It’s no secret that being the incumbent means you receive slings and arrows from your opposition, and Maryland’s U.S. Senate race is no different. But the two leading contenders recently leveled their artillery on different targets.
Of the two leading Republicans, it seems Jim Rutledge has been a little more savage against incumbent Barbara Mikulski. Here he berates the 74-year old incumbent, who’s no stranger to medical devices after recent ankle surgery, for opposing an amendment to exempt veterans from a tax on certain medical devices.
With the sheer frenzy of candidates filing earlier this week, my e-mail box was filled with other news. But instead of making a long series of posts, a good editor can pick out the relevant points in a paragraph or two and that’s what I’ll do here.
Needless to say, I receive frequent dispatches from a number of candidates. In the race for U.S. Senate, Eric Wargotz was proud he won a ballot to be the featured candidate for “Ten-Buck Fridays” as he explains:
Ten congressional candidates are nominated each week. Whoever receives the most votes is announced Friday. All of the web site and blog sponsors spread the word on the winner across the web to conservative sites and encourage all visitors to the sites to donate. In essence, they promote a $10 per donation money bomb for the winning candidate of that particular week.
I checked it out last evening and Eric won with 673 votes. I’m not sure how that will translate into actual donations, so I suppose this goes in the category of “every little bit helps.”
Oddly enough, Eric’s opponent Jim Rutledge used something Senator Scott Brown (who had assistance in getting elected from Wargotz) said in blasting incumbent Democrat Barb Mikulski:
Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts summed up the philosophical differences in Washington regarding how Congress should provide solutions. Sen. Brown said, “It’s the checking account versus the credit card.” Democrats like Barbara Mikulski want to spend and tax their way out of a recession while conservatives like Jim Rutledge believe we need to lower taxes, cut spending, and reduce the deficit. Rutledge said, “President Reagan showed us that America can grow and prosper by reducing the size of government and lowering taxes.”
One thing Rutledge forgot to add was that Reagan did it with a Congress controlled by Democrats, at least in the House. But Jim didn’t forget to let me know he was endorsed by Delegate Pat McDonough.
Endorsements are a funny thing – sometimes they are useful and sometimes they bite you in the behind. Given President Obama’s track record on campaigning for other candidates, perhaps Martin O’Malley may regret this statement from the One:
Since being elected Governor in 2006, Martin O’Malley has been a true champion for the people of Maryland.
He has restored a sense of fiscal responsibility and helped the state grow sustainably, expanding access to health care coverage and continuing to improve Maryland’s schools, while also restoring the Chesapeake Bay. His four-year freeze on college tuition brought the cost of higher education within reach of middle-class families.
Governor O’Malley has a lot more to contribute to your state — and I hope you will do your part to ensure he has four more years to continue his work.
Actually, if he’s re-elected Governor O’Malley will likely make sure We the People of the Free State are forced to contribute a lot more. It’s funny that President Obama left out the increased tax burden and job losses Maryland has endured under O’Malley’s watch. It seems the only sustainable growth we have is in the unemployment rate.
And as Dave Schwartz of Americans for Prosperity reminds us:
Yes, President Obama, Martin O’Malley has a lot to contribute – a lot of deficit spending and budgets balanced on the backs of the counties and working people of Maryland.
Tomorrow I pick on O’Malley’s television ad. It should be fun.
Heeding the admonition of The Tarrance Group, a national polling firm, Eric Wargotz’s campaign has removed a “misleading” poll citation from its website.
Wargotz’s Senatorial campaign trumpeted the data in a Wednesday press release claiming “Wargotz leads Mikulski by 3% in recent poll.” While the data was indeed correct, Tarrance warned that as a basis for a realistic snapshot of the county’s electorate the poll couldn’t be trusted because of its small sample size of 41 people and the fact it only encompassed the portion of Baltimore County lying within the First Congressional District.
A controversy over a statement Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Wargotz made to the Baltimore Jewish Times last October has grabbed some notice in a summer where voters are focused on the race for governor.
The Jewish Times remarks got the attention of fellow Examiner Scott Strzelczyk, who hammered Wargotz’s announced stance on immigration as “misleading” Republican voters. In his post Strzelczyk quoted Wargotz as telling the BJT reporter, “I was very disappointed that President Obama stated that he wouldn’t pay health care for illegal immigrants.”
