A return
It’s a slow news day (unless and until a catfight breaks out among the crazier sleep-deprived Black Friday shoppers) so instead I’m going to post a heads-up for an upcoming event.
You may recall about this time last year I began a poll for the best local blog. Well, this year it returns with an expanded field of 24 contestants including defending 2009 champion afterthegoldrush, which edged out Salisbury News in the final poll.
Beginning Monday I’ll start the first of eight first-round polling battles, with the 8 winners and top runner-up in votes advancing to three semi-finals which will begin after Christmas (hey, it takes awhile to run eight polls.) And since it’s all in fun and I’m being as fair as I can, I excluded myself from the competition again.
Except for two that are not currently linked, the competitors can be found among those linked as Delaware and Eastern Shore blogs on the right sidebar (but not all of them – I tried to include those which regularly update and that I knew were from the lower Shore and slower lower Delaware.) Not all of them are political, but I excluded a couple personality-based blogs from the mix.
So let’s see what my local readers (which run about 1/3 of my audience) like among my local peers. Check back often to see who’s winning and help out your favorites!
54-40…so fight!
Yes, I reach back into the realm of long-forgotten campaign slogans (embellishing one used by President James K. Polk in 1844) because it’s the result of a so-called poll out from the Washington Post. According to their poll, Bob Ehrlich trails Martin O’Malley by that very 54-40 margin. It reflects a similarly flawed Baltimore Sun poll which has the former governor down 52-38.
I don’t believe these polls for a second, and this political observer explains why.
But despite the fact we conservatives have a less than inspiring choice for governor, don’t let these papers fool you into staying home for this election. It’s an age-old attempt to disillusion the conservative voters, and even some so-called conservative pundits like Michael Gerson try to convince us “the wave has crested.” It’s only crested if we believe it is so.
Yet there are signs this frustration has taken hold on a statewide level. Republicans were supposed to be flocking to the polls and couldn’t wait for November 2. But as of this morning 3.09% of Democrats have participated in early voting compared to 2.82% of Republicans and just 1.42% of unaffiliated voters. (On the bright side, the Constitution Party leads with 3.63% participation – too bad they only have 606 voters registered as such statewide.)
But locally the news is better. In seven of the nine Eastern Shore counties the GOP is indeed ahead in early voting, and Queen Anne’s County there’s virtually a tie. (Caroline County is the lone holdout, although the margin in the Democrats’ favor is fairly small.) Maybe it’s because we’re mostly outside the orbit of the Baltimore-Washington media axis, but there seems to be more of that trademark GOP excitement here.
And that’s important because we have local races which need to be won. With strong candidates across the board, we have the opportunity to make the Eastern Shore delegation to the General Assembly entirely Republican – in fact, I recommend it. Why vote for candidates who talk like they’re conservative and pro-business every four years when you can have the 24/7/365 real thing?
If Martin O’Malley wins, we need people in the General Assembly who will tell him to go pound sand with his sure-to-come tax increases, kowtowing to the Obama agenda, and embrace of illegal immigrants as “new Americans.”
Since we’re going to be stuck with Obama for the next two years, we need Congressmen and Senators to place his statist ambitions in check by defunding those things he held dear like Obamacare and the remaining slush fund stimulus while paring away the bureaucratic red tape.
It’s all within reach, and we can make a difference. Let the overconfident I-95 corridor Democrats stay home – we need to fight for what is right in Maryland.
A new (non-political) poll
I haven’t done polling in awhile but I thought it would be interesting to poll my readership on an issue near and dear to my heart – the Delmarva Shorebirds.
Every so often, the opportunity exists to change affiliations and, while I believe we are under contract to the Orioles for 2 or 3 more years, perhaps the grass may be greener and the on-field product better if we switch to another parent club. Many fans may not know that the Shorebirds haven’t always been an Orioles farm team – they began by playing out an existing contract with the Montreal Expos for one season. I’m also told that the Bluefield Orioles will have to undergo the process of finding a new parent because the O’s wish to have just one rookie league team next season so at times there is change in all minor league systems.
Thus, the poll basically asks about the direction we should follow – there is no right or wrong answer and the results are just to sate my curiosity. Look on the far right-hand side beyond the candidate links and Amazon ad and you’ll find it; the poll will be open for 10 days or so.
Rasmussen Poll: Ehrlich climbs ahead
After slowly gaining on Martin O’Malley through polls taken in February, April, and June, the latest Rasmussen Poll of Maryland voters placed Bob Ehrlich ahead of incumbent Governor Martin O’Malley for the first time this year by a 47% to 46% margin.
And in even better news for the Ehrlich camp, support among Republicans for Ehrlich is far stronger than Democrats for O’Malley. 87 percent of Republicans favor Bob, while O’Malley can only claim support of 71% of Democrats – over 1 in 5 Democrats favor Ehrlich. Unaffiliated voters also prefer Ehrlich by 15 points.
