In print: Republican activities, a well-kept secret, can benefit the entire state

Today my op-ed for the Salisbury Daily Times was published as part of their “Point & Counterpoint” series, with the topic: “What’s at stake in Maryland’s 2014 midterm elections?”

This piece is the “as submitted” version, which differs slightly from the actual print run and internet edition available at the paper’s website.

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While we are still months away from knowing who the nominees will be for Maryland’s state and local elective offices, one thing which is becoming more and more apparent with each passing day is that the key issue on the ballot will be a stark choice.

With the exception of one term of Bob Ehrlich, the Republican governor who presided over a sound Maryland economy and was defeated for re-election despite positive approval ratings, the Democratic Party has held each of the three statewide elected offices and control of the General Assembly for decades. They’d be the first to tell you that this phenomenon is due to voter satisfaction, but we contend instead that the reason is the perception – reinforced by Democrat-friendly media outlets in the state – that the Republicans have nothing to offer and are a weak, ineffective opposition party.

So what they don’t tell you is that Republicans have, for the last several years, annually put up an alternative budget in the General Assembly – one which holds the line on excessive spending and returns money to the pockets of hard-working Marylanders regardless of their party affiliation.

It’s been a well-kept secret that instead of amassing all state power in Annapolis and making the state itself prostrate to the whims of inside-the-Beltway bureaucrats who tell the state how high to jump, Republicans fought for the interests of counties and of rural Maryland – the state’s breadbasket. But measures to repeal the state’s onerous 2012 septic bill were haughtily dismissed this spring in Democratic-controlled committees; meanwhile, our right to own a handgun was severely curtailed by tone-deaf members of the majority despite the pleas of hundreds from all parties who signed up to testify on behalf of the Second Amendment.

This cavalier Democratic attitude of know-it-all superiority even extends to the voting process, as state law dictates their candidates will be listed first on the ballot.

Just because Republicans haven’t had the opportunity to govern in this state with control of the state’s General Assembly and statewide offices doesn’t mean they won’t be able to do what’s right for the state in key areas such as job creation and education. Instead of the stagnation of the last eight years and legislative rot stretching back decades, Maryland can turn a new page and join other successful states where Republicans have control.

It only takes one vote: yours.

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The key difference in the print version was combining the final sentence with the preceding paragraph, which made it lose its punch somewhat. (Mark Bowen, my Democratic opponent, got his concluding sentence to stand by itself.) They also butchered the last sentence of the penultimate paragraph in that version, leaving it hanging a little bit. Hence the need to set the story straight, sort of like the “director’s cut” of a movie.

But it’s interesting how Bowen and I interpreted the question in different ways. When I received the invitation to write this piece, I was told the subject would be Maryland’s 2014 midterm elections, so I looked at it on statewide level. Obviously Bowen chose to approach this from a national perspective as he discussed Obamacare and the prospect of electing “right-wing extremists.” (I happen to think we need about 300 more of them in Congress so maybe we can get a body which will properly assist in running this nation.) He really didn’t address the state situation at all, which leads me to believe they think things are in the bag here. I’m all for shocking the world on that one.

It’s unfortunate, but I didn’t save my original draft. I had to cut it under 400 words so I had to leave a couple subjects on the cutting room floor. I would have liked to point out the 40 tax increases enacted under our current regime but decided the idea of the alternative budget was a better way of looking forward. The key element of my argument was showing how out-of-touch the current administration in Annapolis truly is, yet it only takes one vote to change it.

So what do you think? Did I mop the floor with Mark Bowen? I encourage you to leave the Facebook comments and let the online Daily Times readers know that the state is truly ready for a change.

In print: Don’t put politics above security

This is a column I submitted to the Daily Times. A slightly longer version was submitted to another Maryland outlet.

In the 2011 session of the Maryland General Assembly, members of the House of Delegates tried and failed to get the Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Act of 2011 through the legislature. Undaunted by that legislative defeat, in early June Gov. Martin O’Malley signed an executive order to study an oil and natural gas-field process called hydraulic fracturing, with a final report not required until August 2014. It’s a demand to study a process used in more than one million U.S. wells during the past 60 years.

In layman’s terms, “fracking,” as the procedure is better known, uses a solution forced into hard underground rock formations to create tiny fissures. The fissures allow energy resources — in Maryland’s case, natural gas — to be released and extracted.

(Continued at delmarvanow.com…)

New advertiser

If you’ll notice in the right-hand sidebar, there’s a new advertiser here at monoblogue.

But it’s much more than an ad. I was asked by the publisher of Salisbury4Rent to contribute content, and the first issue is my print magazine debut. Each quarter you’ll be able to read an editorial piece I’ll write on “anything from politics to sports to music to whatever else strikes me as the publishing deadline approaches.” I share billing in this issue with Salisbury City Council member Laura Mitchell (the subject of the magazine’s first interview) and national political observer Lew Rockwell.

While the magazine is advertiser-supported (thus, free for the taking at a number of local distribution points) its success depends on patronizing these advertisers and spreading the word. It’s not a coffee-table glossy full of fluff pieces about the advertisers like Metropolitan, but reading one can sink their teeth into. Once you get your hands on the issue, you’ll wish it came out more than once a quarter.

Running a magazine is a tough business, but Salisbury4Rent has some solid backers and well-written commentary. I encourage you to give it a try. As a special treat for those outside Salisbury, I’ll link to my article once the content portion of the magazine goes online in the next few days.