While some GOP aspirants in the First District Congressional and U.S. Senate races continue to trust old media with some of their advertising, most key contenders are still focusing on free media.
Eric Wargotz is back on the radio with the fourth in his series of 60-second spots, this entitled, “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.” In the commercial, he notes, “I know first hand the detrimental affect (sic) that over regulation and an oppressive tax bourdon (sic) have on job creation,” based on his experience in private medical practice.
On Saturday I went to a secluded farm hard by the Worcester County line in order to attend a fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rutledge. Looked pretty well packed from here.
I think the Daily Times did a decent piece on the event but underestimated the crowd a little bit. Perhaps one can count the number of people in the picture.
Rutledge gave about thirty minutes’ worth of remarks.
Jim pounded on a number of his campaign points, including:
Lowering taxes – “at heart, I’m still a Ronald Reagan conservative.” Jim vowed to repeal the tax code in its entirety if elected and replace it with a flat tax with few deductions. To spur investment Jim would also dump the capital gains tax.
Limited government – “the (federal government) beast is out of its cage.” On the other hand, “the Constitution is a forgotten document” and “the family is the fundamental unit of government.” One thing he could do to limit government would be to defund Obamacare – “we still have the purse strings in Congress” – since the political reality is that Obama is President until at least 2013.
National security – this includes border security. Jim excoriated Barbara Mikulski for applauding Mexican President Felipe Calderon for trashing our laws before Congress but otherwise being “missing in inaction” on the full scope of national security.
After he gave his remarks, Rutledge invited those attending to ask their own questions. Among them were some which touched on other issues he didn’t bring up during his remarks.
On how to attract conservative Democrats: he’s launched campaign operations in Democratic strongholds already. Among issues, illegal immigration is a “huge issue” in the black community and school vouchers are also a winning issue. “Bold talk will bring across independents.”
I asked about the impact of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. Why not convene the best and brightest to attack the problem, asked Jim back. He attacked the federal government, saying their bungling made them co-responsible. Turning to energy in general, Jim criticized the “unreasonable fear” of nuclear energy but still supports additional oil and natural gas exploration, calling it “a matter of national security…life and death.”
Regarding immigration, Jim opined the Arizona SB1070 bill is “constitutional” and noted that blanket amnesty would be a reward for breaking the law. One idea he floated seemed acceptable to those attending – “when folks want to come (to America) they need to post bond.” If they overstayed their visas, there could be a process of finding scofflaws for a reward just like those who skip bond in criminal cases.
Why not the FairTax (a consumption-based tax)? The flat tax needs to come first because it can be adopted faster, said Rutledge. We only need “a revenue source for necessary services” but if the Sixteenth Amendment isn’t repealed as a consumption tax is adopted we’ll be stuck with both.
Government cuts Jim would make: stopping overseas commitments like what we’re pledging to help out Greece, abolishing Congressional pensions, and “we have to get out of the grant business.”
Regarding the Middle East and Afghanistan, Jim struck a bit of an isolationist tone. Because the mission isn’t well-defined, “we’re in a world of hurt” in Afghanistan. It is our job to defend our own sovereign state.
Jim predicted parts of the Obamacare bill will be struck down in court. It’s not among those items authorized for Congress to do in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Someone asked how illegal immigrants have court standing. They have due process, stated Jim, but the immigration courts are “broken” and the message from our government is “a green light” to illegal immigration.
How do we fight teachers’ unions? Jim believes in “strong” schools but the unions “serve themselves.” He pointed out that he’s been endorsed by the National Right-To-Work organization.
Yet we didn’t just stand around and listen to Rutledge speak. There was good food, too.
We also had the chance to arrange for ourselves a mini-vacation as well as other silent auction items.
Participants also had the chance to take a hayride, ride around the farm on all-terrain vehicles, pitch horseshoes, or just gab among themselves regarding the events of the day. This wasn’t one of those stuffy fundraisers where the candidate zips in and zips out, or you had to buy access by being a VIP – Jim was accessible to all comers and many took the opportunity. Plus they got to meet a number of other local candidates who attended.
Now I like Jim, but perhaps the best thing he’s done in this campaign is make my heretofore apolitical significant other believe in a candidate. If he can inspire more like her Jim has a great chance of making it through the primary and knocking off a Senator who’s been there too long to stay in touch with her state.
