Tag: Republican Party

Romney wins Maine – another blow for Ron Paul

Let me guess – he was cheated out of that one, too. Sure enough…

Although there is one small county (Washington County, population 33,000 or so out of a state of about 1.3 million) which did not conduct its caucus yesterday due to snow, the Maine Republican Party announced last evening that Mitt Romney was the winner of their primary. He collected 39% of the vote, Ron Paul was second with 36%, Rick Santorum third with 18%, and Newt Gingrich 6% for last. The results broken down by county and caucus site are here, and they show both Romney and Paul battled it out in a number of small precincts. Eight counties were carried by Mitt Romney, six by Ron Paul.

Yet the Paul campaign is claiming foul once again. This is from campaign manager John Tate:

Tonight you saw dueling examples of how much the establishment is scared of Ron Paul and his message of liberty.

Ron Paul will win the most delegates out of Maine tonight.

In fact, he will probably even win the “beauty contest” Straw Poll the media has already called for Mitt Romney – even before all the votes have been tallied.

“HOW CAN THAT BE?” you might be asking yourself.

Simple.  The national political establishment and their pals in the national media will do ANYTHING to silence our message of liberty.

(snip blatant fundraising appeal)

You see, in Maine today, you and I saw a perfect example of just how much the establishment fears Ron Paul.

In Washington County – where Ron Paul was incredibly strong – the caucus was delayed until next week just so the votes wouldn’t be reported by the national media today.

Of course, their excuse for the delay was “snow.”

That’s right.  A prediction of 3-4 inches – that turned into nothing more than a dusting – was enough for a local GOP official to postpone the caucuses just so the results wouldn’t be reported tonight.

Michael, this is MAINE we’re talking about.

The GIRL SCOUTS had an event today in Washington County that wasn’t cancelled!

And just the votes of Washington County would have been enough to put us over the top.

This is an outrage.  Perhaps you heard about it on the mainstream news tonight?

Probably not.  In fact, if you were watching one major network, they cut off their telecast of Ron Paul’s speech right when he began mentioning this fact.

The truth is, there is no length to which the GOP establishment won’t go.  There is nothing the mainstream media won’t do.

But they can’t stifle our message.  And with your help, they will have to listen to it all the way to the GOP nominating convention in August.

Ron Paul told me this weekend — he is in it to stay and to WIN.

And we are bringing delegates with us to the fight.  Lots of them.

In fact, while the national media continues to focus on Straw Polls, we’re racking up delegate after delegate . . .

. . . the folks who will ultimately decide who goes to Tampa, Florida to select our Republican nominee for President. (All emphasis in original.)

Now I will concede that the people who run the Washington County GOP may be related to those who close the public schools around here if seven flakes of snow fall out of an overabundance of caution, but if you read this carefully here is the CAMPAIGN accusing a local county GOP and the national media of fraudulent behavior just to hold back the “true” winner. It’s not just the “supporters” as several of those who commented claimed here. (Be sure to read the postscript and link, which purportedly showed Maine was willing to cheat.)

Yet, once again, the Paul campaign is claiming they will emerge with the most delegates out of Maine despite finishing second. (And it will be second, unless there are more than 200 caucus participants in Washington County and other sites which haven’t participated yet and all of them vote for Ron Paul.) We will see on that one, but we are being set up for a contentious convention in September August.

There’s no question that a political consultant’s key job is to spin the results of an election to make his or her candidate look the best he or she can, but when they believe that everything is a conspiracy stacked against them, that’s a problem. I wouldn’t mind a brokered convention myself and Paul may have enough delegates along with the other two in the race to force this. But he’s not going to win, nor is he winning the hearts and minds of thoughtful conservatives by his campaign and supporters claiming foul every time Ron Paul loses.

Rule 11 survives…barely

I plan on more complete coverage of the events of this weekend tomorrow, but this evening I wanted to update you on the status of the resolution Heather Olsen and I presented to the Maryland GOP Fall Convention.

