Tag: Maryland Politics

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.

The TEA Party is not a loser

Sorry about the time away, but now things are back to normal in my new locale.

I’m catching up on some things I meant to respond to, with one being a December 31 post by Richard Cross at Cross Purposes which picked Maryland political winners and losers. I’m not going to quibble with the other seven items, but I don’t think the TEA Party in Maryland was a loser in 2010. After all, Cross also picked “insurgent Republicans” as one of his four winners and the TEA Party was a big part of getting those insurgents elected.

“The makings of a political farm team consisting of young, energetic, upwardly-mobile candidates” has been a GOP goal for many years, but Cross chooses to focus on the electoral losses of TEA Party darlings Jim Rutledge and Brian Murphy. Certainly those two were my personal picks, but the TEA Party was victorious on the local level in getting that GOP bench in place.

It’s also worth mentioning that Rutledge and Murphy have placed themselves in a position to run for future office. I don’t see another Senate run for Jim, but many have postulated that he could run for another statewide office in 2014 – perhaps Attorney General, as he was rumored to do this year. Certainly the GOP could use a candidate there. And with Bob Ehrlich out of the picture, one could use the example of recycling 2008 Presidential hopefuls like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee on a national scale to presume Murphy as a gubernatorial player in 2014 (along with the possibilities of those who dropped out earlier like Pat McDonough, Larry Hogan, and Charles Lollar.)

Yet it’s Richard’s contention that “(the TEA Party) never approached the level of relevance and organization evident in other states, and its influence will only wane over time” which I object most to. Perhaps he wasn’t in Annapolis over the weekend to see over 200 conservative activists get together to plan for the next electoral cycles. (If it weren’t for having already picked the day to move, it may have been over 201.)

So you have 200 activists all ready to continue fighting and teaching, as they’ll influence their circle and those influenced will spread the word even farther. I’ll grant the political landscape of Maryland makes the fight an uphill battle, but I don’t believe the TEA Party has breathed their last in the Free State. Cross is wrong in picking this movement as a loser.

Conservatives in Maryland CAN

In three weeks, we may be seeing the beginnings of the TEA Party moving into its rightful place at the head of the Maryland political table. Yes, we have to wait until 2014 for the next statewide election but the process is moving in the right direction with a meeting of the minds coming up on Saturday, January 8th. Instead of being outside looking in (as they were at the recent GOP convention, where the picture is from) they are the organizers of the event – ironically set in the same locale of the Doubletree Hotel in Annapolis.

Organizers believe it will be the catalyst for future gains.

“To our knowledge, nothing like this has been done before in Maryland,” said Ann Corcoran, Washington County blogger and one of the organizers. “We expect like-minded activists to share ideas and talents, forge alliances, sound the call for action, and give rise to conservative voices so that political competition can thrive in Maryland.”

Added Howard County activist Tonya Tiffany, “We’ll be talking about 2010 campaign lessons, precinct organization, voter fraud, media outreach, running for office as a citizen legislator, and federal pressures bearing down on the state of Maryland. We’re not forming another political ‘group’ (but) trying to network people.” 

With a roster of speakers well-known to conservative activists statewide, this daylong event was set up to give TEA Party faithful and their allies around the state the opportunity to converse and plan a strategy for future political gains. The speakers include:

  • Marta Mossburg, Maryland Public Policy Institute
  • Claver Kamau-Imani, Raging Elephants
  • Anita MonCrief, ACORN whistleblower and creator, Emerging Corruption.com
  • Delegate Ron George
  • Congressman Andy Harris
  • Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins
  • Delegate-elect Kathy Afzali
  • Charles Lollar (2010 Congressional candidate)
  • Robert Broadus (2010 Congressional candidate)
  • Brian Murphy (2010 gubernatorial candidate)

All this (and more) packed into eight hours for a cost of $40, which includes a box lunch. A registration form can be found here, or by contacting Tonya Tiffany at marylandcan@yahoo.com.