Local voters will get the opportunity to help out the U.S. Senate campaign of a conservative seeking to unseat one of Harry Reid’s Maryland toadies.
It was a year ago this coming weekend some of us were introduced to Jim Rutledge as the Lower Shore Young Republicans held a fundraiser, while others met him shortly afterward at a Wicomico County Republican Club meeting last June.
For a small price ($25 per person is the “suggested” donation, kids under 16 free) you can meet and greet the Senate candidate this Saturday. It’s a pig roast and barbecue being held at 32625 Spearin Road, southeast of Salisbury. (Take Snow Hill Road south from Salisbury and turn left on Spearin Road to the last farm on the right – if you hit the Worcester County line you went too far.)
Granted, even getting 100 people to pay $25 apiece isn’t going to make much of a dent in the incumbent’s $2.7 million cash on hand (primarily garnered from special interest groups, trial lawyers, unions, and other PACs) but making her spend that money to defend the seat creates a situation where she can’t help anyone else. As opposed to other GOP candidates, there’s local people campaigning for Jim on the street and yard signs large and small being put up by local supporters.
You may also run into a number of other local GOP candidates at this event, so it can be a “one-stop shop” for getting to know local officeseekers. If you’d like to support one of the conservatives trying to turn Maryland and the U.S. Senate in the right direction, it’s easy to do: please R.S.V.P. (include the names of each person attending) and contact Don Coffin at 410-860-2111 or e-mail dcoffin@ezy.net.
Dogged by a rumor that he’s dropping his U.S. Senate bid to run for Attorney General, Jim Rutledge took the occasion to fire back at his opponents. Calling the allegation, “probably the first of many desperate acts that voters will see from liberal opponents,” Rutledge claimed it as a sign he’s winning over Republican voters.
You know, it’s really hard to be stuck indoors at a convention in a place with a view like this.
Yep, it was a little windy Friday afternoon when I shot that brief video. This was prior to the first of four seminars I attended as the event was billed as a training convention. Now, because of a scheduling conflict I had to miss the Executive Committee meeting but Kim and I did arrive in time to enjoy the hospitality of various candidate suites – in truth, the partying spilled onto the Princess Royale’s pool deck.
One Senate candidate made the most of his presence there, festooning the venue with signage. It began with this creative use of bumper stickers.
Several balconies had Wargotz’s signage, so it was a good thing Eric had a special one by his suite.
Governor Gary Johnson led the state of New Mexico from 1995-2003, winning an election as an outsider who was told he had little chance of winning (it was his first electoral contest.) Here’s Eric and Gary together – it’s one of two pictures I took (the other will likely be on his campaign site sometime soon.)
I’ll come back to Johnson later. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that fellow U.S. Senate hopeful Jim Rutledge also had a presence there, with a table near the registration desk.
Rutledge did come down on Saturday to meet and greet conventiongoers.
But if the MDGOP was anticipating a lot of revenue from table rental, they had to be sorely disappointed. Aside from Rutledge and the debut of Americans for Limited Government as a presence, not much was to be found on the tables.
This table on Friday night showed the undercurrent of competition.
As I mentioned earlier, part of the idea behind this convention was to conduct training for Central Committee members. I sat in on four seminars: voter vault training, new media, treasurer’s training, and a panel discussion led by Audrey Scott and featuring General Assembly members Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio and Senators David Brinkley, Nancy Jacobs, and Allan Kittleman. Of the four that was the most interesting, but I learned something new at each and I suppose that was the intent.
I think I’m going to treat the panel discussion as a separate post because a lot of interesting statements were uttered. So let’s skip to lunch and its two guest speakers.
Being introduced by GOP Chair Audrey Scott, who said “we need Bob back to make this a business-friendly state,” Ehrlich pretty much stuck to his stock speech. Most of us knew that “Maryland has been good to us” and “the last grudge match I had was in middle school.”
To Bob, “progress” in Martin O’Malley’s terms was a higher unemployment rate, 3,000 fewer businesses, increases in sales and business taxes, a so-called “living wage,” and gifts to Big Labor – all in all, a poor business climate is O’Malley’s legacy. “You don’t raise taxes on the producers,” said the former governor.
