I always thought it was the Tuesday after the first Monday, but today was quite the election day on three different fronts.
One election I participated in was a straw poll held at the MDGOP Fall Convention over the weekend, with the results tabulated and announced today. (My analysis comes after the jump.)
Perhaps the battle for the Republican U.S. Senate nod in Maryland could come down to domestic policy vs. foreign policy, at least in terms of endorsements.
After Dan Bongino took the lead with backing from several members of state and federal government, opponent Rich Douglas has countered with a leader who’s been mentioned as a possible Secretary of State in a GOP administration and another ambassador, as well as a former state party Chair. The Douglas campaign picks it up from here:
Richard Douglas, an Iraq veteran, former Diplomat and small business owner, is pleased to announce that Ambassador John Bolton has strongly endorsed his accelerating campaign to unseat incumbent Democrat Ben Cardin in the United States Senate.
Ambassador Bolton said, “Douglas is the most qualified Senate candidate to emerge in Maryland in forty years. Douglas will bring badly needed experience to the Senate at a moment of profound crisis. He has my full endorsement.”
Ambassador Bolton served both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. A Baltimore native and lifelong Maryland resident, Bolton is considered America’s foremost authority on constitutional law and foreign relations.
Douglas welcomed Ambassador Bolton’s endorsement, calling him “Maryland’s most admired conservative.” Douglas continued, “I am grateful for Ambassador Bolton’s strong endorsement and I am determined to justify the confidence he and other Marylanders have placed in me.”
Ambassador Bolton represents the third major endorsement for Richard Douglas in two weeks. Former Maryland State Republican Chair Audrey Scott endorsed Douglas on November 1, calling him “clearly the most experienced and and capable candidate running.” Ambassador Roger Noriega, who hosted a hospitality suite for Douglas at the Maryland Republican Party convention in Annapolis, endorsed Douglas on November 8.
So the question for voters is going to be an interesting one if you presume Rich Douglas and Dan Bongino are the two leading candidates. It’s obvious that Richard’s forte is foreign affairs, while Bongino seems to have a lead with those who favor smaller government – the TEA Party crowd. So how will the pair cover themselves on what would be perceived as their weaker points?
Having heard Bongino speak, I have some concerns about his foreign policy when it comes to the Long War. On the other hand, I’m not familiar enough with Douglas to know whether he would be a budget hawk and make the tough choices necessary to bring federal spending under control in cooperation with a presumably GOP-controlled House and White House.
There’s also the question of establishment vs. outsider to consider. If you consider the most recent past MDGOP Chair as the “establishment” then there’s no question that Douglas is the insider while Bongino – who is backed strongly by the upstart gubernatorial candidate from 2010, Brian Murphy – plays the role of the outsider. So there’s that struggle to get votes in the middle, among the GOP rank-and-file.
And the intrigue may continue as I was assured by Bongino this weekend that he had additional endorsements up his sleeve; presumably Douglas has his own roster of outside supporters as well. Despite the fact there were eleven candidates in the ring for the GOP nod last time around, in the end it basically came down to two names. We may have that same style of race in 2012, too. So endorsements have some importance because they create buzz – and free press. When you’re up against a guy with a couple million in the bank, that free exposure never hurts.
At the risk of a slow-loading post, there are 30 photos on this one. But I took a lot more, and you know every picture tells a story with me. And this is the story of the Maryland GOP Fall Convention, brought to you by…
I’ll begin with Friday night, the usual social time for the convention. Even though I’d never been to the Sheraton in Annapolis, once I saw these I knew I was in the right place.
(Of course, I took that snapshot yesterday morning.)
But first I sat through the first portion of the Executive Committee meeting. We got as far as a brief budget discussion and Chair’s Report before being tossed out when the meeting transitioned to a closed session. Perhaps the most interesting pieces of news were the search for a new Executive Director had attracted 40 applicants and the “several options” for a new home, where the goal is to choose the “place that’s most fiscally responsible.”
So it was time to find a hospitality suite and schmooze for votes. Because I’m a Cain supporter, that’s where I started out.
