Tag: Frank Kratovil

Polling stories: O’Malley plus 8, Harris plus 3

Maybe the Washington Post poll dismissed by Bob Ehrlich as “out of whack” wasn’t so far off after all.

Yesterday Rasmussen came out with its latest poll on the governor’s race; a survey which gave Martin O’Malley a lead he hasn’t enjoyed in quite awhile. The 49%-41% margin can’t be good news for the Republican standardbearer who seems to be a victim of a backlash against the TEA Party by entrenched Democrats in one of the few places they still have political muscle.

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In print: Kratovil’s misleading ad returns to the airwaves

Yesterday my letter happened to make it into the Daily Times. Glad they held it until Sunday.

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Well, it looks like Rep. Frank Kratovil is up to his old tricks again. Fresh off putting out a commercial that was termed “misleading” by factcheck.org, he puts out another one making the same claim — that Andy Harris wants a 23 percent sales tax increase.

But what Kratovil and his Washington insider friends cannily leave out is that working families would see their take-home pay dramatically increase, thanks to the return of money now confiscated by federal backup withholding. Frame the question instead as one of wanting a 20 to 30 percent raise, and people would be lined up around the block to shout “where do I sign up?”

I’m wondering if life inside the beltway has changed Kratovil to be that much less trustworthy, or whether he’s just a pawn in a desperate attempt by the party in power and their associated special interests to stay in control.

If Kratovil, Pelosi and their big-government friends are this willing to use deceit and parsing of terms in order to stay in office, it leads me to wonder what they’re so afraid of. Sending Harris to Congress would be a good, conservative reflection of our 1st District — a district which soundly rejected the policies of President Barack Obama even before he was put into office.

And since when is having more control over your own money a bad thing?

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It’s worth seeing the letter online because there’s some interesting reactions to it so far. I put in my two cents last evening.

AFP Maryland speaks out

There’s more fallout from “the Salisbury Chicken Incident.”

The Maryland chapter of Americans for Prosperity is demanding an apology from the Maryland Democratic Party after an employee and several other cohorts attempted to hijack a “November Is Coming” Bus Tour rally in Salisbury on Thursday where the voting record of Rep. Frank Kratovil was to be discussed. Chuck Cook, Field Organizer for the Maryland Democratic Party, burst into the restaurant, disrupted the peaceful rally, and harassed several attendees with video cameras. Video of the harassment and disruption of the event can be seen HERE (video courtesy of http://monoblogue.us/).

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I look at it this way – if our opponents want to look like fools, let them do so as much as possible!

Kratovil airs ‘quite misleading’ ad

If this is the way that Frank Kratovil is going to run his campaign to keep his House seat away from Andy Harris from here on out, expect it to be a nasty battle – but count on it being a campaign which hides some of the key facts.

An ad that’s so far only been seen on the internet claims that Andy Harris supports a 23% sales tax increase. But when even factcheck.org – hardly a friend of the conservative movement – cries foul on a similar advertisement, you know you’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Yet the Kratovil campaign is standing behind the statement made in the ad.

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By the way, here’s the ad Kratovil did:

And the original AFSCME ad, as shown on Factcheck.org:

It also leads to a coordination question, but I’ll leave that for another day. Suffice to say that the commercial isn’t exactly above board – then again, that’s how Kratovil ran his last campaign too.

Somebody owes me some steak!

I was looking up something else and saw this passage from a post I did two years ago:

By the way, (Frank Kratovil) is a Democrat and not an independent because he’ll caucus with Nancy Pelosi and company. If he votes with San Fran Nan even 50% of the time the voters would likely want him thrown out, and I’m willing to wager a steak dinner with Joe that, if elected, Frank will have an ACU rating lower than Wayne Gilchrest’s 2007 rating of 36.

This was in the wake of Frank Kratovil’s “I’ll be an independent” campaign. Gee, before it was uncool to be a Democrat Frank was already running away from the label.

Well, you know I forgot about this until just now but when the 2009 ACU ratings came out back in February Frank Kratovil’s rating was…. 28. Did I call it or did I call it?

Admittedly, that’s one of the higher ratings among Democrats (only Dutch Ruppersberger has a lifetime ACU rating above 10 among the other Maryland Democrats) but it goes to show that there is a big difference between parties. Even the much-maligned Mike Castle in Delaware has a 52.49 lifetime ACU rating.

I really don’t want to have to keep a wary eye on my Congressman to be assured he’s doing the right thing and voting for the principles our district holds dear – it is a conservative district and should have a conservative Congressman. With Frank Kratovil we haven’t progressed any farther toward representation which reflects us, so whether Rob Fisher or Andy Harris wins the GOP primary they should be strongly considered as a viable replacement for ‘flip-flop Frank.’

Campaigning as usual bad for one businessman

Onetime TEA Party organizer and Wicomico County Council hopeful Chris Lewis is also a business owner. And while he’s not a complete stranger to the political process, recent events surrounding his downtown Salisbury deli have left a sour taste in his mouth.

It started last week when a representative of Andy Harris’s campaign contacted Lewis about stopping by his deli as part of a business tour through Salisbury’s downtown area. Last Monday the stop was called off, only to be re-added to the schedule the next day on one stipulation – Lewis, who supports Andy’s GOP opponent Rob Fisher, would have to take Fisher’s signage down.

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Look for the union payoff

So much for independence.

This afternoon Frank Kratovil voted to create a slush fund for Democratic politicians and further reduce the chance states will mend their spendthrift ways by bailing them out to the tune of billions.

Attached by Senate Democrats as an amendment to a previously-passed and fairly innocuous House bill regarding the air traffic control system, the House convened for just six hours to debate the measure and attend to other business before resuming their August recess.

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Is a money source important?

Quarterly financial reports are often scoured and picked through again with a fine-tooth comb by researchers from all sides for any sort of irregularity. Obviously this week will bring a fresh look at the data provided by candidates to the Federal Election Commission for the most recent quarter which ended June 30.

For example, a nagging perception regarding Republicans in Maryland is that they won’t have enough money to compete. So when Senate candidate Eric Wargotz says he had, “fundraising numbers (which) show we have the resources we need to win the Republican Primary, and to then take on Senator Mikulski in November,” one may be inclined to look at his $600,000 cash on hand and agree.

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You know, a funny thing happened on the way to writing the article. I meant for this to be on my Political Buzz Examiner page but realized when I hit ‘publish’ that I was working on my Wicomico County one. Oh well.

Local Democrats kick off ground campaign

A nondescript downtown Salisbury building became a beehive of activity this morning as about two dozen local Democrats gathered for a morning of canvassing. This meeting, part of a larger nationwide effort by the Organizing for America group, enlisted rank-and-file Democrats in an early get out the vote drive.

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A Democrat to-do

On my Election Calendar last Sunday, I alluded to an event Frank Kratovil is holding on Saturday morning both locally and across the district. Well, it looks like the big guns of Organizing For Against America (a front group for national Democrats) are keenly interested in turnout.

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By the way, the editorial change is only here. The Examiner requests I do coverage straight up, but I take more editorial license on this site.

Kratovil pitch sullies Harris in Big Oil

Obviously the dirty tactics used by Martin O’Malley to smear Bob Ehrlich as a friend of Big Oil have a fan in Congressman Frank Kratovil. I recently received a fundraising pitch from the Democrat called “Apologize to BP?”

The e-mail screams that “Harris’s friends in Congress have gone so far as to apologize to BP for our efforts to hold the company accountable,” referring to Congressman Joe Barton of Texas – who later rescinded his “shakedown” remarks. Obviously we have no idea whether Harris considers Barton a friend, let alone whether they have even met.

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