Just as a review, and also to make things a little less confusing, this is the text of what we originally submitted. It would have been a new section of the Bylaws that’s currently reserved because of proposed changes last spring which weren’t completely adopted:

ARTICLE VII – POLITICAL ACTIVITY

7.1 Political Activity of Members.

No member of the State Central Committee shall sponsor or endorse any candidate of a political party other than the Republican Party in connection with any partisan election or primary in which there is a Republican candidate. Failure of a member of the State Central Committee to comply with the foregoing standard shall subject such person to such sanctions as may be imposed by the State Central Committee, which may include a vote of censure and/or a request for the resignation of that member.

7.2 Neutrality in Primary Elections

a. Neutrality Policy. It shall be the policy of the Maryland Republican Party to remain neutral in all contested primary elections, unless waived as outlined below. This shall be construed to extend to asking the national Republican Party for a waiver of its neutrality rule to assist specific candidates, known as Rule 11.

b. Waivers to Neutrality. Waivers to this policy can be granted through one of two methods, either of which may be utilized at the discretion of the Chair:

1. At a state Party Convention, an affirmative Convention Vote of 2/3 of members present. This vote would be exempt from the procedures outlined in Section 8.4 of the Bylaws and conducted as a “one man, one vote” ballot.

2. Outside of a state Party Convention, an affirmative vote from 3/4 of the total number of Central Committee members. Affirmative votes confirming permission to waive this section must be received from at least 16 of the state’s 24 jurisdictions and represent 3/4 of the total number of Central Committee members, excluding vacancies.

c. Individual Members. Except for the restrictions made in Section 7.1, individual members of the State Central Committee are free to endorse any candidate in an individual capacity, but cannot do so in an official capacity to imply the endorsement of either their county Central Committee or the state party.

So that’s the basis in which we began the day.

Well, the first item out of the chute was an amendment to strike the second sentence of Section 7.2b (1) to eliminate the “one man, one vote” portion of the original. In truth, I had no issue with that although I would have preferred “one man, one vote” because I had two separate paths to adoption and presumably a vote at a county level would be conducted differently. But it wasn’t a deal-breaker to me to lose it.

There was some confusion over a second part of the amendment to strike the “excluding vacancies” clause in 7.2b (2) so that was eventually withdrawn by the sponsor. This change passed by voice vote, almost unanimously.

The second item was much more convoluted and controversial. Introduced by Prince George’s County Central Committee member Michael Gorman, it would have stripped the power to decide on a waiver from the Central Committee at large and given it to the Executive Committee. His amendment would have also weakened the mandate of 7.2a to become a non-binding advisement. Needless to say, Heather and I weren’t in favor of this amendment.

But a funny thing happened on the way to cutting off debate – Nick Panuzio of Talbot County shocked everyone by making a motion to adjourn. Since that had to take precedence over other business, we voted on that motion and it failed by a 313-178 margin in our voting system. (In actual votes, the margin I tallied was 100 for, 124 against.)

Then another motion was made to divide the question into two parts: one dealing with the advisement portion and the other with the transfer to the Executive Committee. This also took precedence to the amending vote, but it failed by the slimmest of margins in our voting system: 249.46 votes for to 249.62 against. (In “real” people terms, though, this would have passed 124 to 106.)

Yet it didn’t matter in the end, as we finally got to the question we were tallying when the surprise motion to adjourn took place – the Gorman amendment failed handily 307-194.

So it finally came down to our proposal, as amended to strike the “one man, one vote” system.

I can tell you that fourteen counties voted in favor, with nine against and one a tie.

In actual votes (by my tally) we had 119 yes votes and 109 no votes. So we had a majority in both actual people and the convention vote, which finished 287-208. But thanks to a rule change at our Spring Convention, we needed a 3/5 majority to pass this change and we fell a heartbreaking ten votes short. Based on 495 votes, we would have required 297 to win.

In the postmortem, I found out that the sole reason Howard County voted all nine votes against was because they wanted to introduce an amendment to make another change, one I could have lived with. But the question was called too soon for them to get to the microphone and those 25 convention votes cost us the ballgame. Now perhaps I could blame them for throwing the baby out with the bathwater but I can understand this wasn’t a perfectly written bylaw change – Heather and I just did the best we could.