Annapolis is “never out of excuses,” continued Ehrlich, who also said that for us, jobs are “real” and not a “talking point” as they are for O’Malley. The “worst-kept secret” of a second O’Malley term would be the “monumental tax increase awaiting us.” It’s the “politics of getting over” – getting over the next year or the next election. His biggest disappointment was dealing with the schools in Baltimore (and then-Mayor O’Malley) – he accused the Democrats of not stepping up “because it was inconvenient” for them to. Never mind the kids sentenced to a below-grade education.
Addressing the TEA Party movement – a movement which “is serious” – there’s “no doubt” this “pro-opportunity” group wil help us.
While there’s little doubt that everyone in the room supports Ehrlich against O’Malley, I would’ve liked to hear from another man present – Brian Murphy.
We’re not supposed to endorse candidates pre-primary, but by all appearances the Maryland GOP has placed its lot for better or worse behind Bob Ehrlich. Yes, it can be argued that Murphy has little chance but at least he put his name on the line while someone was dithering about which race to run in – if he would run at all. I think we owed him the opportunity to speak, or else be neutral in the race and find a different keynote speaker.
The other speaker isn’t officially running for anything – at least not yet. While the list of current and former governors perhaps seeking the 2012 GOP presidential nomination is long, should Gary Johnson decide to do so we’ll have a pretty good idea of where he stands thanks to his Our America website alluded to above on Eric Wargotz’s sign.
Johnson related his experience as an entrepreneur and being told he “can’t come from outside politics to be elected” to statewide office. But he succeeded by putting “issues first and politics last.”
Perhaps his most noteworthy achievement in two terms as governor was vetoing 750 bills. He used the example of a bill to mandate pets in a store be exercised 2 hours a day, 3 days a week – who would police such a law?
That streak of libertarian thought extended to issues which were received well, like our lack of fiscal conservatism naturally leading to inflation, the “next shoe to drop” being state pension funds, and noting “I was hoping for free-market reform” on health care.
Other issues, though, may have fallen somewhat flat with those gathered, such as taking a “hard look” at the War on Drugs and “squandering our military might” on Iraq and Afghanistan. Regarding drug laws, Johnson noted that 1.8 million are arrested for drug crimes each year and 90% of that is prohibition-related rather than use-related. Instead, we should look at nations like Holland and Portugal and adopt “harm-reduction strategies.”
Gary was definitely thought-provoking, though, and may fit in as a second-tier participant should he begin the process of seeking the GOP’s highest nomination.
After lunch we got down to brass tacks and began the convention proper with Chair Audrey Scott presiding.
I must say, though, this may have been the absolute worst hall I’ve ever sat in for this sort of gathering.
I truly felt sorry for the guests who had to sit in the back, far away from the stage. You can’t tell by the picture but our group was fairly far back; we sat at the outside corner where the room narrowed.
With those surroundings, even Andy Harris didn’t fire up the troops as he could have in nicer circumstances.
Harris did wax eloquent about “taking America back” and stopping the “systematic dismantling of the American Dream” by the “gang in Washington.” To them, electing Scott Brown was “not (a) loud enough message” because they passed Obamacare anyway.
One big flaw with Obamacare Harris elaborated on was that hospitals were unwilling to make new investments because of the uncertainty. “It’s about time Congress admits its mistake (and) repeals health care,” Andy said. Another red meat comment: “when it comes to taxes, we should be the party of ‘hell no’!”
Checking in with the usual reports were our National Committeewoman, Joyce Lyons Terhes, who opined, “Michael Steele is doing an excellent job,” and that, “America is being dismantled before our very eyes.” National Committeeman Louis Pope added that our national fundraising was “right on target” and “the TEA Party is us.” The Republican National Committee is predicting a 30-60 seat House gain and 29 or 30 governorships after this election.
In her Chairman’s Report, Audrey Scott claimed that the “party was in disarray” when she took over but she’d improved both communication and finances during her brief tenure. The recent town hall meetings had gone well “beyond her wildest expectations” and she revealed that a paid Maryland Democratic Party staffer was following her during the latter stages of the tour, recording her every remark. (There was no Democratic staffer at her Wicomico stop. I’m bummed.)
An exciting upcoming event was the annual Red, White, and Blue Dinner, which will feature Mitt Romney as guest speaker.
Yet I have an editorial comment. What was the problem these big donors had with Jim Pelura? They could have opened up their wallets just as easily then and saved the party a lot of headache. Jim must not have been the fair-haired boy they wanted I guess.
