Editor’s note: I actually did this article as an adjunct to my Red County site to link to my TEA Party post yesterday because pictorial posts don’t always transfer well there. But I liked expressing my thoughts on Saturday so much I decided to bring it back here and kind of switch things around for a change.
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While I have a pictorial post on my home website, monoblogue, I thought it may work out better on Red County to skip the pictures since the transition often omits my captioning text. So this post is more on my thoughts a couple days removed from the proceedings.
The attendance for our party wasn’t as large as it was in April, but I would argue that’s due to two reasons. The obvious answer is having a TEA Party on a national holiday as opposed to a day of mourning for your money. That also segues into the second reason – on April 15th most of us are good and mad at the IRS but by July citizens are resigned to having that large chunk taken out of their paycheck (if they’re still fortunate enough to collect one) and politics – at least here in Maryland – isn’t quite as sore of a subject. The talk isn’t about what the General Assembly tried to do to us now because their session ended in early April.
Moreover, I’m not sure that there wasn’t a perception – spread gleefully by the Leftmedia – that most of the attendees would be some fringe element. Part of me would like to see more involvement from local Republican elected officials – of the county’s elected Republicans I only saw two others there, a husband and wife – but then again given the anti-GOP sentiment of a few speakers who equated the two political parties as peas in a pod their lack of attendance could be an advantage later on. Better to shed light than heat in the spirit of the moment.
The only difficulty with their efforts lies in a electoral law which is stacked in favor of the two major parties in Maryland. It’s exceedingly difficult for people outside that realm to crack the ballot and then they don’t have the party apparatus behind them. It creates a lack of money and volunteers which generally spells defeat.
On the whole, I happen to believe that most of these people would naturally fall into the Republican sphere but the problem is that national Republicans have squandered that goodwill by coming into home districts talking the conservative talk but far too often voting with the centrists and liberals in their state capitals and in Washington, D.C. Some locally argue that our former Republican Congressman, Wayne Gilchrest, would have won the seat had State Senator Andy Harris not defeated him in a vicious primary. But given his moderate-to-liberal record on many issues would he have been an improvement over Frank Kratovil? Maybe a little, but not nearly as much as Harris would have been and the GOP brand would be tarnished even more in the eyes of local concerned citizens.
As I see it, Republicans at all levels need to learn from the TEA Party movement and embrace it. All those who took time out of their holiday to gather at the Government Office Building in downtown Salisbury as well as over 1,500 other locales are doing is begging for a new Contract With America or similar document. I’m happy to push for one too, but it will take those already in office to assist in its enactment.
And while I’m at it, I’d also like to express my congratulations to the Wicomico County East Side Chamber of Commerce for putting on a nice event in Willards Saturday. Kudos go to these fine folks:
Hopefully the third annual event next year will be bigger, better, and have double the number of sponsors!
Good post, Mike. You hit the nail on the head.
As I’ve mentioned before, the folks at the TEA Party are people who should be voting Republican without any hesitation. The fact that many are skeptical of or hostile to the party indicates we have deep, deep problems. We need to listen to their complaints and do what we can to address them. If we can’t appeal to the fiscal conservatives then we might as well pack up and go home.
To those fiscal conservatives who are upset with the GOP, I say don’t abandon the party, try to re-assert your influence. The RNC, state party, or local central committee doesn’t control the party — the primary voters do. The national and state conventions can pass any platforms they want but these platforms are pretty meaningless. The candidates are what matters and these candidates are chosen in primaries. When you abandon the GOP in disgust you turn the party over to those who don’t share your principles and you get two candidates for office who want to enlarge government. The only way to get good candidates is to vote in a party primary. And then, if that candidate wins, work to elect him or her.
An unaffiliated voter in Maryland has no ability to vote in a primary. The primary vote is incredibly important. Don’t throw that away.