So we will go back to the drawing board, although I’ve been told by at least one national committee member (who actually supported the measure) that he really didn’t think it would be necessary now. But I have two words for that member: Roscoe Bartlett. Hopefully with the early primary they won’t feel it necessary to place a thumb on the scale, but we need to watch them like a hawk to make sure. I spoke briefly with Dave Wallace at the convention and he seems like one credible alternative for those who think Roscoe has gotten too accustomed to life inside the Beltway.

As I said at the top, tomorrow I will have more complete coverage of the GOP confab. But I felt like I owed my readers the update on an issue I’m passionate about.

By the way, this will mark my return to Red Maryland – I’ve been away from that sandbox for far too long.

Sold out again

Yep, it’s going down just about as I predicted it: the Republicans will cave. I figure enough of the centrists from each party will outvote the extremist Democrats who want to keep spending money and controlling our lives along with their temporary allies in the conservative camp of the GOP who understand it’s time to rein in government.

So we’ll make ‘cuts’ – but will they really be reductions in spending or reductions in the rate of increase? And why hammer on defense spending in a time when we’re in the midst of a Long War with radical Islam? Now I could agree to a certain amount of defense cuts but where we really need to cut is the superfluous bureaucracy I continue to harp on.

In the end, I don’t like the deal because Obama gets what he wants – the increase in the debt limit. Meanwhile, we as a nation have our bond rating decline and how many times must we believe the lie that Democrats will cut spending? They lied to Reagan and they lied to Bush 41, telling them “oh yeah, go ahead and raise taxes, we’ll cut spending.” They must have been standing there with their fingers crossed behind their back.

So, Andy Harris and any other Congressman reading this: vote NO. Hold out on the principles of those who sent you to Congress.

Otherwise, don’t be really upset or surprised to see a third party effort in 2012. Obviously that’s a Democrat’s dream because it ensures both Obama’s re-election and the restoration of a Democratic majority in the House. The Senate could hold Democrat as well.

To borrow a phrase from a fellow Pajamas Media writer, Tom Blumer, we’d be back to a POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy, and it would truly make us poorer. It makes things harder for me as a Republican trying to keep the TEA Party in the fold when the inside-the-Beltway boys stab us in the back again.

The impasse continues

The Republicans in the House keep pitching them, and the Senate keeps letting them go by. So where is the Democrats’ plan?

It looks like either one of two things will happen: we will go past the so-called deadline of Tuesday or Republicans will cave. I’d prefer the former but it doesn’t take a lot of pressure to make the latter happen, based on previous results.

Personally I’d like the spending cuts now because there’s one big problem with a Balanced Budget Amendment: you would never get it through the Senate given its configuration at the moment. And then to count on 38 states? Not happening.

(I’m not even going to get into the drawbacks to having a budgetary system based on a percentage of GDP. Suffice to say that we lock in profligate spending for perpetuity.)

To balance the budget based on the money we take in presently, we only need to reduce spending to roughly 2003 levels. Scary to think we’ve grown our government over 40 percent in less than a decade, under Presidents and Congresses of both parties.

So why not get to work on that? Sure, it will take some rather draconian cuts but isn’t it all about shared sacrifice? Come to think of it, a consumption tax would do a dandy job of making all of us share, wouldn’t it?

Until we get to that point, though, it’s high time to share the sacrifice all over the non-essential areas of government – leave us overburdened taxpayers alone!

A messy divorce in the offing?

You know, one would think that an administration which is trying to prevent Boeing from moving production of the 787 jetliner to a right-to-work state and has stacked the National Labor Relations Board with union toadies – through recess appointments if necessary – would have Big Labor’s seal of approval. But they’re greedy and chagrined that ‘card check’ didn’t pass when Congress was fully in Democratic hands.

And now Big Labor has to worry about things at the state level. It’s the focus of a report by the Capital Research Center’s Labor Watch project co-authored by Ivan Osorio and Trey Kovacs. And to bear this out, remember that even the union-friendly Martin O’Malley was booed at this supposedly friendly gathering because he wanted to tinker with teacher pensions.

Yet Big Labor suffers from the same problem that any member of a broad coalition of special interests runs into when the Democratic Party seizes power – everybody wants everything they asked for all at once, no matter how noxious. Abortionists want easier access to abortions paid for by Uncle Sam, the gay lobby equates their cause with the civil rights movement and wants laws passed accordingly, gun grabbers want to flout the Second Amendment even more, and so on and so forth. Unions just don’t like taking their place in a long line of liberal special interest groups.