Other than that, the business at hand went more or less routinely. Three of us from Wicomico County and another from Montgomery County objected to the adoption of the rules – in my case I suggested to Audrey beforehand that the “compromise” voting system be voted on separately (as they were last fall) and when they did not I objected. So there’s four people who “get it.”
But since the only resolution was to allow the Teenage Republicans a seat at the Executive Committee table the rules were no big deal. Most disappointing was the Voting Committee – who was charged with studying the issue and suggesting a solution – punting the voting system issue down the road. Their excuse this time was that an outgoing convention shouldn’t dictate rules for the next year. Well then, I guess we should rewrite the bylaws every four years then, shouldn’t we? (Actually we did a major revision this term – we just didn’t resolve the voting issue or properly adopt the worthwhile idea of regional chairs. That’s another issue the powers-that-be will find excuses to ignore for another term.)
Okay, my rant is over. For the first time that I recall, the Young Republicans didn’t have a hospitality suite on Friday night. Instead, they capitalized on current events for this idea to bridge the gap between the convention and dinner.
Speaking of dinner, I wasn’t sure about the speaker but political consultant David Winston turned out to be interesting to a numbers freak like myself.
Some of his findings:
President Bush couldn’t capitalize on the structural advantage the GOP has – we are a center-right country.
Obama’s big misstep was tackling health care and not jobs. Almost 3 times as many respondents to polling cited jobs as the key issue over health care.
Having a high disapproval rating hurts the introduction of issues – if “there’s that guy I don’t like” talking about an issue it turns voters off.
9.7% (the unemployment rate) is “the only number that matters” this cycle.
“The political center does not mean moderates.” On a sliding scale of liberal to conservative, independent voters are far closer to the GOP than they are President Obama.
Finally, our annual awards for 2009 were given out and we were pleasantly surprised!
Charles Carroll Award (Outstanding Republican Man) – Bob Ostrom
Belva Lockwood Award (Outstanding Republican Woman) – Patt Parker
Samuel Chase Award (Outstanding County) – Talbot County
William Paca Award (Outstanding Republican Youth) – Matt Teffeau
Grassroots Activist of the Year – Katie James
Aris Allen Award (Outstanding Voter Registration Effort) – Wicomico County
Obviously we won one award and as I recall we nominated Matt for his award for his work as head of the Salisbury University College Republicans. Here are the award winners with Chair Audrey Scott.
So I don’t have a completely bitter taste in my mouth for the event. It just looks like the work won’t stop on November 2nd – when I’m reelected to the Central Committee and after we beat the Democrats like a rented mule it will be time to push for much-needed reform for the MDGOP.
One idea of the relative strength of a political campaign is the amount of money it’s raised. As we stand six months out from the November elections, it’s no surprise that Maryland’s incumbent members of Congress (with one exception) lead the way in both money in both money raised and cash on hand.
In the lone statewide race, incumbent Senator Barbara Mikulski trails only Eighth District Congressman Chris Van Hollen in cash on hand with just over $2.7 million in the bank. Among her GOP challengers only Eric Wargotz has cracked the six-digit barrier in either cash on hand or total contributions to date, with Wargotz sitting on a small war chest of $118,321. So far Eric’s raised just under $200,000 for his effort, with his closest competition being Jim Rutledge and his total take of $74,709.
Bob Ehrlich surprised a group in Pikesville this morning by telling a questioner at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast that a Senate run against Barbara Mikulski was still “in the mix.”
That news may come as a shock should Ehrlich follow through with a Senate campaign, especially to a group of eleven people: the seven candidates who are already running for the Republican nomination to unseat the four-term incumbent (leading the way are Carmen Amedori, Jim Rutledge, and Eric Wargotz), the three men who explored but dropped out of the GOP race for governor (Mike Pappas, Larry Hogan, and Delegate Pat McDonough), and Brian Murphy, who might have the GOP nod handed to him as the only other active candidate seeking the Republican nomination for governor.
Much as a straw poll is somewhat helpful in determining grassroots support – but isn’t necessarily an indication of how an election will turn out – U.S. Senate Dr. Eric Wargotz may have proven he has the best supporters for stacking a straw poll.
