Cain: Gingrich is able

This truly wasn’t a shock; back in December when Herman Cain exited the race I came right out and said I wouldn’t be surprised if he endorsed Newt Gingrich. They’re very familiar to one another as both hail from Georgia and you may recall they had a one-on-one debate with each other last fall. (Gingrich also had a similar debate with Jon Huntsman, which neither did anything for Huntsman nor got him to endorse Newt, as Jon Huntsman now backs Mitt Romney.) Cain’s consolation prize is now a position chairing Newt’s tax reform efforts.

However, the timing of this perhaps shows Cain’s lack of political savvy – or, to play devil’s advocate, means he marches to his own drummer and eschews standards which would place him within the political norm. Your choice. The latter seems especially true when you consider Cain had already made his “unconventional endorsement” of “the people.”

Honestly, as a former Cain supporter, I think Herman’s post-campaign decisions have been quite disappointing. His TEA Party response to the State of the Union address was all right, but it seemed to me he pulled his punches somewhat; of course one could also argue that had he endorsed Newt earlier he would not have received the slot. As I said up top, it wasn’t unexpected that he endorsed Gingrich but doing so at this time, when Newt’s campaign is otherwise imploding in Florida, smacks of desperation on the part of both – but moreso Gingrich, who’s trying to corral onetime Cain supporters into his camp.

Too bad that, for many, the horse has already left that barn – Newt isn’t going to get much of a bounce from an endorsement eight weeks after the candidate’s withdrawal. Obviously it wasn’t needed for Newt to win South Carolina, so to do so now indeed seems like flailing from a candidate who vows to “go all the way to the convention.” That movie has played before, and usually that sort of declaration comes just before the closing credits roll on the campaign.

Unfortunately, the GOP voters and caucus participants who have come before me have seen to eliminate most of my top selections from the race. It will leave me a choice – as too often seems to be the case in Presidential politics – of:

  • voting my conscience (even if he dropped out before the primary), or
  • voting for my third- or fourth-favorite choice who’s still there, or
  • voting against the guy I don’t want to win with his strongest remaining opponent.

A combination of the second and third options was the approach I took in 2008, basically voting against John McCain rather than for Mike Huckabee. Huckabee was pretty much my fourth option after Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, and Rudy Giuliani withdrew. (As I recall, Florida was Giuliani’s Waterloo, too.) In 2012 I’ve already lost Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry (although Perry is on the ballot here.)

But we’ll see if Cain’s backing for Gingrich is too little, too late. If it ends up I vote for Newt Gingrich, it won’t be because Herman Cain endorsed him. Instead, see bullet point #3 above and you’ll find my reason.

Odds and ends number 41

Not that I necessarily keep track of these things, but this is my first look in 2012 at those items which are worth a paragraph or three, but not a full post. It helps me clean out my e-mail inbox.

I couldn’t figure out how to embed this “Made in America” video, but I found it interesting when I watched it. I’m generally in favor of free trade and against strict protectionism, but if the difference is as small as they claim then buying American is worth it. Perhaps the claim of using 5% more American products would create 220,000 jobs is a bit dubious, but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt.

Our nation needs to take steps in regaining its onetime prominence as a leading manufacturer. But it’s interesting to note several of the companies prominently mentioned have at least one plant in a right-to-work state. I can’t ascertain whether these are all non-union shops, but chances are fairly good – given that only about 1/10 of the private-sector workforce is unionized – that these good, honest American jobs don’t come with the union label.

Not that Maryland is making any quick moves to join the ranks of Virginia and other right-to-work states – this year, HB91 hasn’t progressed beyond first reading. But the group New Day Maryland pointed out to me a couple other bills of interest in the General Assembly this term to keep an eye on, and I thought I’d pass along the word.

House Bill 23, the Dedicated State Funds Protection Act, would prohibit the fund-raiding Governor O’Malley is almost as well known for as his constant zeal to raise taxes. And House Bill 43 would allow appropriations bills to be subjected to the same referendum process as those bills not dealing with appropriations. (The last remaining legal straw opponents of the in-state tuition for illegal aliens referendum are grasping for is that the bill is an appropriations bill, although it’s not.)

Both these bills have a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. on January 31. I presume written testimony is acceptable, too.