And the key question is: where else can they go? Like those on the conservative side who occasionally express their disgust with the GOP and threaten to boycott the next election if so-and-so is nominated, Big Labor is pretty much stuck with the one who brung them to the dance. They’ve obviously alienated themselves from Republicans, a party they bash mercilessly despite the fact a significant portion of their rank-and-file members vote that way at the ballot box, so I don’t doubt they’ll eventually suck it up and drop millions into the Democratic coffers because there’s nowhere else for them to turn politically. And the fact Big Labor still confiscates huge sums of money for political purposes via union dues means that, somewhere along the line, they and the Democrats will mend fences. It’s all about the Benjamins to both players in that game.

So don’t be surprised to see Big Labor make a push for a more liberal strain of Democrats to replace the ones they feel betrayed them in both state and national races. After all, if they can continue to play the class envy game with any success they’ll always dupe a few useful idiots into pulling the lever for their allies in the Democrat Party, even if they’ll hold their nose a little in the process. As long as President Obama is in office, their goals will be advanced regardless of means.

Budgetary woes: it’s not just a state party thing

While Alex Mooney joined his two Maryland cohorts in pledging to vote for Michael Steele, at least “on the first ballot,” it’s one of those two fellow RNC members who now plays a different role in the election.

Louis Pope was picked two years ago to be the party’s treasurer in a downballot race which attracted much less interest than the Chair’s race. Yet, according to this Washington Times story by Ralph Z. Hallow, Pope approved a 2012 budget which figures to leave the national GOP $10 million in the hole – shades of Jim Pelura!

While one can joke about persistent debt being part of the Maryland GOP’s DNA and it carrying over to the national party once Steele assumed command, the fact that the party may not be able to pay its bills without a large line of credit is a charge contenders for the position have used to hammer the incumbent Steele, who backed Pope for the treasurer’s post.

Obviously politics is somewhat different than a business – and it should be, since there better not be a profit mode in the political arena – but the ideal would be a zero-sum game. Yes, ask any politician and certainly they’d love to have more money to help them get out the vote and convince the electorate their ideas are best. They don’t call money the mother’s milk of politics for nothing.

But our side is supposed to be the conservative one, and this lack of leadership by example tends to paint the GOP with the same big-spending brush it was tarred with during the Bush years. Worse yet, a party hampered by debt in 2012 may have a difficult time digging out of the hole if it has nothing to offer. Obviously another trip to the political wilderness like it had over the last two years is still possible after 2012 if the GOP challenger to President Obama loses and people lose faith in the Republican brand to create the change we really need. Undoubtedly the partisan media will be playing up the contention between Congress (particularly the Republican-controlled House) and President Obama.

There’s no need to rehash the financial truth of the Maryland GOP, since it’s existed in the political wilderness for longer than the national party. Every few decades they capture the governor’s office, but they have yet to crack the Democratic strangehold on the General Assembly. (It just wants to make you go beat some sense into the residents of Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Baltimore City who somehow keep voting against their best interests. I can see the cushy government job aspect in some areas, but why listen to the poverty pimps in the inner city?)

This financial question may be a key as to why Mooney only committed to Steele for one round of voting and Pope “knows who he will vote for once Steele drops out after the first or second ballot.” That can’t be good news for the incumbent, who may be looking for a new full-time gig in a couple weeks.

In the meantime, look for more “surveys” and other pitches (overt and covert) from the RNC for fundraising. They may not quite be reduced to the “buddy, can you spare a dime” pitch on the street corner, but they could be closer than you think.

Home state advantage?

It was a small sample to be sure, but unsurprisingly Michael Steele won my RNC Chair poll. There were only 33 votes, which I found disappointing. I enjoyed the write-ins, though.

