Once we allow gay marriage to pass, then the question becomes what will be legitimized next: plural marriage, marriage between adults and children, or some other bastardization of the concept? Where does the line get drawn? Despite common misguidance, marriage is NOT a right and despite the best efforts of the gay lobby to promote the idea this quest shouldn’t be equated with the civil rights movement of a half-century ago. As this group points out, there are no “gay only” drinking fountains.

Certainly people of any gender can be in a loving relationship with one of their own gender, but as far as the legal concepts of marriage our state already covers it. What was wrong with civil unions? I could live with that as a compromise which preserves, as much as possible in this day and age, the sanctity of marriage.

I’ve seen elections where people down double-digits in polling have come back to win in the last week, and a month is an eternity in political circles. Just a month ago Wendy Rosen was a game but underfunded challenger to Andy Harris until the startling allegation she voted twice in two consecutive elections, and now Democrats are reduced to pinning their hopes on a write-in candidacy. So anything is possible, good or bad.

But polls make news, and this poll certainly garnered a lot of attention across the state. The question is whether we can make it a “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment.

Hammering home the point

If there’s one thing which can be said about Dan Bongino, it’s that he is very, very telegenic. Here’s an example: this interview with Ginni Thomas at the Daily Caller. (I had issues last night with this video so sorry, no embed.)

The only complaint I would have about the video is questioning why they had to use the profile camera angle when both parties aren’t involved in the shot. It makes Dan look like he wouldn’t look you in the eye and in my dealings with him there’s nothing further from the truth.

But if you have forty minutes this is a valuable chance to hear what Bongino has to say, in depth. It’s the raw video from one which was culled by Anthropocon‘s Jim Jamitis and praised by conservatives like Sarah Palin. I didn’t know it existed until I looked for a better source to embed the first video.

Having been involved in politics for almost twenty years, I’ve found there are rare people who seem to cut through the political crap and are genuine. I would put Dan in this category, even though I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says. Let’s just put it this way: unlike his opponent, I wouldn’t have to be convinced he’s my friend.

So how is the Bongino campaign going? Well, the conventional wisdom is that Ben Cardin is safe, so there’s no recent polling. The most recent poll I found is a PPP Poll from 2010 which had Cardin defeating a generic Republican 51-33. (The poll was intended to match him up with Michael Steele, who Cardin beat 58-28.) But it’s telling that in the poll Cardin only had a 42% approval rating, with 28% disapproval. Against the current partisan breakdown of Maryland voters, the poll oversamples Democrats by 4 points and Republicans by about 1 point, so I suspect Cardin would be polling under 50 percent now. More recently, the Gonzales Research Maryland Poll from January had Cardin with 51% approval, but it didn’t project a primary opponent.

The same polling company did a survey last October which stated Cardin had 32% who “definitely would” vote for him with 25% saying the opposite. Supposedly 1/3 of Republicans would consider voting for Cardin, but they hadn’t met Dan Bongino yet. Considered in that respect, with that seven-point margin it’s a little surprising that people believe Maryland is safe Cardin territory, but they’re probably basing that simply on the 56-26 Democrat partisan advantage in the state. One thing about a significant percentage of Maryland Democrats, though: they’re not necessarily party loyalists.

Yet Dan Bongino is ceding no ground and Ben Cardin’s not covering a whole lot of it. Apparently Ben’s counting on that $1.5 million in the bank to carpetbomb the state with 30-second commercials, but it’s possible Cardin may be aced out by the massive spending on issues like Question 7. There’s only so much commercial time available and television stations are licking their chops, imagining a robust bottom line thanks to at least $11 million spent so far by gambling interests.

So in this case grassroots may be more important than money, and I’d rather side with the true conservative believers than the hired guns who are in it for the box lunch or time off work on Election Day, like this rent-a-mob.

As Bongino said:

I will not let the Republican Party cede the moral high-ground to a Party driven by lofty intentions and failed results. Time to take off the gloves and fight for what we know is the right path forward.

Speaking of Dan, this also gives me an opportunity to update yesterday’s post on the Libya response. Bongino added these remarks in a release today:

The Administration’s continuing claims that the Libyan protests, which resulted in the horrific deaths of four Americans along with our Ambassador, were the result of unpredictable, spontaneous protest activity are either intentionally deceptive or demonstrate complete incompetence.

Having spent over a decade reviewing threat assessments from all over the world, it is hard to believe that given the amount of information Libyan officials claim to have passed to the U.S. government regarding the active terrorist threat to our personnel on the ground, that the Administration sincerely believes this deadly assault to be spontaneous. There are only two potential answers, either the threat to our personnel was ignored due to incompetence or political concerns regarding the approaching election influenced the allocation of security forces to the region. I am calling upon the State Department to immediately release any information related to the threat assessment which led to the sub-standard and deadly security footprint in Benghazi.