Another falls for the ‘green energy’ scam

And to think, if I didn’t have Martin O’Malley as a Facebook friend I wouldn’t have noticed this. We’ll see how long that lasts before I’m defriended! Then again, just because I didn’t vote for him either time doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have a say in state affairs, particularly when a dose of common sense is needed.

It all stems from an article by Erin Cunningham in the Gazette detailing a Montgomery County resolution on wind turbines. The Montgomery County Council (all Democrats, of course) unanimously approved a measure calling on the Maryland General Assembly to “pass legislation requiring the state’s Public Service Commission to direct public utilities to enter into long-term contracts for offshore wind power.”

Gee, a little more government interference in business – just what the state needs! </sarc>

Needless to say, Governor O’Malley was thrilled about the news and asked a question on his Facebook page:

I believe that wind power and other alternative energy sources will help our state move forward in a sustainable way. Do you think it is important that we invest in clean, green sources of energy?

After reading about 50 or so mostly deluded sycophants and hangers-on, it was time to set them straight as I often like to do.

Sure, the wind blows a nice, steady speed all the time and the sun comes out 12 hours each and every day. Wait, you’re telling me that’s not true?

There’s a reason we depend on coal and natural gas to create the electricity we need – they are both RELIABLE sources. And, contrary to popular belief created by those with an agenda in both the press and in government, both are in plentiful supply. In fact, there’s a nice supply of natural gas locked under the hills of far western Maryland.

Instead, your administration would rather shake down energy producers and distributors with a phony carbon-trading scheme (RGGI) that simply serves as a device for wealth redistribution while propping up the ‘green’ energy industries with a subsidy to artificially make these other sources come to a competitive price point.

In a time where our budget needs to be prioritized and the burden on job producers needs to be lightened, these so-called ‘investments’ probably aren’t the best use of tax dollars. If the person from Dorchester County thinks wind power is that important and would be such a good investment they should be happy to pony up $40,000 and not rely on the state for a handout.

It’s also worthy to note that Cunningham’s article says Montgomery County gets 25 percent of its electricity from wind power. Perhaps someone should compare price and verify if that’s a prudent use of tax dollars?

I have little objection to the state making an effort to assist local property owners who wish to use alternative sources of energy (although I wouldn’t consider it a funding priority in these lean budgetary times) but I recall one expert in the field who would prefer to streamline the process and invested his own funding before getting a dime back from the state of Maryland. The state is in the position to make it easier and less expensive if they so desire.

My larger objection comes from the state mandating how the energy required to produce electricity needs to be harnessed. There are two good reasons we rely on burning coal and natural gas, as I alluded to in my comment: they are relatively inexpensive, quite efficient, and sources are fairly reliable. (They would be moreso if Washington scrapped its wrongheaded approach to energy exploration.)

Seems to me the usage of windmills as power providers in rural areas ended over a half-century ago once the government decided to force utilities to bring electricity to sparsely populated areas and farmers found being wired into the grid to be much a more reliable means of power – so the government getting its nose under the camel’s tent is nothing new! Where were the environmentalists objecting then?

I guess everything old is new again. In the meantime, how about terminating the program of wealth transfer and allowing instead utilities to invest in stupid stuff like improving infrastructure and building new power plants? Now THAT would be moving Maryland forward!

Taking the fight to the enemy

You know, I’ve come to the conclusion that the majority of WaPo readers are way, way out there. (We won’t go into how flaky most of the columnists are, although the paper does feature two solid, if sometimes elitist, conservative voices in Charles Krauthammer and George Will.)

They have an article today about the state of the Maryland GOP, one which richly deserved comment from yours truly.

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Well, whadda you know, the WaPo and a host of Republicans quoted have finally come to the point I’ve been making for four years.