In print: Field for GOP chairman thins

Once again, Alan Brody has been kind enough to solicit input from me for an article in the Gazette.

The portions of the conversation he used had to do with my thoughts on the voting process and the job of the Chair to promote party growth through candidate recruitment for future elections and working with conservative activists.

Indeed, I believe it’s going to be a long Saturday morning in Annapolis. It’s simple math, really – with so many candidates in the field and the need for a majority of those present to win (rather than a plurality) there’s probably going to be the necessity for multiple-ballot elections. Certainly we could get a last-minute pullout or two to simplify the process but failing that we’ll probably see a number of races take the better part of an hour apiece to sort out. It takes time to caucus a county for support, and each county needs to publicly state its vote so those tallying can get the information.

(Since these elections are done by county in alphabetical order the results are generally a fait accompli by the time Wicomico County is asked – maybe that’s part of our contrarian streak. But this year our numbers may be really interesting.)

The other statement Alan used is yet again a case of me looking beyond the here and now – I prefer to think at least a cycle or two ahead.

In 2014 there will most likely be at least two and perhaps three statewide openings depending on how the scrum for Governor goes. (There’s also a school of thought which sees Governor O’Malley leave a year or so early to take Barbara Mikulski’s U.S. Senate seat, giving Anthony Brown a head start and a bit of incumbency. Still, it’s doubtful that move would be unchallenged and a special election for the Senate seat when one would otherwise not exist would give the GOP another opportunity.)

If the new Chair is effective and takes the fight to the corrupt and sclerotic Maryland Democratic Party, there’s nothing which says that the leaders we’ve elected locally can’t move up in the ranks. It may not be as obvious in an area like this one where the GOP already has power, but why can’t we see a young but experienced local Republican like Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio seek a higher office? (Speaking of her, I learned tonight that Jeannie has advanced to become the new House of Delegates Minority Whip, replacing now-Senator Christopher Shank. Congratulations to her!)

Not to mention we still have a few local seats which desperately need Republicans in them – instead of those who only talk like Republicans at election time. Rumor has it two of those seats will open up as their liberal Democratic placeholders get long in the tooth. Yes, there is the possibility those seats could also be presented to young Democrats who would try to benefit from this “incumbency” but they’ll be untested by electoral fire in their districts, which also will change before the next cycle. This will be another challenge Republicans have to overcome, but it can be achieved.

In turn, 2014 success can breed more victories in 2018. But the hard work for those elections starts in the here and now. We know eight years is forever in politics.

If you look back to the electoral climate in 2002 Republicans in Maryland were jubilant. We had a GOP governor for the first time since 1969 and peaked in the General Assembly. But the work of party-building wasn’t continued; instead the GOP became more about one person and, to be frank, we’ve wasted eight years and ceded a lot of ground to that other party.

If we’re still sitting out of power with just 55 of 188 members in the General Assembly eight years hence, this state is probably lost like California seems to be. I don’t want to look back at my time on the Central Committee and consider it wasted but this state needs the right GOP Chair to help us rectify the bad situation we’re in.

Take the fight to the enemy. We can settle our internal issues if people worry about their own station in life less and the fate of the state and the Republic more.

In print: Large field lining up for state GOP chair

I love it when they get the name AND the website right:

“For a party that everybody thought was kind of dead on Election Day, there’s a lot of people that sure want to lead it,” said Michael Swartz, a member of the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee who operates Monoblogue, a conservative political blog.

This is one of the lead paragraphs in a story by writer Alan Brody in the Gazette this morning. I spoke with Alan yesterday afternoon as he apparently was putting the piece to bed.

It is sort of amazing that, when you speak for almost 23 minutes (according to the timer on my cel phone), you only get a couple good quotes out of the deal. Having done a little bit of journalism myself, that aspect of the business still makes me shake my head. And certainly that’s no criticism of Alan, who I think did a nice job of selecting my money quotes; it’s just my observation on the process.

I was impressed with what young Sam Hale said on the subject of Mary Kane, which unknowingly served to bolster my point that Kane is the favorite – well, it’s hers to lose anyway.

But one point I made in my conversation with Alan is that each candidate will likely have a bloc of voters they believe they can count on – Kane is probably working from the base of Montgomery County and their 48 allotted votes, a number which dwarfs other county delegations but is just a fraction of the nearly 300 who will be voting on December 11.

This also allows me to work in a tidbit I learned from Audrey Scott’s “Message from the Chair” yesterday:

We have 131 new (county Central Committee) members and 139 returning members for a nice balance of old and new. This represents a 48% turnover, which is roughly half and an ideal situation for continuity and fresh ideas.

The number is only elected members; some counties have a few vacancies which still aren’t filled. At ‘full strength’ the number is about 290 members. Also unknown is how many ‘new’ members are returning after a hiatus; for example our Central Committee has a ‘new’ member who was previously in office during the 1990’s. My best guess is that around 100 of the newbies have those ‘fresh ideas’ Scott speaks of. Now THAT is a formidable voting bloc!

Personally, I think by the time all is said and done we will have between two and four candidates to choose from. Some of the nearly one dozen names we’re dropping right now won’t have the support they think they have once December arrives while others will say “thanks, but no thanks” in the next week or two as the Gazette story recounts Larry Hogan did. But it likely won’t be a walkover like we had with Audrey Scott being elected midstream a year ago; this one may be more like the RNC election of Michael Steele with multiple candidates and ballots.

All I know is that we’re going to have a spirited convention, which belies the perception of a party that was “kind of dead on Election Day.”

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.