They had lots of balloons both inside and out. Naturally they had pretty substantial food too.
No, it’s not Godfather’s Pizza. Unfortunately, to be authentic we would have to endure cold pizza, considering the closest Godfather’s location is in Lancaster, PA – 72 miles from Annapolis. (Yes, I verified that.) It’s the thought that counts, right?
But I didn’t get the one thing I wanted from there because they didn’t have this swag on Saturday.
My car doesn’t have the Cain sticker on it yet. Maybe later.
But they also had the most witty signage by far, like this example.
Compare this to the quite understated Mitt Romney suite.
Many of those present there would be what one considers party brass. I see a former Chair and a current Committeeman in this picture.
Actually, I had an interesting conversation there with Audrey Scott there regarding a post I made awhile back. (I think it may be this one where I quoted something I wrote from 2006, before I was on the Central Committee.) I’m glad Audrey appreciates my passion but if that’s what she’s referring to she’s barking up the wrong tree.
Returning to the present day, I can’t ignore the other Presidential candidate with a presence there – although it wasn’t a hospitality suite.
I think that was the only Gadsden flag I saw there, despite the perceived influence of the TEA Party on GOP politics. I’m sure there is a segment of the TEA Party which prefers Ron Paul, but I wouldn’t go so far as saying he’s the most popular in that group.
It was a Senate candidate, though, who had the sweetest suite. Check out this spread, practically guaranteed to induce a diabetic coma.
It belonged to Senate hopeful Rich Douglas, who was holding court there with sponsor and former Ambassador Roger Noriega.
Notice the lapel poppy for Veteran’s Day; a nice touch.
Not to be outdone in the sweets department, fellow Senate candidate Dan Bongino had plenty of Smith Island cake, thanks to a friend. He also had the biggest space.
And, at the risk of making this look like a Weekend of local rock post, he’s the first candidate I’ve seen at these affairs with a band. These guys were pretty good classic rockers – I’m told the singer bassist is one of Dan’s county coordinators.
The signage was a little wordy but touted his endorsements. Dan revealed he has a few more before he’s done.
Besides the Bongino suite, which had decent traffic, I found the host county’s suite the most popular.
Maybe it’s all the elected official sponsors.
Speaking of supporters, it’s also worth further exploring something I touched upon with the Ron Paul table. A number of political organizations and businesses catering to that field had secured spaces. Here’s some of the examples.
The fairly new Maryland GOP Hispanic Coalition promoted an upcoming event – a forum on illegal immigration next week in Ellicott City.
As we were informed during the convention, the fight over Congressional redistricting is not over yet. This group is looking to install a much cleaner and fairer apportionment.
We had no shortage of social issue discussion there either.
Perhaps this group knew PMM was coming, and attempted a little bit of point/counterpoint.
Senator Nancy Jacobs, the former Minority Leader in the Senate, had her own backdrop. But it doesn’t reflect yet her probable run for the Second Congressional District seat held by Dutch Ruppersberger.
She also took a few minutes to appear on Red Maryland Radio, which was on location with co-hosts Greg Kline and Jimmy Braswell.
This looks pretty simple, doesn’t it? Here’s Kline getting set up earlier on.
And if you want true radio gold, give this a listen just after the 60 minute mark. Yes, it’s my RMR debut – long overdue, I must say.
But in all candor it was enjoyable to be part of that remote. Yet the show which was even more interesting came once the sun rose over Annapolis again.
Our breakfast speaker was Frank Kelly III. Now Frank isn’t an elected official, just an interested citizen and business owner who was tapped to speak to us about the marriage issue – something the GOP was “a little bit involved” in.
But I learned a couple things from Frank on the pro-life front. At the time of the adoption of Roe v. Wade in 1973, Maryland only permitted abortion in cases of rape, incest, or threat to mother’s life. That changed in 1990 when abortion on demand was passed through the Maryland legislature. And the chief Democratic opponent? A Senator named Frank Kelly.