It’s sad that we had an eminently qualified Comptroller on the ballot (which would you rather have looking over the state’s finances – someone with decades in the business or someone who was initially elected based on the name recognition of 20 years as a legislator) yet people ignored the obvious difference or took out the failings of the top of the ticket on him.

To address the previous commenters who said the GOP didn’t run enough ‘moderate’ candidates, guess what? We ran two (for governor and U.S. Senator) and both lost by double-digits. Apparently you saw Democrat and Democrat-lite and voted for the real thing.

The weakness at the top of the ticket statewide (along with the shrewd packaging and marketing of the respective records of two different, yet somewhat similar governors) allowed the Democrats to buck the national trend and carry the day.

Do Republicans have work to do in teaching the benefits of a common sense limited-government platform in some communities? Of course they do. It’s tough to compete with the candidate who promises a boatload of freebies to be paid for by someone else.

But compete we shall, even when you have to take the message to the heart of the opposition as I do here.

Just ask yourself: who do I feel more comfortable with in handling my affairs and providing those things my family needs? Is it some bureaucrat in Washington or Annapolis, or is my own hands, head, and heart?

In short, that’s the GOP message. You have four years to learn it before Maryland has its next election.

**********

As I tell my friends (and my enemies) I don’t mince words and I don’t bullshit around. I can already see the attacks on this, but you know this is our message and a lot of the reason why the GOP lost – a weak top of the ticket and a campaign which was won by a Democrat who seized control of the narrative early.

(Perhaps if someone had gotten in the race earlier as I advised him to that message could have been under his control. But he waited around, and on this occasion good things didn’t come to those who wait.)

I’ll let the WaPo comment spammers enjoy throwing knives at that, and check back when I get a chance. It’s just a sample of what we need to do and how we need to take the fight to enemy territory (which isn’t really all that much of Maryland geographically but a whole ‘nother state philosophically. So much for ‘One Maryland’.)

Four years isn’t all that long; in fact it’s pretty short for the work which needs to be done.

The undercard

As regular readers know, I’ve been tracking the Maryland GOP Chair race as closely as anyone else in the state; perhaps Ann Corcoran of Potomac TEA Party Report was right the other day when she wrote there are some of us who don’t want the campaigning to end!

But there are other offices at stake as well. The Maryland GOP will also be electing three vice-chairs along with a secretary and treasurer when we meet December 11th in Annapolis. Obviously this is important because they, along with the 24 county chairs and state chair, make up the bulk of the Executive Committee.

(According to our by-laws, the secretary and treasurer serve on the Executive Committee but get no vote. The others who are voting members of the Executive Committee include the National Committeeman and National Committeewoman, along with the head of the Maryland Federation of Republican Women. Four other party organizations, including the Maryland College Republicans and Young Republicans, are included as non-voting members. Overall there are 29 voting positions.)

There was a bit of flux in the ranks of the vice-chairs over the last four years, so much so that none of those elected in 2006 currently serve in their positions. Conversely, the secretary and treasurer have served all four years. I’m not aware if Secretary Rex Reed is seeking re-election but I believe Treasurer Chris Rosenthal is.

This is the list of contenders as I have it, with the current incumbent denoted thus (*).

  • 1st Vice-Chair: Moshe Starkman, Diana Waterman
  • 2nd Vice-Chair: Brandon Butler*
  • 3rd Vice-Chair: Brian Griffiths, Meyer Marks, Adol Owen-Williams, Matt Teffeau, Bruce Wesbury*
  • Secretary: John Wafer
  • Treasurer: Chris Rosenthal*, Mark Uncapher

I haven’t quite figured out why 3rd Vice-Chair is so popular, but it is.

Obviously there are some names I know better than others, but most of them have some familiarity to me. What I don’t know is there are any slates involved yet; in the past there have been efforts to elect one slate agreeable to those who really pull the strings (like a former Governor.) While I’m sure the winner of the Chair competition would prefer to work with certain underlings rather than others, we haven’t seen the slate pulled out yet.