Here’s how the totals break down (including write-ins):

  • Michael Steele – 11 (33.3%)
  • Reince Priebus – 5 (15.2%)
  • Saul Anuzis – 4 (12.1%)
  • Maria Cino – 3 (9.1%)
  • Gentry Collins – 2 (6.1%)
  • Ann Wagner – 2 (6.1%)
  • Sarah Palin (write-in) – 2 (6.1%)
  • Michael Swartz (write-in) – 2 (6.1%)
  • Gary Johnson (write-in) – 1 (3%)
  • Rush Limbaugh (write-in) – 1 (3%)

While I thank my supporter (or supporters) for the two votes, let me just quote William Tecumseh Sherman, “If nominated, I will not accept; if drafted, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.” Still, I’m flattered.

I think this poll proves two things, though. As I was watching this poll develop over the last few days, initially Steele had an absolute majority but as time went on it became a plurality. This is interesting because the majority (about 3/4) of my readers come from Maryland so one would naturally assume he would do well. Either I had more out-of-state voters come on board or Steele is losing his status as a favorite son.

Secondly, there seems to be a large streak of “none-of-the-aboveism” among the rank-and-file, almost as if they are asking, “is this the best we can do?” Certainly there is some celebrity involved (witness the votes for Palin and Limbaugh) but the votes for Gary Johnson (and to a lesser extent, yours truly) may suggest that a direction more conducive to the TEA Party is desired. (Just for the record, I didn’t vote in this poll.) Despite the naysayers, I think the TEA Party is finding its voice in the GOP. (I’ll have more to say on that opinion in coming days.)

Even so, among the people who count, there is a suggestion that Steele is in peril as he bids for a second term as GOP head. We’ll see how it all shakes out on January 15, although there is a debate scheduled for this afternoon among the six announced contenders. (I had other plans.) I believe a number of those who can vote may be making their mind up after they hear all six speak in a public forum, and I also think that when we get to voting in twelve days there will only be three or four nominated. The bottom-feeders know the score as well as the rest of us.

The man of Steele in trouble?

One outlet following the RNC Chair race closely has been the Hotline OnCall section of the NationalJournal. While the rest of us were watching bowl games or recovering from a night of revelry (or both) they were again updating their whip count on the race. With nearly half the voters having made a first-ballot commitment, none of the six candidates are over 1/3 of the way to the 85 votes they need to succeed.

Surprisingly, though, the leader at this point is Wisconsin state Chair Reince Priebus. Michael Steele lags behind in second place with 15 confirmed to 28 in the Priebus corner.

Further, while it’s no surprise that our national committeeman Louis Pope and national committeewoman Joyce Terhes are in Steele’s camp, the willingness of newly elected Chair Alex Mooney to shop around is encouraging. I happen to know some aspects of what Mooney is looking for in a Chair, but am not at liberty to divulge them. Michael Steele might not be the perfect fit for Alex, although in later rounds (and there will be later rounds if the last RNC election is any sort of guide) he could gravitate back to Michael if that option is still available.

It’s also worthy to note that the last incumbent RNC Chair also made a bid for re-election, but Mike Duncan lost his race on the heels of a 2008 campaign that saw a Democratic expansion of influence in Congress and capture of the White House. Obviously Michael Steele had a better election on his watch, but there have been complaints that the GOP left a few races on the table – particularly Senate races in Alaska, Nevada, and Delaware where ‘establishment’ GOP candidates lost in the primary and TEA Party insurgents faltered in the general election. (The GOP kept the Alaska seat as Senator Lisa Murkowski maintained her party affiliation while winning a write-in campaign.)

Yet the chief complaint against Steele is financial, with opponents pointing out that the party will need a huge infusion of cash to compete for the White House in 2012. President Obama may run the first billion-dollar campaign (not to mention the free publicity of a fawning press) so in order to compete fundraising needs to be key.

Tomorrow will feature a debate between the six announced candidates, with streaming available here. The election will be held on January 15, with the winner possibly becoming the GOP’s 65th Chairman.

Odds and ends number 24

Note: updates to the final news item are at the bottom. There is a link to a RNC whip count included too.

As one may expect, the combination of the snow and the season makes this a deathly slow news week – but here are some things I found interesting.

If you are a thinking conservative as I aspire to be, I came across a list of questions one can ask those of the liberal persuasion in a piece by Oleg Atbashian at Pajamas Media today. It always seems to me that those who have lived through statism as practiced around the world (in the former Soviet Union, Communist China, Cuba, former Eastern European Soviet satellites, etc.) and escaped to America have both a keener appreciation of the freedom we enjoy and the memory of just how their homelands arrived in the state they became.