The younger Kelly got emotional as he recounted how his dad’s eight day filibuster against the bill ended up costing him a pretty safe seat in the Maryland Senate, where he served three terms from 1978-90. “People were spitting on us” at the polls that year, but “my dad stood for life.”
Returning to the marriage front, Kelly also mentioned how the “language of discrimination has been artificially inserted” into the same-sex marriage issue. Gays want approval for their lifestyle, and thus anything said in disapproval is automatically labeled “hate speech.”
Frank yielded a portion of his time to Maryland Family Alliance president Derek McCoy.
McCoy echoed Kelly’s remarks, but also warned “there’s a culture war being waged” in Maryland and nationally. “We’re fighting for a signpost of morality” for future generations on the marriage issue, noting that North Carolina and Minnesota will have that issue on the ballot in 2012, and Maryland might, too, if a same-sex marriage bill succeeds this time in the General Assembly. Last time pro-homosexual advocacy group Equality Maryland “rigged the system” and threatened business which didn’t support their bill, McCoy claimed, but “we kept coming from so many sides” that a bill guaranteed to pass didn’t.
After breakfast, I sat in on an interesting training session on the media while others talked about candidate recruitment, fundraising, and other intriguing topics.
At lunch, Chair Alex Mooney went over some upcoming events before introducing our speaker, Delegate Neil Parrott.
Parrott was blunt in his assessment: “We see this great country under attack today.” He pointed out that the TEA Party delayed Obamacare by a year, which pushed back other noxious legislation like cap-and-trade. We had won victories on national issues thanks to the influence of the TEA Party.
In Maryland, though, Neil still believed “the arrogance of the liberal leadership is appalling.” Still, the petition drive he spearheaded against in-state tuition for illegal aliens was a model which could be used elsewhere. And since only 1/3 of the signatures gathered for the drive were under contention due to the collection system, there should be more than enough to place the bill on the ballot despite a pending lawsuit. The internet-based system “worked like a charm” in driving down the error rate, and was “a new tool” we could use – provided there’s follow-through and the issue wins at the ballot box, too.
Parrott also brought up redistricting, saying the Congressional map was “ridiculous” and that “we can’t allow O’Malley to get away with this” on either the Congressional or state redistricting.
In closing, Parrott brought up the real-life examples of Wisconsin, Maine, and New Jersey to conclude change is possible if we work hard enough to make it happen.
Finally, it was time for the main event.
I already detailed the fate of our bylaws amendment, but there was a lot more said in the session. I’m going to focus on the reports of the Senate Minority Leader E.J. Pipkin and House Minority Leader Tony O’Donnell.
The newly elected Pipkin called it “humbling” to be selected as Minority Leader, but spent much of his time contending that Martin O’Malley wants to drive people back to Baltimore City through the War on Rural Maryland and its 1.6 million residents. Included in that assessment were the proposed septic ban, the “dangerous” PlanMaryland, Watershed Improvement Plans” which would cost 65,000 Maryland jobs, and the refusal to progress on extracting energy from the Marcellus Shale formation under Maryland’s panhandle. “O’Malley’s policies will kill jobs in rural areas,” Pipkin countered.
O’Donnell began his remarks by pointing out the GOP success in Virginia. “I sense it’s coming” to Maryland, he said, as Free State residents react to the prospects of higher gas taxes, Congressional redistricting which “insults the people of Maryland,” and a $28 billion time bomb of unfunded pensions and retiree benefits. He also had a message for the Fifth Congressional District: we “must hold Steny Hoyer accountable.”
We also heard briefly from Prince George’s County Chair Mykel Harris about the redistricting lawsuit he’s a plaintiff to. The Maryland GOP isn’t on defense anymore, he said, but instead “went on offense.” It’s fitting from a party that “passed civil rights and…will enforce it.”
Before we got to the bylaws amendment, we also received quick reports from our National Committeewoman Joyce Terhes, National Committeeman Louis Pope, Chair Alex Mooney, and Linda Hernandez of the aforementioned Hispanic Coalition. One item I gleaned from Mooney’s remarks was his claim that PlanMaryland is indeed subject to referendum. Very interesting.