Continue reading “Odds and ends number 41”

Another one bites the dust

Just two days before the South Carolina primary, Rick Perry decided at last to drop out. You may recall he was considering withdrawing after the Iowa caucuses, but instead decided to concentrate on placing well in South Carolina. Turns out he wasn’t doing well there either, so Perry decided to throw in the towel and endorse Newt Gingrich.

That’s the topline story. So what can I dredge up from between the lines?

First of all, Perry is the first notable dropout to endorse Newt. Others who were in the race either endorsed Mitt Romney (most recently Jon Huntsman but also Tim Pawlenty and Thad McCotter) or have remained silent as to who they would back. It was thought that Herman Cain would throw his support behind Newt but he made no official statement to that effect, and Michele Bachmann has likewise been mum with her choice.

This also changes the equation of the race, as it’s now down to four main contenders. In political terms among that rapidly shrinking group, Perry’s departure leaves only Mitt Romney with any sort of executive experience as a former governor and Ron Paul as the last remaining current officeholder – Newt left the House in 1998, Rick Santorum was defeated for re-election to the Senate in 2006, and Romney chose not to run again in 2006. And presumably the anti-Romney vote is now split just three ways, with conventional wisdom predicting the new weakest link to be Rick Santorum.

But let’s talk about some other factors at play here.

Continue reading “Another one bites the dust”

Report: Huntsman to drop out, endorse Romney

According to an AP story by Philip Elliott and Kasie Hunt, Jon Huntsman is preparing to drop out of the GOP presidential sweepstakes and endorse Mitt Romney. Ironically, the same newspaper whose edition of the story I used (The State, based in the Columbia, SC area) spent its Sunday edition endorsing Huntsman in the South Carolina primary to be held next Saturday.

But the die for Huntsman was probably cast in New Hampshire, where he finished a distant third in a state where he was counting on competing with Mitt Romney for moderate Republican, independent, and disaffected Democratic votes. Finishing 22 points behind Romney and not expecting much of a showing in a much more conservative state (South Carolina) where Gov. Nikki Haley already placed herself squarely in the Romney camp, it was probably felt that Huntsman had no path to victory against his former boss, Barack Obama. So the two convention delegates Huntsman won can go ahead and support another candidate rather than be among the loneliest duo at the national Republican convention.

Yet while a number of conservative pundits believed Huntsman was a conservative actually attempting to broaden his appeal as a moderate, in reality Jon had two major problems I found: he supported the DREAM Act and believed in anthropogenic climate change. Neither of them are particularly conservative, and they overshadowed many of his good points with an electorate which has cried for a more conservative candidate than Mitt Romney.

Still, Romney will be Huntsman’s choice going forward, based on perceived electability – no surprise there. However, all that may do is bump Romney’s ceiling from 25 percent of the GOP electorate to 26 percent. Unfortunately, there’s not much Romney could gain from a Huntsman endorsement; meanwhile, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, who both exited the race with a broader base of support, haven’t stated publicly which competitor they will endorse. Those two endorsements could help sway the race to more of an extent than Huntsman’s commitment and it’s fairly likely they’ll be backing one of Romney’s opponents.

So we have the first qualifier on Maryland’s ballot to drop out of the running. Now the question is how many other “ghost” candidates will be on the docket we see April 3rd.

A heart-to-heart talk with the electorate

Back when we began this process a year or so ago, here’s how I would have preferred to see the political landscape after the 2012 election, in order of best-case scenario to worst-case:

  1. A strong conservative President (in my case, the initial choice was Herman Cain) is elected and has enough coattails to increase the GOP advantage in the House and win 13 additional seats in the Senate (a 60-seat majority.)
  2. Same as #1, but with a simple GOP Senate majority.
  3. The Republicans take the House and Senate, but with a more moderate GOP standardbearer like Mitt Romney.
  4. A moderate Republican like Romney wins the presidency, but doesn’t pull enough Senate seats to place it in Republican control.
  5. The status quo from 2010-12 remains: House is Republican, Democrats keep the Senate, and Barack Obama is re-elected.
  6. Somehow the Democrats regain the House, keep the Senate, and Barack Obama is re-elected – a repeat of the situation from 2008-10.

Well, unless we have a candidate who comes from a brokered convention or someone like Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, or Rick Santorum pleasantly surprises me – or Ron Paul allows someone sane like John Bolton to enact our foreign policy – it looks like I’m down to my third-choice scenario at best.

Continue reading “A heart-to-heart talk with the electorate”

Bachmann’s turn is over (but Perry’s isn’t after all)

Well, it was fun while it lasted. The monoblogue kiss of death has claimed another victim, Michele Bachmann.