The Hillary Clinton State Department? I’m not holding my breath that she’s going to fall on a sword for Obama. Interesting times indeed.

But returning to my main point: we have to believe this race is winnable because a lot has changed in the six years since Ben Cardin eked out a surprisingly close 10-point victory over Michael Steele – in an awful year for Republicans. Cardin is not the shoo-in people think he is, so let’s get to work and prove the conventional wisdom wrong once again.

54-40 – so fight!

Those who favor the redefinition of marriage to include those nuptials involving same-sex couples are crowing once again about a poll showing their side in the lead. (h/t: Old Line Elephant.) The poll, done by Hart Associates, shows that the 504 likely voters split 54-40 in favor of keeping the new law, while 515 likely black voters are almost evenly divided on the issue, falling 45-44 against the bill. Moreover, Hart claims their numbers are improved from a previous March poll, where the measure would pass by a 51-43 margin with black voters opposed 49-40.

But if you read further into the Hart polling and compare it to another poll done recently by a pro-gay marriage group, Public Policy Polling, it can be argued that support for the measure is receding. The PPP figures went from 52-44 in favor in March to 57-37 in May – and 55-36 support in the black community.

Perhaps the Obama flip-flop on gay marriage moved the needle in the black community for a time, but that wave may have crested. If you look at the Hart and PPP results on a timeline, gay marriage has lost 19 points in two months among blacks and 6 points among all voters. And remember, it was just a year ago – before the well-funded propaganda blitz by those who believe same-sex marriage is a measure of “equality” rather than an attempt to legitimize what some consider a deviant lifestyle came to pass – that the issue trailed by two points among Maryland voters. A similar margin was found as recently as this past January in the Gonzales Research Maryland Poll.

And lost among these numbers as well is that both PPP and Hart are reliably Democratic pollsters, so since Democrats favor gay marriage enough to make it part of their 2012 platform these pollsters would naturally favor a position to make that side look good and discourage the opposition. The game is revealed in the Hart summary, where they write:

The bottom line is that a November win for marriage equality at the ballot box in Maryland is well within our grasp.

On the other hand, other pollsters which are more open about who they sample can be a little more trustworthy.

Also worthy of mention was that the Hart polling occurred before we saw the reaction on “Chick-fil-A” day – presumably the huge crowd we had in the local stores would be strongly against adopting gay marriage in Maryland, and they turned out to show that support for traditional values. Certainly a few who may have been neutral on the subject could have changed their minds upon seeing the tactics used against Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy for his pro-family stance.

Now as far as I’m concerned a “win for marriage equality” is a loss for the values which made this country great. I’ve said before that I have no problem with civil unions, but gay marriage to me is just another step toward rendering the term meaningless through eventually allowing polyamory and perhaps even adult-child partnerships. Give it a couple decades.

But the timing of conducting and releasing what amounts to a “push poll” (since we don’t have any indication about the sample composition, meaning it was probably weighted to areas and groups more likely to favor gay marriage) is interesting given the vast hordes who joined me in descending upon Chick-fil-A Wednesday. Since the so-called “equality” side certainly knew this outpouring of support for traditional values was coming – although perhaps they underestimated the amount – this poll release had to be designed to deflate whatever good news came out of the Chick-fil-A protests. I’m not buying it as a legitimate expression of support.

As Matt Newman points out at Old Line Elephant, support for same-sex marriage has generally been overstated at pre-election polls. A similar flaw in this instance puts the ballot within the margin of error, so it will be up to both sides to turn out their voters – historically this has been an advantage for conservatives despite their inferior numbers to date in Maryland. And with the plethora of issues on the ballot so far (six statewide issues, plus dozens of local initiatives) there will be a lot to attract conservatives in 2012.

Putting O’Malley on the ballot

With the recent blowup of the Change Maryland study I’ve written about a few times over the last couple weeks, it’s clear that Governor Martin O’Malley has been installed into the state’s political conversation to such a degree that we’re forgetting two key facts: one, he’s a lame-duck Governor, and two: he’s not anywhere on the 2012 ballot. Those who bemoan the fact that Democrats are running against George W. Bush two elections on (because President Bush hasn’t run for anything, even dogcatcher, since 2004) may want to consider the fact that Martin O’Malley, while representative of the typical liberal tax-and-spend philosophy, isn’t the opponent in any of these 2012 state races and each of these contests has its own dynamic.

A good example of this is Dan Bongino’s campaign, which has attempted to tie incumbent Senator Ben Cardin and O’Malley together by portraying the Senator as a mute observer of the Maryland political scene as well as the Obama re-election campaign, which IS on the ballot. (By the way, Bongino has some choice words as well about the Obama tactic of insinuating Mitt Romney is a felon.)