(continued on my Examiner.com page…)
Wargotz revises and extends polling remarks
While it wasn’t a formal apology the campaign of U.S. Senate candidate Eric Wargotz released a statement this afternoon, parts of which are published below:
As per the suggestion of the Tarrance Group, The Wargotz for U.S. Senate Campaign has provided additional details subsequent to the initial press release announcing Dr. Wargotz’s lead in Baltimore County CD1.
(continued on my Examiner.com page…)
As an aside, I wonder how Jim Rutledge would do?
Wargotz campaign drops ‘attempt to mislead’
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.
(continued on my Examiner.com page…)
New Rasmussen Poll has governor’s race as dead heat
Late yesterday afternoon Rasmussen released its latest polling of the Maryland governor’s race and the results should be encouraging to Bob Ehrlich.
After trailing in two previous polls Ehrlich has closed the gap and now sits in a virtual tie with incumbent Martin O’Malley 45 percent to 45 percent.
(continued on my Examiner.com page…)
Bad news for bloggers
I thought this was an interesting poll done by Rasmussen.
A poll taken by the group late last month revealed that 78% of adults surveyed see reporting by local newspapers as being at least somewhat reliable, as opposed to 66% which say the same about blogs.
Given the controversy which arises from at least one local copy-and-paste blog which does its best to copy-and-paste as much as - if not more than – the local newspaper, the results don’t surprise me.
The advantage newspapers still have over most internet providers, particularly solo and small group operations like blogs generally are, is that they have the resources to pay people to gather information. When I go to County Council meetings and certain political events as part of my first-person reporting I’ll often find mainstream news organizations like the Daily Times or local TV stations covering the event as well. Their model of selling advertising interspersed with vital information is still working, and they use some of those proceeds to pay those who gather information.
While I’m aware that some bloggers are paid in a similar manner, it seems the majority of them make their money by selling ads directly instead of having a marketing department separate from news operations. I doubt Greg Latshaw or Steve Hammond is begging for advertisers as part of the reporting.
Certainly there are people and groups who pay people to put out their own spin on the issues as well, and that information is added to the mix. For some bloggers, simply regurgitating these talking points is a good way to provide content at little time, effort, or cost to them. Obviously I often use releases as starting points for my posts but I rarely take them at face value.
Perhaps it’s those who unquestioningly take people at their word without doing the required fact checking that puts bloggers at a disadvantage in the poll. Certainly I’d like to help drive that 66% figure up along with my readership.
At its root, though, is the fact that all journalists and editors come to their jobs with some sort of bias. Needless to say, I look at things from a conservative to libertarian point of view and it affects the way I write at times. Having been a student of history I know that certain groups of people have no compunction in making things up if it suits their needs. But I strive for accuracy in the end, and even political opponents concede I usually get it right in my reporting.
Maybe if bloggers would do more to earn the respect of their journalistic peers and the general public by sticking to the facts and leaving aside rumors, innuendo, and personal attacks, they may just bring that number up to the level of support enjoyed by the traditional media.
Once upon a time in my youth I briefly worked in a retail setting, and one thing I was taught is that giving bad service to one customer will eventually drive another dozen away through the negative word-of-mouth. In this day and age of instant communication via Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking outlets getting the wrong person mad could backfire a thousandfold.
As a collection of media mavens it’s time we grow up and take more care in what we do. Very few of us make a living at this, but in order to do so we have to clean up our act and become worthy of support.
A slow reclamation
In the wake of the emotional Obamacare debate, the President’s approval ratings sank much closer to those endured by the outgoing President Bush than the stratospheric heights polled as the era of Barack began. Looking at Rasmussen’s tracking poll, Obama reached a low of 43% approval during the weekend of the final House debate over the Senate-sponsored health care measure, and the approval index (defined by Rasmussen as the percentage strongly approving minus the percentage strongly disapproving) reached a low of -21.
Since those low points, though, the emotion of the debate over health care has subsided and Obama’s approval ratings have began their own slow recovery – back to 48% approval last week and a much healthier approval index of -10. It’s an encouraging trend for a party which just last month was left for dead in November, and perhaps shows that Republicans need to curb their enthusiasm about derailing the Obama agenda next year.
Yet one has to ask just what is different about the public’s mood now. Certainly there’s still a Tea Party element out there flexing its muscle, but Obama has adroitly focused his efforts on the one area he can be seen as populist in advocating Wall Street reform. While there’s a lot of people who dislike big government, even more have a beef with the perceived fat cats who navigate the murky waters of derivatives and other difficult-to-explain financial instruments while making handsome profits for themselves and sticking taxpayers with their losses.