It promises to be a busy convention, that’s for sure. Newbies on the Central Committees, consider yourself warned!

A scam raising your bills

It’s been about two years since Maryland utilities were forced to participate in the scam better known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It’s a scheme which has transferred over $139 million away from the utilities and, to some extent, into state coffers for redistribution to low-income Marylanders.

But, as an investigation by Mark Langerkvist at the New Jersey Watchdog website reveals, while progress has been made toward the stated goal of reducing carbon emissions the auction and carbon market has had little to do with it! Instead, their internal probe revealed that the carbon cap is much higher than actual usage; thus, it’s projected that the per-ton price will be far less than thought and has already plummeted to half its 2009 peak.

So why is the carbon market in a tizzy? For one thing, utilities have been relying more and more on natural gas to generate electricity. Not only did the price for natural gas become much more favorable, but natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel than coal as well – thus, lower emissions. Moreover, general demand for electricity has dropped 7% since the calculations were made. The market demanded more efficiency and businesses made do with less as a cost-saving measure.

All this seems to come as a shock to everyone except those of us with common sense. Yet I don’t see the state of Maryland saying to the utilities and other carbon allowance purchasers, “oops, sorry, you’re reaching these (artifically based) goals without our help so here’s your $139,117,061.91 back.” Instead they’re saying, “suckers!”

And since the Democrats were handily re-elected earlier this month, even that realization won’t end the open season on utilities and their ratepayers. They’ll still insist that we as a state would be better off depending on more expensive (and less reliable) ‘alternative’ sources like wind and solar power – both great ideas except the sun only shines an average of 12 hours a day (when it’s not obscured by clouds) and those days you really want to crank up the air conditioning in the summer tend to be those days where the wind’s not blowing!

(Nor need I mention that the infrastructure to move that juice around isn’t exactly handy, and we’re already staring at an issue with that over the next few years on land, not to mention underwater.)

There has been talk in the past (particularly from New Jersey) about dropping out of RGGI, and Chris Christie would likely be the only governor of the ten involved with the cajones to do so – assuming such legislation could pass since his state likes the cash just as Maryland does. (Maine and Pennsylvania have both elected Republican governors and legislatures, so they could follow suit.)

In a saner legislature, Maryland would follow suit and withdraw from this group which only seems to be effective at wealth transfer and worsening an already poor business climate. Instead, conservatives have far too few seats in the General Assembly so we know the fate of such a bill before it’s even written.

However, that doesn’t mean Maryland Republicans shouldn’t try to overturn legislation which was based on the faulty premise of so-called ‘global warming’ to begin with and which amounts to a hidden tax on utility ratepayers – even if the committee chairs lock the bill in their desk drawers. (Just get a hearing and committee vote out of it, or better yet make withdrawal a floor amendment the next time there’s an energy-related bill. Putting the Democrats on record is what counts here.)

It’s part of the truly needed reforms the state has to undertake to make it a job-friendly zone, and right now the top three issues are jobs, jobs, and jobs. Perhaps the state won’t ever cash in on the possibility of offshore oil or the natural gas that’s likely sitting below its western panhandle, but it can reverse its most egregious laws and make life a little easier for working families.

Postscript: This American Thinker piece by Jeffrey Folks is well worth the read. It nationalizes what we have done as a state.

Wargotz in 2012?

Talk about your cryptic Facebook update:

Although I enjoy seeing the signage around the State, it is time to “bring them in”. We have them all down in Queen Anne’s and Talbot but if you happen to be out and about and you see sign(s), please pull them up and keep them somewhere. We may need them sometime 😉

This was Eric Wargotz last night on Facebook. (By the way, any Wargotz signs at my polling place were left in the possession of Mark McIver, I took them over to his warehouse the day after the election.)

Since his signs clearly state “U.S. Senate” one has to deduce he’s weighing his chances for 2012 against Ben Cardin.