But there is a political reality at work when it comes to placing O’Malley as a surrogate on the 2012 ballot. The only way to really know whether O’Malley’s missteps will hurt the Democratic cause this fall is to see polling data on his approval rating, which earlier this year was pegged at 55% in a Washington Post poll and 53% in the Maryland Poll by Gonzales Research. (A useful item in the Maryland Poll is their historic polling, which showed O’Malley’s approval dipped into the upper 30’s in early 2008 after the passage of multiple tax increases the previous fall. But obviously all was forgiven by re-election time in 2010.) If O’Malley’s policies remain popular, such a negative approach toward him may backfire with voters who aren’t paying a tremendous amount of attention yet and only read the spin on his frequent Sunday morning guest appearances.

We know that MOM has been raked over the coals but good from the Change Maryland study as well as bad jobs reports and the ineptitude of the end of the regular General Assembly session this spring. We can add the tax increases passed in the first Special Session and the poor handling of proposed gambling expansion via another on-again, off-again Special Session which may occur to the chalk marks on O’Malley’s negative ledger.

Unfortunately, at this point it’s difficult to tell just how bad of a summer the Governor has had because there aren’t any major polls out there which peg O’Malley’s approval, and I’m not privy to any internal campaign polling to clarify this approach. Obviously if Governor O’Malley is in the same range as he was in early 2008, tying him into other Democratic candidates may work; otherwise, it’s simply repeating the approach of solidifying a base that should be pretty well sewn up by now. I believe that’s the analysis our side gives when we see Democrats blaming George W. Bush for the nation’s ills even though the former President has been quietly living civilian life since January of 2009, so it should probably apply to Martin O’Malley until we see more conclusive proof that the negatives are there to use as an anchor to other candidates.

Notwithstanding the handful of county races or whatever issues survive the all-but-certain judicial process to be placed on a statewide ballot, there are ten key races in Maryland and eight of them feature Democratic incumbents. (That’s eight members of Congress including the six Democrats, the U.S. Senate seat, and Presidential race.) We all know that these incumbent Democrats have run away from their records for the most part because, except in certain limited quarters, who would want to be associated with such a record of failure as that wrought by the man at the top of the ticket? Their only tactic seems to be blaming Bush and lying about how bad things were under his watch – I’d take 5% unemployment right now, how about you?

So I’d really be interested to see just how much this month has affected Martin O’Malley’s approval rating before going all-in on including him with the remaining races to be fought. Having said that, though, because Change Maryland is an organization concerned with the state of the state, I think MOM is fair game for them and I’d be disappointed if they didn’t question his tax-and spend record and its effects on the state’s economy.

If they’ve driven his negatives up to 2008 levels, using it in campaign 2012 may not be a bad play – but let’s see some evidence of that first.

Gay marriage one step closer to referendum

Update: The vote on HB438 is available here. As it turned out, one Republican (Delegate Robert Costa) voted in favor of the bill while five Democrats (Donoghue, Vallario, Alston, Kelly, and Valentino-Smith) voted against.

And now I see the strategy in going to two committees. Had the bill simply gone to the Judiciary Committee it would have been defeated on an 11-10 vote. It’s sort of a crock that it only passed one of the two committees yet still advances but that’s the way the rules go. Hopefully someday we can use them to our advantage.

By the way, Mike McDermott indeed voted no.

**********

Giving gay couples their own version of a Valentine’s Day gift, published reports indicate the same-sex marriage bill (HB438) passed a joint session of the House Judiciary and Health and Government Operations committees by a 25-18 vote. This move was a little unusual, as a similar bill only went through the Judiciary Committee last year and passed that committee by a 12-10 vote. Last year was the first time that a gay marriage bill, which has been introduced five sessions in a row, proceeded past the hearing stage.

There’s no question that if this bill passes we will see it placed to referendum – if the courts allow it – but there’s no guarantee it would be upheld by the voters. While a January Gonzales Poll found the electorate slightly favored gay marriage by a 49-47 margin, the ones who strongly oppose the measure outnumber the strong supporters by a 38-34 margin. The intent of this piece is to consider the effects on this year’s election.

Continue reading “Gay marriage one step closer to referendum”

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.

Continue reading “Odds and ends number 42”

Movin’ on out

As I’ve said from time to time on this forum and others, Maryland is the first place (besides, to a limited extent, my college alma mater) where I lived by choice. And the main reasons I moved here, as opposed to other prospective places where I could have worked like Jacksonville, Las Vegas, or Phoenix, were the somewhat rural setting and the idea that this area had plenty of room for growth. Needless to say, when compared to those urban areas, Salisbury was by far the smallest location I considered.

