Now that Mitt Romney has won the Illinois primary – it was called for him barely a half-hour after the polls closed – one of the next “big” states on the docket is Maryland. (Louisiana comes first, on Saturday.) But Romney is the first major candidate to make a late push in the state, scheduling an event in Arbutus (3:30 at the American Legion Post 109, to be exact) later today. Something tells me Bob Ehrlich is going to show up at this event in his hometown.
One other piece of news worth mentioning is that Romney got another late endorsement from Harford County Executive (and 2014 candidate for something) David Craig, who said in part:
America is yearning for leadership. We are yearning for someone who can improve our course, who can inspire ingenuity, and who can get our economy churning. That man is Mitt Romney.
As Governor, Mitt Romney inherited large deficits that he turned into record surpluses, through focusing on the economy by signing job-creating incentives into law and by slashing the red tape that hinders small business growth.
In 1999, the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics had been bogged down in a bid-rigging scandal, sponsors were fleeing, and the budget was bleeding red ink. When Mitt Romney came on board, he revamped the organization’s leadership, trimmed the budget, and restored public confidence.
He is a leader with executive experience and a proven track record of fixing what is broken, and America is broken.
I would tend to disagree with parts of that statement, but all the endorsement proves is that Craig is like a number of other politicians who seem to be banking on Romney being the “electable” Republican.
But the reason I really wanted to bring this up was to do some lobbying.
If a Republican candidate is to win in November, he is going to have to gather some crossover Democrats and conservative independents who respond to his message. And what better place is there to test drive such a message than an area where Democrats have the voter registration advantage but Republicans hold the offices? Yes, I think Salisbury would be an ideal stop for a Presidential candidate.
Most of the campaigns are spending time in Louisiana this week, which makes sense. But the only candidate who is planning on spending significant time in Maryland next week insofar as I can tell is minor candidate Fred Karger, and my gut feeling is he’d come nowhere near the Eastern Shore because, to put it charitably, he’s not exactly conservative.
I realize that presidential campaign schedules are made on the fly, but I’m sure we would be happy to welcome Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, or even Mitt Romney around these parts. Special added bonus: Delaware votes April 24.
So there is your offer. Take advantage of our hospitality while you can.