So does he have an opportunity? Well, given the fact he has some familiarity with voters and the rudiments of a campaign team in place, I would say yes. Another advantage in his favor is that the 2012 primary will likely be in March or April, which may preclude a member of the General Assembly from running since they’d be waging a primary campaign in the midst of the session. Nor do I think Eric will have the competition from Jim Rutledge, as the indications I’ve heard point to a run for a state office rather than a federal one.

Then again, putting his family and his pocketbook through another campaign on the heels of the last one could prove detrimental in that important aspect.

Obviously this could also be a remark made in jest, or Eric may see himself as a candidate for what most likely will be an open seat in 2016. (Of course a barely incumbent Martin O’Malley could be there, too – some have whispered that Barb Mikulski will decide to retire early, just in time for the lame duck to find a new home after he’s through as governor.) However, a 2016 move would likely guarantee a stronger field against him assuming the seat opens up.

We don’t know just what the future will hold. But his was a cryptic remark worth picking up on, so I did.

And to all my veteran friends out there (a group which would include my dad), happy Veteran’s Day!

Murphy speaks out

It’s about four minutes of commentary, but former gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy had the chance to discuss the recent election with Shari Elliker on WBAL Radio Friday.

There’s no doubt that Murphy paid as much attention to the election results as the rest of us did, and it’s not clear from the conversation that his campaign rhetoric about Bob Ehrlich being beatable wasn’t quite the “I told you so” in retrospect. Critics noted that Bob Ehrlich’s message was a little muddy in their postmortems.

But now is the time to look forward to what is and will be. Martin O’Malley has one more term to serve as governor, and it’s conceivable a number of state Democrats are playing the game of being coy about their 2014 plans while laying the groundwork for a run of their own for Government House. Anthony Brown, Peter Franchot, and Doug Gansler are naturally front and center in that conversation since they have ran and won statewide.

Meanwhile, the GOP side has its own contenders with Brian Murphy probably among them. (He was coy about this in his conversation with Elliker, but one has to believe he’s considering the prospect of seeking an open seat. We’ll see based on how much interaction he has with Republican and TEA Party groups in the coming months.)

But we can’t forget a couple other names.

The old guard establishment may well be represented by Larry Hogan, who began something of a placeholder run for Governor this year until Bob Ehrlich got in.

We also need to consider Charles Lollar, who was the beneficiary of a draft movement last year but was tripped up by residency requirements this time around based on when he first registered to vote in Maryland he was just a few months short of the five years required. Undaunted, he ran for Congress. Unless Democrats decide to push through a ten-year requirement to foil him again, he may well decide to run again IF he doesn’t win a Congressional seat first.

It’s going to be about message, though. With the strong probability of another set of tax increases or expansions for Maryland one has to wonder just how long it will be before the unaffiliated voters and thoughtful suburban Democrats realize that continually funneling more money to the state for fewer and poorer core services needs to come to a screeching halt and eventually be turned around. Given the slow pace of economic recovery, the prospect of a strong economy come 2014 can only be described as a crapshoot at best – people my age may recall that the Reagan recovery didn’t begin until his third year in office and if a Republican takes the White House in 2012 it may take that long to undo the Obama damage (even with a GOP House over his last two years.)

But I’m glad to see Brian Murphy hasn’t gone away. Maybe we should be hanging onto those yard signs.

The aftermath

Well, for one, my page looks a lot emptier. No need for the election links anymore and I took my monoblogue Accountability Project page private. It will return for the 2011-14 session at the appropriate time, although I have some ideas now on how to improve it and make it more user-friendly.

Obviously some people voted against their best interests. For example, how could the voters in Frederick County dump a former Legislative All-Star in Alex Mooney for a guy whose score will likely be less than half of his?

Locally, we replaced a retiring state Senator with a nice MAP rating in the 70’s with a guy who will likely be in the teens or twenties – is that very smart? Hard to believe the same voters who elected two conservatives in Mike McDermott and Charles Otto would fall for the absolute “I’m just as conservative as you” b.s. Jim Mathias spouted in all those mailings, brought to you courtesy of the Baltimore boys and special interests.