My U.S. Senate poll came to a close early this morning (by prearrangement) and the final results out of over 5,000 votes are as follows:
Eric Wargotz 2,864 (56%)
Corrogan Vaughn 1,436 (28%)
Jim Rutledge 519 (10%)
John Kimble 144 (3%)
Carmen Amedori 138 (3%)
John Curran 5 (<1%)
Daniel McAndrew 5 (<1%)
Conclusions:
Eric’s campaign never stopped responding to the poll once it got underway. He led pretty much the entire way and kept increasing his percentage as other candidates and their supporters lost interest. The last time I did this (with just four candidates – Amedori hadn’t entered the race yet and I didn’t know Curran and Kimble had entered) Jim Rutledge picked up support toward the end but not this time.
I think Corrogan Vaughn’s camp exhibited the same phenomenon, as he and his supporters were probably the best at plugging the poll. But I’m hesitant to consider him as a real force in the race yet based on prior results. Even if you forget that the 2006 campaign had an all-but-annointed candidate in Michael Steele, Vaughn only drew 3.7% of the vote in 2004. Why is the support coming out now when the message didn’t sell before? Something doesn’t add up here.
Jim Rutledge has good supporters based on comments, but they didn’t stay for the whole poll. It makes me wonder if his backing is all that strong as I’ve found his campaign stays on message well but has spotty execution at times. Hopefully those videos are helping Jim with campaign financing too.
As for John Kimble, see Corrogan Vaughn. Most of his support came in the last day or two because prior to that he was a cypher. So my guess is that he or one of his backers caught wind of the poll and tried to make it sound like he had a little bit of backing. On the bright side, he did beat Vaughn in 2006 with 2.9% of the vote, finishing a very distant second in the primary.
I see Carmen Amedori as the “establishment” candidate based on her prior service in state government, and it sounds to me like she ignored the poll. I got a note from her that she was doing door-to-door instead, which makes sense. She’ll get far more than 3% in September, I’m certain of that.
On the other hand, McAndrew and Curran performed as expected.
At some point I’m going to do this again, perhaps later on this spring. But the next time I’m going to shorten the poll’s duration and see if I can dampen the repeat voting aspect to some extent. I had it set to one hour on my site but then again I don’t know if Polldaddy works that restriction through its site-based voting. (Now I know why I had 5,111 votes but not 5,111 readers! But readership did have a nice increase, thank you!)
I promised to put up some of the best comments for each candidate. There is no doubt that this poll was by far my best as participation goes, and I think I finally harnessed the power I envisioned when I started doing polling a few months back. These will be in order of finish, but most of the comments spoke about my top finishers and were cleaned up as needed for spelling errors and such.
“Sam” said about Dr. Eric Wargotz:
I don’t know. All are good people but very few really qualified to take a 6 year legislative hitch IMHO. I was quite taken with Dr. Eric Wargotz at the debate. Warm, comfortable, approachable style. Not stuffy and boring. Seemed to be right on with his responses. Came across very sincere and caring along with very knowledgeable. I have trouble supporting candidates for a 6 year legislative hitch if they have no elected legislative or constituent experience. I am also not a fan of politicians who are elected and then quit to take an appointed position. I feel that is a derilection of duty to the constituents who elected them. Just my view.
Jim Duncan pointed out the Facebook aspect – analytical like me:
Before you go too far in questioning the fairness of this poll, as the creator (of the poll) points out, it does appear to be consistent with each candidate’s level of support. At least with respect to the current order of finish, when you look at each campaign’s number of fans/friends on Facebook, where the candidates have pushed this poll. As best as I could tell, Eric Wargotz has by far the most support on Facebook with exactly 5000 friends. He has additional sites ranging from 126 to 1853 friends, but I will assume that most are duplicates. A distant second appears to be Corrogan Vaughn with 562, Vaughn has two other sites with 197 and 373 friends, Jim Rutledge with 514 and Carmen Amedori with 292, neither appeared to have other sites. I’ll bet there are some cross overs here as well…
Corrogan Vaughn had a number of passionate defenders for his cause. “JPS” liked his stand on the issues:
I agree with some of the above posters that we need someone who can take Baltimore city, and to add to that Vaughn can not only win Baltimore city, but he can win on solid principles. He has called for (abolishing) the IRS in place of sensible fair and simple taxation, abolishing the Department of Education because the education of our children comes from the states, and he’s serious about reining in spending. I know many have called Corrogan Vaughn the most Conservative candidate because he is deeply committed first and foremost to fiscal responsibility while maintaining social conservative values that will win over black conservative Democrats, a large voting bloc in Maryland fyi.