Then again, it’s not easy to figure out what Congress wants to do with Wall Street either. In that respect President Obama seems to be leading in the same manner as he did with health care, standing aside while Congress debates the finer points and waiting anxiously with pen in hand for the final legislation to pass. Unlike health care, though, President Obama may be waiting in vain because of the Republicans’ newfound ability to filibuster legislation – Democrats no longer have the convenient workaround they enjoyed in goosing the system and rules to pass Obamacare.
On the other hand there are still a number of boobytraps remaining before Obama and the Democrats can survive the upcoming election with their majorities intact.
Immigration is the hotbutton issue du jour, placed there once Arizona passed a get-tough measure on illegal immigrants (which ironically is simply a rewrite of federal law at a state level.) While the President has wanted to see reform with federal law, there’s a number of Democrats who are quite squeamish about touching anything which remotely resembles amnesty. They’re mindful of the reaction back home, and for good reason.
The same goes for cap-and-trade legislation, which is a nonstarter despite the continuing Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf. President Obama wasn’t able to take advantage of the situation by showing leadership; instead he’s being chastised by some in the press for his slow reaction to the crisis.
It could be, however, that the biggest difference between the more popular Obama of late and the Obama trying to get health care reform passed is that the President doesn’t seem to be the constant presence he was during that debate. With a number of other world crises taking place, such as the financial meltdown of Greece, the news isn’t quite as focused on the President and lack of familiarity stops breeding contempt.
There’s no doubt Americans aren’t necessarily buying what President Obama is selling, but the pitchman has retreated off the stage enough to keep his record out of the limelight and regain a little of his lost popularity in the process.
Michael Swartz, an architect and writer who lives in rural Maryland, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer. This article cleared the LFS wire on May 13, which after their usual hold meant I didn’t get to post it last week.
Friday night videos episode 25
Bringing back the FNV franchise again after a week off, so let’s see what the extra week has given me to work with.
Lots of video on the health care debacle, as you might expect. Pollster Scott Rasmussen talks to the Washington News-Observer on the upcoming midterm elections and about how unpopular Obamacare really is:
It wasn’t too popular among this group either. My blogger friend Bob McCarty (who lives in that area) covered the counter-protest to President Obama’s health care show in St. Charles, Missouri.
If I didn’t put this on when it first came out, I sure missed out. This edition of FNV will be graced by the common sense of Rep. Mike Pence, perhaps my favorite member of Congress.
But the Democrats do reveal the facts about their health care bill.
Speaking of leading Democrats, in a couple weeks we’re going to see the third edition of the TEA Party Express, which begins in Searchlight, Nevada (Harry Reid’s hometown.) Mark Williams of TPX3 wanted to have a conversation with MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan but you can see how the left expresses “Anger in America.”
And if you’re interested in saddling up and heading out west, they have an interesting lineup to start their tour – wonder how many will be there for the other stops?
Let’s finish the political end of FNV with something humorous. We can laugh about this now that this half of the globe is actually warming (with a corresponding cooling on the other side – funny how that works, huh?)
Now the fun part. This comes from one of my favorite regional bands and was recorded live at the Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia (unfortunately, not by me.) Hailing from Smyrna, Delaware, this is 13:1.
If you go to their website, crank out ‘No Goodbyes.’ (Feel free to do so with their other songs if you wish, too.)
With that, we put another FNV in the books. That was fun.
Wargotz wins beauty contest
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!
Poll update – day 3
It looks like two candidates’ supporters are taking this seriously.
As of about 3:00 this afternoon, it’s become a two-way race:
- Eric Wargotz 1,785 (49%)
- Corrogan Vaughn 1,156 (32%)
- Jim Rutledge 499 (14%)
- Carmen Amedori 128 (4%)
- John Kimble 43 (1%)
- Daniel McAndrew 5 (<1%)
- John Curran 4 (<1%)
Let’s look at what happened in the last 24 hours or so:
- Eric Wargotz 948 (54%)
- Corrogan Vaughn 783 (46%)
- Jim Rutledge 23 (1%)
- Carmen Amedori 2 (<1%)
No one else got a vote, so it’s obvious that this poll may have run its course as a useful exercise.
The percentage changes are as follows:
- Corrogan Vaughn +12 (20 to 32)
- Eric Wargotz +4 (45 to 49)
- Daniel McAndrew 0 (stays at <1)
- John Curran 0 (stays at <1)
- John Kimble -1 (2 to 1)
- Carmen Amedori -3 (7 to 4)
- Jim Rutledge -12 (26 to 14)
The poll will end on Tuesday, and I’ll have the final totals and the conclusions I draw from them that night.
By the way, the “Eric” you see on the Polldaddy.com comments is not the candidate Eric Wargotz. I figured you’d know that but he took the time today to point out it wasn’t the case. I can moderate these comments to some extent, but only after the fact.
I think when I wrap this exercise up I may post some of the better comments and cases for some of the candidates.
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