Instead of gaining State Senators, the GOP lost two so now they have an even dozen. At least we may have gotten the Democrats under 100 seats in the General Assembly, but 43-98 is little better than 37-104.

So I guess we regroup and look at victories. We did contribute our little bit to the 60-plus seat sea change in the House by electing Andy Harris. It will be interesting to see what Frank Kratovil does in the lame-duck session and how he votes. Think his staff will be courteous if you call to complain?

Perhaps this is a Pyrrhic victory, but the Maryland GOP can finally move out from under the shadow of Bob Ehrlich now. We have candidates who ran statewide and may have bright futures as conservative lights in Jim Rutledge and Brian Murphy – we can build from their experiences. (I’m not sure Eric Wargotz quite fits in the “conservative” mold so I didn’t include him.) Nor should I exclude Charles Lollar, who did plenty to piss off Steny Hoyer – and that’s a good thing. We actually may be seeing the beginnings of a statewide bench, even in defeat.

What needs to happen in the next four years, though, is for the Maryland GOP to take a conservative stand on fiscal issues and appeal to the pocketbook. (Yes, we all have social concerns but we need to get into a position of influence first.) Look at what other successful states like Texas do and bring those ideas to the hopper here in Maryland. Sure, they will be shot down and locked in the committee chair’s drawer at first but activism can make them prevail.

Simply put, the time is not now to be silenced but instead to become the squeaky wheels.

I wrote a few days ago about the situation in 2014. With Martin O’Malley out due to term limits, there’s going to be a number of statewide candidates itching to move into Government House and abandoning their previous posts. It’s going to be difficult for Democrats to enforce discipline and tell certain politicians who have spun their wheels for two terms in statewide office or served awhile in the General Assembly or Congress to wait their turn.

And we all know nature abhors a vacuum. Guess which party can position itself as the fiscally conservative alternative?

Of course, we have a number of traps set for us. Redistricting, since it will be controlled by Democrats, will place us at the hugest of disadvantages. Look for heretofore “safe” Republican districts to become as large as the law allows and attempts made to spread out the small pockets of Democrat voters (like in towns such as Salisbury) among more than one district to negate the GOP advantage. Conversely, areas like Montgomery County will have small districts and try to isolate GOP-leaning areas within a sea of Democratic voters.

We also aren’t going to see a friendly press anytime soon. How much of an effect do you think the phony polls which had Bob Ehrlich down 14 points had on GOP turnout across the bay?

It seems to me that the great GOP turnout locally was somewhat negated by Democrats “staying home” – in other words they started with O’Malley and kept pushing the “D” button down the ticket. The only exception seemed to be Matt Maciarello. I thought Bob Ehrlich would need 25% of Democrats to win, but when his number is only in the 50’s in Wicomico County it’s apparent that he only scored a few points among Democrats. While O’Malley won the same five counties as he did last time, Ehrlich’s percentage went down in 18 of 24 counties. I wonder if a more conservative candidate (who presented a clearer choice and didn’t have a previous record) would have done better.

In the meantime, we have work to do. The next opportunity to make a difference could be as soon as tomorrow.

Oh, one other observation while I have your attention.

I read a criticism on The Salisbury Grinch about the candidate videos other local sites did and how poorly they were seen. In truth, many had under 50 views – by comparison, the AFP protest video I did had over 1,200 because it was picked up nationally. If you totaled up the viewership of the 20 videos he cites, it still doesn’t match the number which saw mine because it was exposed to a wider national audience through Pajamas Media.

It seems to me that for all the heat not a lot of light was shed. One cannot win an election by internet alone and perhaps these candidates would have been much better off spending the time recording an interview making phone calls or knocking on doors. Obviously they didn’t realize it at the time and perhaps wanted to make sure they got on that newfangled internet bandwagon.