After gamely trying to convince herself and others the fight wasn’t over last night, apparently she slept on it and “decided to stand aside” this morning. This was the statement on her website:

I will be forever grateful to Iowa and its people for launching us on this path with our victory in the Iowa Straw Poll. While I will not be continuing in this race, my faith in the Lord God Almighty, this country, in our republic, has been strengthened. As I have traveled around Iowa, and the country, I have seen the very best in America, our people. And I will always believe in the greatness of them and the greatness of our God.

And, of course, I am deeply grateful to our entire campaign team, here in Iowa, in South Carolina and everywhere. I have no regrets. We never compromised our principles and we can leave this race knowing that we ran it with integrity and that we made an important contribution.

Thank you, God Bless you.

At this time, she hasn’t made an endorsement but presumably her decision was hastened in part by the necessity to begin her campaign to retain her Congressional seat – a campaign which has already drawn her GOP opposition and perhaps may place her in another Congressional district, as the DFL (their version of the Democratic Party) redistricting plan does. She also remains as the titular head of the TEA Party Caucus.

So the old adage that there are only three tickets out of Iowa may yet prove almost true, as the list of contenders gets whittled down to six: Newt Gingrich (4th in Iowa), Jon Huntsman (7th, but did not campaign there), Ron Paul (3rd in Iowa), Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. (The latter two essentially tied for first.) Fifth-place finisher Rick Perry was going to “reassess” his campaign, but perhaps Bachmann’s decision allowed him to stay in the hunt.

This hasn’t been much of a campaign for conservatives. Many would have liked to see Sarah Palin run, while others pined for a TEA Party favorite like Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana. Other names tossed around were Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Allen West of Florida, and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, all reliably conservative.

But many conservatives coalesced around the lesser-known Herman Cain until a series of unfounded allegations of marital misconduct and sexual harassment knocked him out of the race. Others have been in the Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann camps early on and stayed during the frequent ups and downs.

Now we have fewer but certainly not better choices: Mitt Romney will forever have the albatross of ushering in the precursor to Obamacare in Massachusetts and has the perception of being the “establishment” choice in an era of anti-establishmentism. (Come on, he’s been endorsed by John McCain – how much more of a milquetoast, reach across the aisle pander can one get?) Likewise, Newt Gingrich is the consummate Beltway insider who never really left Washington once he left the House.

Rick Santorum is the darling of the social conservative group – and that’s an integral part of our cause. But Rick won’t be the fiscal conservative we need and hasn’t always shown fealty to the cause of limited government – one can ask Pat Toomey about that. (Yet for everything Santorum has said he seems to have a manner of parsing his words later. I call it saying what he thinks will get him elected.)

Jon Huntsman started out turning his back to the TEA Party movement and his idea that anthropogenic climate change is real is a disqualifier. And then there’s Ron Paul. If being President didn’t involve a lick of foreign affairs he would be my guy, but the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

And while Perry is back in, will this post-Iowa misstep work the same as John McCain’s late suspension of 2008 campaign efforts in order to address the economic crisis? After that he never recovered in the polls.

That’s all folks. That’s what we now have to choose from, unless there’s somehow a brokered convention and some white knight rides in to save us from ourselves. Certainly any of the above would be an improvement over the current occupant of the Oval Office, but I somehow get the gnawing feeling that we’re leaving a huge missed opportunity here.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day, either, and to undo nearly 100 years of damage to the Republic will take more than four. The trick is just getting started on the task.

“You’re not defeated as long as you never stop fighting.”

The title of this post came from the first line of an e-mail I received from what I guess would now be considered The Cain Solutions. It was his explanation to supporters about his next steps in a continuing campaign to reshape America.

Rather than repost the entire essay here I want to focus on three passages, with the first being his reaction to the establishment.

…I knew the establishment would not like the idea of my success, because I will not get along by going along like so many do. I will not kick the can down the road to the next generation of leaders, because our problems are serious and they need to be solved now.

That threatens people who know there may be a political price to pay for enacting solutions that will work, and would rather wait things out and let someone else take the heat. That would not have been possible during a Cain presidency.

But if real solutions are achieved, it will not matter who achieved them.