“Maryland Patriot” also chimed in for Vaughn:
I have worked in Maryland politics for several years on both sides of the aisle and have yet to meet an individual more honest and sincere than Corrogan Vaughn. The others are nice people, but seem to share the same disregard for the needs of everyday Marylanders as our present senator. Mr. Vaughn offers genuine solutions and ideas to the problems faced by our state and nation. He seems to be in this race out of sincere concern for Marylanders and Americans. Go Vaughn!
“Jasmine” was quite succinct:
I’m not familiar with politics here in Maryland but I will say that as a lifelong Democrat I’m switching to Republican this election to vote for Vaughn!!! Go Corrogan!
As Rush Limbaugh would say, “welcome home.” Meanwhile, Jim Rutledge supporters were in force early on. Here’s some of what they had to say, beginning with “libertypatriot”:
If you want a conservative candidate then the best candidate is Jim Rutledge. The other candidates do not possess the Constitutional knowledge and understanding that Jim possesses. While I don’t have anything personal against anyone in the race, conservatives know that Ehrlich is considered a moderate and what I’m hearing from people is Carmen is a reflection of that. Again, not making any judgment, just passing that on. Lastly, Tea Party people are tired of people already in government. We want an outsider, not an insider.
I think we all agree though… whomever ends up winning the Republican primary… needs to take down Mikulski. That’s the real end game.
In looking at her record, Amedori isn’t particularly moderate compared to some of her peers, regardless Wayne Ehrensberger said:
I have talked with Jim Rutledge at length on a wide range of topics. I can assure everyone that he is a staunch constitutional conservative, of solid moral character, knows the issues and fully articulates well thought out responsive plans and ideas. These same traits cannot be applied to Dr. Wargotz. Jim is a successful, experienced businessman. He is well versed in the politics although admittedly not a “veteran” politician. And that is certainly a good thing. What we obviously don’t need are more long term politicians. We need to put in place those that are in tune with the private sector that most of us work in and who understand, appreciate and will honestly adhere to the Constitution.
I am closely associated with several of Jim’s support staff. We knew each other before any of us were even aware of Jim Rutledge. These individuals would never align themselves with someone who isn’t a pure Constitutionalist. That of course also goes for me. I don’t possess any great incite into the remaining candidates, but I don’t really need to. The simple fact is that they are not Jim Rutledge. He is the individual that must win the seat currently held by Mikulski. Then we will finally have someone that truly represents We the People.
If anyone is interested in learning more about the Constitutional Conservative/Tea Party movement, I offer you two “Groups” based here in Maryland that you should check out and consider joining – allianceofamericanpatriots.org and restoreamericasmission.org. You will find yourself in company with many Maryland Patriots as well as the same from across the Nation.
Even the few Amedori supporters got their points across, with the best being “NRAD”:
I was at the debate in MoCo and by no fault of the YR’s the venue was pretty lousy for all the candidates. There was no PA system and there were barriers in the middle of the room. So by all standards ALL the candidates did a pretty decent job considering they had to shout at the top of thier voices so the people in the back and behind the walls could hear. By no means, should that be a gauge of anything. I will note that in all my days in politics it is always the front runner who takes the worst beating. May I suggest, however, that we not beat up on the GOP candidates. I bet Ronald Reagan would be turning in his grave by such antics.
Now, my candidate is Amedori for many reasons. And her experience is in the private and public sector – such a fabric upon which sound and wise decisions can be made. It is going to take that fortitude to take on the corruption in D.C. She has never shied away from a good fight. I remember her when she confronted then Lt. Gov Townsend and the way she always took on Joe Curran in Judiciary Committee. This woman is relentless. And, in my opinion, it is going to take a strong woman to take the fight to Babs. Amedori will surely do that. She has a conservative voting record to reflect her positions. Seems to me that anyone can say what they will do but we really need to look at what has been done. She is 100% pro life, 100% small business having been a recipient of The Shaw Award with MD Business for Responsive Government. And she is a fiscal conservative. All of that is reflected in her voting record. That is why Amedori has my vote.
The poll and comments are available here. While I’m changing my poll today, I must say this version was a memorable one!