We as bloggers often think that we have the eyes and ears of the community, but in many cases these interviews were more to show how important we were as opposed to focusing on the candidate. When I used a series of candidate interviews over the summer from the Right Coast blog, the reason I liked them was because it wasn’t about personality. Joe Ollinger’s video was similar because he narrated it himself. (His channel got over 1,300 views but the video is no longer available.) Since my specialty isn’t sitting in front of a video camera sharing my thoughts, I chose not to create any videos.

So we bring down the curtain on Election 2010, with the next up being Salisbury’s local municipal election next spring. After the holidays we’ll know how that race will shake out as three City Council seats (Cohen, Comegys, Smith) become available. I’ll surely devote some coverage to it but there will be other important things going on as well, so don’t stray far now that the election is over.

Maryland: the land that TEA forgot?

I actually sent this in to PJM early this but they decided not to run it for whatever reason. Maybe it’s a little bit off-message, or perhaps we are a true backwater of conservative politics. 

Last year in Virginia and New Jersey, the first successes of the TEA Party movement swept unabashed fiscal conservatives Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie into office.

Similarly in Pennsylvania, the latest polls show Republicans with wide leads in statewide races for governor and U.S. Senate. Next door in West Virginia, a Republican has a good chance of taking over the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat stalwart Robert Byrd.

Even where the polls aren’t as friendly, such as Delaware, they garnered national attention when a TEA Party-backed upstart in Christine O’Donnell upended longtime moderate Republican Congressman Mike Castle in the September 14 primary. O’Donnell made her final push to victory after getting financial backing from the TEA Party Express and the endorsement of Sarah Palin.

Yet as all that political turmoil roils states which border Maryland, TEA Party activists there bemoan the fact that they’ve been bypassed by the excitement.

Sarah Palin’s endorsement of TEA Party favorite Brian Murphy did little to help his campaign for governor as he was spanked by a nearly 50 point margin in the September 14 primary. While Delaware voters turned their political world upside down by going against the state’s establishment Republicans and selecting O’Donnell, Maryland’s state GOP apparatus placed their support behind former governor Bob Ehrlich almost immediately after he formally announced he would seek the office again. The move angered conservative activists but more mainline Republicans bought the argument that only Ehrlich could unseat current Governor Martin O’Malley – who defeated Ehrlich in 2006.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, Ehrlich trails in the latest Rasmussen Poll by 8 points, which is larger than his 2006 margin of defeat. A similar (and more recent) poll by Gonzales Research has Ehrlich down 5.

Of course there are bright spots for conservative activists in some portions of the state. Andy Harris is a TEA Party favorite who is giving freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil all he can handle in a spirited First District race that’s also a rematch, from 2008. Even more popular is the man challenging Steny Hoyer in the Fifth District, Charles Lollar. He’s a dynamic speaker who has excited crowds anywhere from a small campaign event to the 9-12 rally in Washington, D.C.

But for two TEA Party believers I spoke to, the lack of good choices on the Maryland ballot is disheartening.

Chris Lewis helped to organize the first TEA Party in the small Eastern Shore city of Salisbury back in April 2009. This involvement eventually led to an unsuccessful run for a Wicomico County Council seat earlier this year but he still attends a number of TEA Party events and leads the occasional local protest.

While he has no bitterness about losing in his primary – Chris ran as a Republican this time after a bid as an unaffiliated candidate 12 years ago – he’s “not too happy” with the remainder of the choices Republicans selected.

“Voting for the lesser of two evils is becoming very frustrating,” said Chris. “Maryland has always been blue, but the Maryland GOP has done a horrible job of putting up serious and constitutionally conservative candidates against these very weak, liberal, anti-constitutional and anti-business Democrat candidates.”

Fellow conservative activist Julie Brewington agrees. Like Lewis, she was active in the local TEA Party movement practically from its inception and ran for office this year, losing in a GOP primary for a House of Delegates seat.