So there you have it, the sights and words from our biannual get-together. Our Spring Convention should present a united front as the Presidential race will be pretty much decided, but we will have additional national convention delegates and alternates to select. In the meantime, Heather and I will likely redraft the Rule 11 amendment to reflect feedback we received, so look for that as well.
Well, day one of the Maryland Republican Party convention is just about in the books. On the bylaw amendment front, it looks like there’s a decent chance change is a-comin’.
In case you were wondering (and I’ll have much more on this tomorrow or Sunday, depending on the time this wraps up) there were suites for both Herman Cain and Mitt Romney here, while Ron Paul has a table as well. Both Dan Bongino and Rich Douglas had spaces, although Bongino had a ballroom.
So I’m giving you this quick update at the end of a whirlwind day and week for me. I already have plenty to write about, including my Red Maryland Radio debut. (That’s called a tease.)
Back with more tomorrow…
I’d love to have said I was there, but family has to come first and my parents came from many miles away.
But I was cheered to see the lineup for the Turning the Tides Conference presented by the Maryland Conservative Action Network, as it included a number of luminaries as well as breakout discussions on a number of subjects near and dear to the hearts of conservatives in Maryland and everywhere else, for that matter. Not only that, the event drew over 200 activists from across Maryland and received coverage from both the old and new media outlets. They even had their very own counterprotest from a liberal former member of the House of Delegates.
So it sounds like we had a nice event. But now the question is ‘where do we go from here?’
You know, I have so much fun with these occasional polls I do.
As I said in June when I did the last Senate one, I obviously know the polls are manipulated. But in making the assumption that those who would manipulate a poll exist in the same general proportion as supporters in the population at large, I can at least gather a trend. At least in this sort of instance it’s doubtful anyone would lie to a pollster.
These results, though, show a trend which may only be occurring within Republican circles until we know for sure if other key contenders are getting into the party. Here’s how the poll went:
Having said that a trend may exist, I need to caution those reading into the results that there’s little chance Dan Bongino will get 76% of the vote – I don’t care if the Constitutional Conservatives Fund of Senator Mike Lee has endorsed Dan or not, he’s not getting 75 percent of the GOP vote. In 2006 Michael Steele didn’t even get 90 percent and he was the sitting lieutenant governor, had plenty of name recognition, and basically controlled the whole Maryland GOP apparatus. I can see something in the 40’s for Bongino if all goes right but a lot depends on who else gets into the race and we won’t have a couple possible entrants with statewide name recognition make a formal announcement on their status until later this month.
But I have to admire how Dan is laying the groundwork for his campaign, including people passionate enough to drive internet poll numbers over 75 percent.
Let’s compare this to June numbers, for example. The number of votes cast was nearly the same (4,716 in June vs. 4,527 now) but the results were somewhat different:
Since I didn’t figure Capps ever really had 18 percent, the idea of a two-man race at the time had merit. But if Eric decides not to run – and remember, he had not made a final decision as of a couple weeks ago – that only leaves Pat McDonough as a possible major opponent. (I wouldn’t completely discount Rich Douglas either, given his background.)
This election is a little bit different than the last cycle, where the primary was late – so late, in fact, that federal law precludes us from having a September primary again. (Too bad, because I liked that compressed season.) Now there’s less than six months remaining until election day and truly we won’t be really paying attention until after the holidays anyway. It’s possible we could have a post-holiday bid, sort of like Bob Ehrlich’s coyness about his 2010 try for governor, but like Ehrlich it would have to be someone with some name recognition already because the filing deadline is January 11.
In any case it won’t be as easy as voting in a monoblogue poll.
Normally I don’t do this.
My usual custom is to discuss the Wicomico County Republican Club meetings but not Central Committee meetings, mainly because we talk shop there and I like to keep the opposition guessing. Judging by recent election results around these parts, that strategy works pretty well.
But we had a special guest tonight as newly committed U.S. Senate candidate Rich Douglas came a-callin’. So I’ll discuss a little bit about what he said.
Continue reading “U.S. Senate hopeful Rich Douglas meets the Wicomico GOP Central Committee”