I’m not sure if the book tour he describes will make it anywhere around these parts, but you can certainly tell Atbashian has embraced capitalism by looking at his The People’s Cube website. And you can certainly ask questions – after all, wasn’t the mantra of ‘question authority’ popular in the 1980’s? So why did we stop then?

Speaking of authority, the authority behind the Republican National Committee is at stake in an election held next month. Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post broke down who he considers the contenders and pretenders in a post which appeared late last night.

Seeing that we have a ‘favorite son’ of sorts in the race (Maryland’s incumbent Chair Michael Steele) it may be a shock to see Cillizza rank him among the three-person ‘second tier’ of contestants. I would presume Steele has the support of at least two of Maryland’s three-person delegation to the convention and most likely would get newly-installed state party Chair Alex Mooney’s vote as well. But I encourage all three to consider a second choice because I think Michael Steele has worn out his welcome, despite the successes of the 2010 campaign.

And unlike our recent state Chair election which relied on a complicated vote-tallying formula, every state and territory in the RNC universe will have an equal say – so the three votes Steele could presumably count on from Maryland are balanced by the three votes Saul Anuzis would get from his home state of Michigan, the trio of ballots Reince Priebus would secure from Wisconsin, and so on.

As a reminder, I looked at the other contenders a couple weeks ago. I suspect Maryland will have to deal with the post-Steele era in the RNC beginning next month.

Update: Heather Olsen alerted me to an ongoing whip count – judging by his comment our state Chair may be withholding his support for Michael Steele, at least for the moment.

Turning to state politics it’s worth noting that Delegate Michael Smigiel, who was re-elected in November, has prefiled two measures which were attempted last year – the eniment domain reform bill which was HB63 last year will be HB8 this time around, while the firearm licensing reciprocity bill known as HB52 in the last session was assigned to be HB9. Hopefully they will get out of committee this time around since there need only be four thoughtful Democrats necessary to bypass the committee and bring legislation to the floor (assuming all 43 House Republicans sign on.)

Finally, a weather-related note – the State of the County is snow-covered, thus Rick Pollitt has cancelled the State of the County speech scheduled for tomorrow morning. (This was announced today by county PIO Jim Fineran.) I have a question in to Jim regarding rescheduling, so if I find out I’ll amend the post to share the information.

Update: according to Jim Fineran, the speech will not be rescheduled. I’ll receive a copy for my review later today.

Update 2: Rick Pollitt released a statement with the annual report, which read in part, “Each year, I have published a printed ‘County Executive’s Report to the People’ in compliance with the terms of the Charter and then chosen to follow with an oral presentation from the council chambers. However, due to the current snow emergency and a variety of other significant items of business currently underway, I plan to publish the usual report as required but will postpone an oral presentation to a future date.” (Emphasis mine.)

No word on what the ‘significant items of business’ are. Later today I will have a review of the report.

He’s out, he’s in – Michael Steele looks like a contender

After spending a good part of yesterday salivating over rumors that Michael Steele would give up the reins of the Republican National Committee after his term is over in January, much of the media had to eat crow when Steele announced he was in last night. So what does this mean?

Currently there are several potential opponents for Michael Steele. Saul Anuzis of Michigan, who is one of them, claims that there are four announced contenders on his website and has already done his own video:

Perhaps Saul’s biggest selling point is the vow to be a “behind-the-scenes” chairman, which isn’t exactly Michael Steele’s forte.

But the other contenders aren’t letting Anuzis, who announced first, get a large lead. Here’s Ann Wagner of Missouri making her pitch.

It’s longer and less slickly produced than Saul’s, but Ann touts her experience.

Yet perhaps the most formidable contender is a former Steele supporter and party General Counsel, Reince Priebus of Wisconsin.

Obviously both he and Wagner can point to statewide successes where Steele cannot.

Others who have announced include Maria Cino from New York, who was a former Deputy Secretary under George W. Bush and former RNC Deputy Chairman, and Gentry Collins of Iowa, who has the slickest website by far.