There are serious economic handicaps about living here which have always existed more or less, but at the time of my arrival they were held somewhat in check by the state government in place in the fall of 2004. Sure, Bob Ehrlich was no doctrinaire conservative but most of his ideas for revenue enhancement were limited to increasing user fees, and Maryland participated fully in the national economic boom which was taking place during the Ehrlich era here. Unemployment for the state was just 4.4% when Ehrlich took office and 3.6% when he left – the rate never exceeded 4.6% during his tenure. Obviously things are different now, and Maryland reflects the national situation in that respect. Oddly enough, though, the other three places I was considering were among the hardest hit by the recession, so while Salisbury never quite reached that exhilarating height this fact made the low point easier to handle.

Continue reading “Movin’ on out”

The Maryland Model (part two)

In part one I related the Maryland Model in its current state to the 2012 campaign, particularly when considering the battle to repeal the in-state tuition for illegal aliens passed last year by the General Assembly. The bill was petitioned to referendum as opponents turned the trick for the first time in over twenty years in Maryland.

As you should recall, I distilled the idea behind the Colorado Model liberal Democrats used to take over that state into four simpler M words: money, message, media, and mobilization. In this part I assess the overall shape conservatives here in Maryland exist in regarding these four issues – and we definitely need to do some work!

Continue reading “The Maryland Model (part two)”

The Maryland Model (part one)

Over the holidays I did a little bit of light reading, and while I was doing so it occurred to me that the General Assembly session is sneaking up on us rather quickly. In 2011 that session set the scene for what turned out to be one of our side’s rare successes in Maryland, the petition drive to bring the in-state tuition law for illegal aliens to referendum later this year. It appears that will be on the ballot since CASA de Maryland and other pro-illegal groups are dropping the challenge to the petition signatures and narrowing their focus to whether the referendum itself is legal while simultaneously fundraising to sustain the law at the ballot box.

That fundraising: $10 million. What that means: carpet-bombing the media with images of poor, purportedly law-abiding and successful immigrant families being denied a chance at the American Dream due to racist TEA Partiers who hate all those who look different than they do. Don’t believe me? Just watch.

And this nicely leads me into my main points of this post, which will be the first of a multipart series on what I’m calling the Maryland Model. You see, part of my reading over the holidays was this RedState article on what is called the Colorado Model, which led me to read the original post on this strategy from the Weekly Standard back in 2008. Read those articles (I’ll wait for you) then take a look at how the CASA de Maryland folks are fighting the will of the people here in the Free State.

While they have seven pieces to the puzzle in the RedState article, I’ve consolidated these to what I can call the 4 M’s: money, message, media, and mobilization.

Continue reading “The Maryland Model (part one)”

Is the MOM magic fading?

Ostensibly this was a picture taken during Martin O’Malley’s inauguration last week, with the Maryland Senate Republican Caucus (the group supplying the picture) helpfully pointing out that, “only one-quarter of the chairs stretching across Lawyer’s Mall were filled. If you subtract the police, military personnel and state staffers being paid to participate in the event, the attendance appeared to be barely 400 people.”

Of course, we lack the context of a photo taken during Parris Glendening’s 1998 inauguration, which was the last time a Maryland governor kicked off a second term. But it is interesting that, in a time when O’Malley’s job approval number surged to 58% in the latest Gonzales Research Maryland Poll released earlier this week – Gonzales may have to rethink that target in their logo, by the way – there was so little interest in his second inauguration. At the very least I would have expected a sea of purple shirts there as evidence of his most fervent backers.

One could even compare this to the mob scene which hit Washington two years ago last week as President Obama took office.

But my speculation and puzzlement occurs when I consider just how long Governor O’Malley will keep that solid 58% approval rating given some of the shenanigans he’s once again pulling to balance the budget.

As a few examples, the House Republican Caucus states that O’Malley’s proposed FY2012 budget will:

  • pull $120 million out of the Transportation Trust Fund to pay for non-transportation projects. Many Democrats in the General Assembly would like to fill that hole the only way they know how – by raising the gasoline tax by up to 15 cents per gallon.
  • transfer $90 million from the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund to the General Fund, so your flush tax is being flushed down the drain of general state spending instead of cleaning up the Bay.
  • assume there’s $39 million to give state employees who qualify a $750 bonus and five days’ paid administrative leave.

And while O’Malley hasn’t openly pushed for any tax increases, it’s doubtful he’ll say no if increases – like a higher gasoline tax or the “dime a drink” alcohol tax – are pushed through the General Assembly. We’ll see what happens to O’Malley’s approval rating once these taxes begin hitting the working Maryland families he claims to care about.