This idea came from Reagan, who theorized that it didn’t matter who got the credit as long as the problem was solved. Obviously my view on that also comes from Ronald Reagan: “Government is not the solution, government is the problem.” Too often the cure is worse than the disease once Washington gets a hold of it, and if Washington doesn’t mess it up we can always count on Annapolis, Dover, Richmond, or somewhere else from Augusta to Honolulu or Juneau to Tallahassee to botch it. But sometimes they get it right, which is why we have 50 states which should take the lead in being laboratories to come up with solutions which might – I repeat, might – work in certain situations.

Unfortunately, we as a society fall into the trap of allowing government to take the lead rather than be the last resort.

Continue reading ““You’re not defeated as long as you never stop fighting.””

Cain is out, so now I have to find someone else

This is a complete pisser, because I thought (after careful study of relevant issues) that Herman Cain was the best choice. But just as certain special interests attempted to destroy Sarah Palin and her chances at the 2012 Presidential nod, so they have done with a black conservative. Apparently the GOP is only supposed to run white males so Democrats can continue to perpetuate a myth that Republicans are a racist and sexist party.

Continue reading “Cain is out, so now I have to find someone else”

Johnson the turncoat?

This isn’t a completely unexpected development, as it echoes the path Ron Paul once took.

But according to this story I found on Politico, Gary Johnson isn’t ruling out a third-party run, probably as a Libertarian. Obviously he’s frustrated that he hasn’t been involved in many GOP debates and can’t make any headway in the polls because of that.

And in all honesty, he’s probably just as good a fit as a Libertarian as he is a Republican. In fact, there have previously been GOP candidates who have jumped into a third party when their path to the nomination was blocked – Alan Keyes in 2008 and Pat Buchanan in 2000 are two recent examples.

The question, of course, is what sort of impact Gary would have on the general election should he receive the Libertarian nomination. Normally the Libertarian gets a percent or two of the national vote, and if Johnson stays within the polling range he’s exhibited in seeking the GOP nod he’ll probably get in that range nationally. But the question is who he’d get the votes from?

If the Republicans nominate Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich it’s possible Johnson may draw support from disgruntled Republicans who don’t like the party’s nominee, which could hurt their Presidential bids. But nominating a candidate like Herman Cain or perhaps Rick Perry won’t help Johnson much because conservatives will stay with the GOP. Instead, Johnson may appeal to some independents who aren’t enamored with Barack Obama but like Johnson’s reformist mantra without the social conservatism the GOP tends to favor.

There’s little doubt that Gary Johnson doesn’t have a path to victory within the Republican Party, so the question is whether he would actually play a true maverick and attempt to bring his message to the voters in a different fashion. With the advent of the new media, he may pull off the role of spoiler.

When do the candidates drop out?

We’re just 45 days out from the Iowa caucuses (believe it or not) but there are still ten serious candidates seeking the GOP nomination.

I bring this up because, in the 2008 cycle, we had already lost a few people when they realized the money wasn’t going to be there or they had no path to victory. This is going to be true among probably six or so of the 2012 contenders, but they soldier on regardless.

Perhaps this is because the person who was counted out a month ago may make a meteoric rise in the polls based on a campaign plank, a great debate performance, or just the fact they were viewed as the hot new item in public perception. Thus far, this phenomenon has benefited several candidates: Herman Cain (twice), Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and now Newt Gingrich. Even Tim Pawlenty had his turn, although once his down cycle arrived (at the peak of fellow Minnesotan Michele Bachmann’s cycle at the Iowa Straw Poll) he decided to exit the race. Way back when, before the race had really jelled together, Jon Huntsman had a turn at the wheel too. But by the time he actually announced that support was gone.

On the other hand, one has to wonder if the turns will ever come for guys like Gary Johnson, Buddy Roemer, or Rick Santorum. They continue to suffer from abysmally low poll numbers, and the question is now getting to be whether they’ll have the money or manpower to get their message out before it’s too late.

And you’ll notice I didn’t mention Mitt Romney or Ron Paul. It’s because both seem to have a narrow strata of support which ranges in the low twenties for Romney and right around ten percent for Paul. They don’t seem to deviate much from those plateaus, which begs the question of whether the field is too crowded for them right now. Presumably they can tread water until some of the bottom-feeders finally exit the scene.

I’m going to do a poll for a few days and see what you think will be the result of the coming shakeout. I think it’s interesting to speculate who just doesn’t have the horses to continue on.

A secondary election day

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.)

Continue reading “A secondary election day”

MDGOP 2011 Fall Convention in pictures and text

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.