Regardless of how many contend for the title, it’s highly doubtful that anyone in Maryland’s RNC delegation would vote against Michael Steele. But I believe it’s up to our three representatives – particularly newly elected Chair Alex Mooney – to carefully consider the alternatives. While Steele points to his electoral successes, there are others who contend that we left a lot of races on the table nationally due to a lack of fundraising just as Alex Mooney bemoaned the close races the Maryland GOP lost for much the same reason.

We’ll never know if one of the five contenders Michael Steele bested in 2009 would have taken the GOP to further victories. But the uncertainty of whether the party is positioned well for the 2012 cycle should give pause to those who reflexively believe Michael Steele deserves another two years at the helm. In truth, his position parallels the initial position Mary Kane was in for our state Chair race – Steele is the favorite, but by no means a prohibitive one. And we saw just how that favorite ran on Saturday as the state party decided a clean break from a previous era was best.

Our delegation might be forgiven to support the favorite son once, but as subsequent ballots go on – and I’m sure there will be – they should consider the other candidates remaining as well. Remember, you are elected to represent us and to do what’s best not just for Maryland but for the Republican Party at large. Don’t sell us short.

Update: John Gizzi at Human Events has his take on the race.

Steele draws opposition in RNC Chair race

Even after a reasonably successful midterm election cycle, current RNC Chair Michael Steele is drawing opposition for re-election from a former foe.

Saul Anuzis, who finished third in the balloting for the post in 2009, outlined a number of reasons he was taking on the incumbent, with the key being a “dramatic change in the way the RNC does business.” “I will be a tenacious fundraiser,” claimed Anuzis, who pointed out the RNC didn’t fund certain winnable races in several states.

But he also slammed Steele in a backhand way, saying:

My agenda is very straightforward. I have no interest in running for office. I won’t be writing a book.  It is not my goal to be famous.

In fact, most RNC chairs have been relatively anonymous except to political junkies and party leaders. Of course, in the era of a 24-hour news cycle the head of a political party can become part of the backstory and Steele’s ascension was seen by many as the GOP’s answer to the election of Barack Obama as our first black President.

Yet his tenure hasn’t been without controversy on overspending and, as Anuzis claimed, the lack of fundraising on the RNC’s part.

(I)n 2010 a group of alternative organizations emerged to help fill the void created by the RNC’s shortage of resources. They found support from many RNC major donors who had lost faith in the RNC. We need these groups and their support, but they can’t be expected to replace the RNC in a presidential year. We must rebuild the trust with our party’s major donors and bring them back to the table.

Obviously the drawback to having a national body such as the RNC is that they sometimes will be forced to support candidates who may not reflect the tastes of contributors; the RNC stepped in it on several occasions by backing moderate candidates like Dede Scozzafava in New York and Charlie Crist in Florida who alienated conservatives and eventually endorsed a Democrat (in Scozzafava’s case) or made an independent run for office as Crist did. It’s why a number of former contributors opted instead to donate to these other organizations or individual candidates, and this could be a problem Anuzis won’t be able to address.

One omission from the Anuzis announcement, though, is the 800-pound gorilla the GOP has to deal with – there was no nod to the TEA Party and its influence. That could be a drawback to some who are newly minted conservative activists and would like a signal that the Republican Party isn’t going to return to its former ways.

However, Saul comes from a state where success was such that the GOP won an open governor’s seat and regained total control of their state legislature, obviously with the help of activists inside and outside the TEA Party. As we all know from bitter experience, Maryland somehow avoided the Republican tide the rest of the nation reveled in, with only scant gains in the House of Delegates to call victories.

Anuzis just wishes to be a temporary Mr. Fix-It, since he states up front he wants to only serve until a Republican is elected President and installs his or her choice to run the Republican National Committee. While there was success in this election we can always strive for better and Anuzis is likely just the first to provide the members of the RNC an alternative to keeping Michael Steele on.

Speaking of the RNC, I got an interesting call this morning from a nice young lady who was trying to see what sort of interest there was in electing former gubernatorial candidate (as in keeping the seat warm until Bob Ehrlich decided what to do) Larry Hogan as state party chair. I’m all for him running if he wants, for the more choices we have the better winner we will likely have. So far I’m only aware of two other prospective candidates: Mike Esteve, who heads the Maryland College Republicans, and Sam Hale of the Maryland Society of Patriots.