Julie ran down a list of Republican nominees at the state and local level, describing many as “blah” or milquetoast. “I will reluctantly pull the lever for Ehrlich,” she said, if only for the sake of having a better say in redistricting. “I have finally come around to the fact that if Ehrlich is not voted in we will have no voice at all, as conservatives in this state.”

Still, she’s frustrated at what’s happened to the movement she helped create. “I feel the TEA party here in Maryland has been hijacked to a degree successfully by establishment Republicans,” said Julie. “It’s because of this we have less than exciting candidates to pick from.”

In fact, Julie was most thrilled about crossing over to Delaware to attend a campaign rally for U.S. Senate hopeful Christine O’Donnell. “She’s the closest thing to a true blue TEA Party candidate we have locally (and) I can relate to Christine on many levels. This would include personal attacks I endured during my candidacy for the House of Delegates.”

“She is me, and I am you.”

Lewis and Brewington express a thought that many conservatives trapped in the (not so) Free State have been thinking for years. Emboldened to speak out by other events nationally, they’re afraid that they’re being abandoned by state and national Republicans and don’t have the numbers to make a difference. This is odd because the same Rasmussen Poll that had Ehrlich 8 points down also showed that seventeen percent of Maryland voters consider themselves members of the TEA Party movement, a number slightly higher than the national average.

Yet as Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Eric Wargotz noted when I asked him about the TEA Party, “I absolutely agree with the two main tenets (of fiscal responsibility and limited government)…but Maryland is a Democratic state.” He’s had to walk a bit of a tightrope in his campaign, although it’s clear that Wargotz has embraced the TEA Party more than Bob Ehrlich has in the other major statewide race – Ehrlich completely dismissed the Palin endorsement of his opponent and hasn’t made any attempt to make up with movement conservatives in the state.

Perhaps in a cycle or two Maryland may catch on, but by all indications there’s not going to be a lot of TEA Party victories in the Free State next week. It’s a sad state of affairs, but it’s one the Maryland Republican Party may have brought upon itself due to the conscious decision to not listen to its newly-energized TEA Party base and instead choose the establishment side in the primary.

LG hopeful Kane campaigns in Wicomico

If you drive by the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center, you might think there’s an election going on.

Since this is the case, we were graced by a visit from Mary Kane, who’s running on the ticket with Bob Ehrlich. Naturally she’s a popular lady.

The gentleman on the left with Mrs. Kane is Mark McIver, the campaign coordinator for Bob Ehrlich here in Wicomico County.

But Kane wasn’t the only Republican out looking for votes this afternoon. Here she stands amidst Bob Culver, who’s running for Wicomico County Council at-large and Matt Maciarello, the GOP choice for State’s Attorney.

Worth noting is that Democrat Peter Evans was out looking for votes as well. I just didn’t get a picture of him.

There’s also a number of volunteers, and to show the proper role of a GOP candidate who lost in the primary A. Kaye Kenney was working on the behalf of several candidates including Stevie Prettyman of Council District 2 and Charles Otto, running for Delegate in District 38A. Here she is with Matt Maciarello.

It’s probable that close to 4,000 Wicomico voters will take advantage of early voting based on the results of days 1-5 and what I project will happen today (I think this will be the biggest day from the numbers I heard when I was there.)While that seems like a lot, bear in mind this will only be about 7% of the total eligible voters…yet if the final results are a factor of 10 as they were in early voting for the primary, turnout might be heavy.

And while Democrats are slightly leading in turnout percentage statewide, on the Eastern Shore the GOP leads in all but Queen Anne’s County (where the two parties are in a virtual tie.) So we are indeed ready and raring to go.

By the way, the top of the GOP ticket will be here in Salisbury tomorrow morning at 9:30 for the “Fire Pelosi” tour. RSVP to Patrick Hefflinger [phefflinger (at) mdgop.org] or call (443) 736-8042. I plan on covering that event as well.