We should be treated to an interesting race; may the best person win.

A treaty with the electorate

It’s always amusing when politicians make promises and issue statements before they are elected, but actually have to live with what they said they’d do afterward. Some are successful and others…not so much. (“Read my lips” seems to be one of the better examples, although that middle-class tax cut his successor promised but couldn’t deliver on seems a good one too.)

So Republicans took about 20 pages to expand on what is stated here. (It’s sad when I have to use North Dakota as an example given that this isn’t on the Maryland or national Republican websites.) But I suppose it’s better than the 67 pages our last party platform from two years ago took up. In this case, the GOP is trying to replicate the success of the “Contract With America” as a bedrock campaign slogan from 1994.

But so have many other people; for example, what was wrong with the Mount Vernon Statement or the Contract From America?

Here we have oh so many words to describe in excruciating detail what Republicans in Congress promise to do, if only they are given the levers of power. Yet there already is a roadmap in place; one which has been there for 222 years (albeit amended from time to time with the last being in 1992.) You know as well as I do what that document is.

To varying degrees these more recent documents pay lip service to the supreme law of our land, but who’s going to be the first to say, “look, it’s time to sunset entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid”? I’d say it but my chances of being elected to any position of power lie between slim and none, and slim just left town. Yet that step is necessary to insure the continued prosperity of this Republic.

No one truly wants to be the person to make the hard choice. I don’t necessarily fault politicians for this because, after all, they generally receive the job by winning a popularity contest expressed in our votes. “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage” is a pretty good slogan, but the question is how one goes about getting it. (In Herbert Hoover’s case, the bubble of prosperity built on easy credit burst – maybe that’s a lesson Keynesians who believe that government spending will get us out of our economic doldrums should heed.) Franklin Roosevelt couldn’t get a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage no matter how much his New Deal spent because there weren’t enough other job producers around – how could those in the private sector compete with the government, an entity which need not make a profit?

A legitimate criticism of many TEA Partiers is the hypocricy they exhibit by complaining about government-run health care when they themselves are the beneficiaries. I can see the point, but if you frame it as a question of whether they believe their grandchildren should be saddled with the debt that’s being incurred on their behalf the answer makes more sense. And perhaps if a truly open-market private system were made available they would take advantage. For example, many millions of seniors saved for their retirement by investing despite the fact a government program was also there to subsidize their golden years. No one told them how much to invest nor were there any restrictions on where they could put their money.

But perhaps the most immediate step government can take in the correct direction is to stop using the tax code to reward or punish certain behaviors like buying a home or putting in a solar panel. Our granting that sort of power to government is what makes change so difficult. Of course, we should dismantle Obamacare and maintain the Bush tax rates as a stopgap measure, but the real change needs to come from a shift from income-based taxation to a single-point consumption-based tax. While it may life a bit more difficult for business in one aspect, other parts of the accounting system would vastly improve, not to mention people would have more money in their pocket.

Right now it seems that all we want to do is tinker around the edges, and most assuredly by having a President of the opposite party in charge for two more long years that may be all we can do on a national scale.

But states can also lead the way by asserting their Tenth Amendment rights and becoming the “laboratories of democracy” (albeit in the opposite manner that Brandeis would have preferred) by electing conservative governors and legislators and testing the waters of dismantling their statist controls over the citizens. Obviously Texas is a popular destination for both business and the population which follows it due to its low-taxation, small-government reputation.

In many cases, even after the 2010 election those who believe in freedom and liberty through limited government will still be saddled with elected officials who try the same old same old statist remedies which haven’t worked the first ten times. But we have a role to play there as well by exposing them for what they really are and educating the rest of the population why these legislators aren’t acting in their best interests by showering them with goodies from a goose they’re betting will still be laying golden eggs. Hopefully Atlas only has to shrug once before a lesson is learned.

The fight will be long, and victories may be few. But what we believe in is something well worth fighting for, and I plan on continuing my part of the battle for either as long as I draw breath or we win, whichever comes first. It just may come down to our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor again.