Tag: Sam Hale

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.”

Amedori jumps into Chair race

Update 10 a.m.: Another entrant into the race is 2010 Comptroller candidate William Campbell.

Add a Lower Shore name to the Maryland GOP Chair mix, and Mary Kane won’t be the only woman seeking the post.

Carmen Amedori, who served in the House of Delegates from 1999-2004 representing Carroll County and had abortive runs for both U.S. Senator and lieutenant governor in the past year, is now setting her sights on the party’s top post. She joins a growing field of aspirants for the job, many of whom are campaign veterans themselves.

Carmen, who recently relocated to Ocean City, didn’t remain on a political hiatus too long after a whirlwind spring which saw her featured in two statewide races. She won a spot on the Worcester County Central Committee in September and lent her expertise to the campaign of House of Delegates candidate Marty Pusey. Pusey finished third but drew a respectable 25% of the vote in a four-person field.

Yet the former Ehrlich appointee drew fire for a withering criticism of her former boss upon joining the Murphy campaign, only to re-endorse him upon dropping out. In part, she claimed, it was to deflect blame from Brian should Ehrlich lose (as he eventually did) – “if there was going to be a loss to O’Malley, let it be Bob’s loss.” This probably won’t endear her to Bob’s strongest backers.

However, Carmen thinks she can overcome this:

We need to build this party. That means, someone like me who has African American conservative and soft Democrat friends who would go door to door to with me to help convert membership and also someone who will not be percieved by the press as someone who is so far right that we will never see light of day in Maryland. I am a strong conservative. But I do have friends on both sides and many who are attracted to my ability to communicate with everyone.

She joins a rapidly growing field that may include fellow U.S. Senate candidate Eric Wargotz along with Kane and two other less-known hopefuls who have already announced their candidacy, Mike Esteve and Sam Hale.

MDGOP: the intrigue continues

Well, well, well…yesterday was an interesting day. Pretty soon we won’t be able to tell the players without a scorecard.

With the interest in taking over what I thought was an irrelevant, moribund party who was shellacked in all four statewide races (oops, three since they didn’t even have a candidate for Attorney General) now beginning to peak, the rumor mill of who’s in and who’s out is beginning to grind out a few names we might recognize.

I don’t know for sure who will end up on the ballot come December 11 in Annapolis, but this is how I understood the process as it was when I went to bed last night:

Looks like they’re in:

  • Mike Esteve (Maryland College Republicans/Baltimore TEA Party Coalition)
  • Sam Hale (Maryland Society of Patriots)

Leaning that way:

  • Mary Kane (2010 LG candidate, former Secretary of State and onetime House of Delegates candidate)

Once in, then out, but maybe in again:

  • Andrew Langer (Institute for Liberty and frequent TEA Party speaker)

The good old ‘considering it’ group that’s testing the waters beneath the surface:

  • Alex Mooney (State Senator who was defeated in 2010)
  • Eric Wargotz (U.S. Senate candidate in 2010 and outgoing Queen Anne’s County Commission president)

Thanks, but no thanks:

  • Larry Hogan (former Congressional candidate who may be positioning himself for a 2014 run)

Feel free to add changes, new names, and dropouts to the comment section. I’ll stay on the rumor mill as I work today.

I thought I said NEW leadership!

Despite fighting fatigue, I can still smell a rat a mile away.

Slowly but surely, people are beginning to filter into the various races for Republican Party positions. Since I last wrote I received confirmation that Maryland Society of Patriots head Sam Hale is in the race, and Larry Hogan is out. From Hogan’s Facebook page:

Many people were pushing me to run for State Party Chairman, and are dissapointed (sic) that I declined the position. I believe in the party, I’m very excited about our potential in Maryland and I do plan to stay very involved. I appreciate all the support, however, as a potential candidate in 2014, I think that it’s better for someone else to focus their energies on the state party HQ.

Fair enough. At first glance, Hale is a guy who would match most of what I’d like in a state party Chairman – but I need to learn a lot more.

But there’s another candidate who’s considering a run, and her infamous words tell you most of what you need to know:

I don’t know if we are going to see another [Republican governor of Maryland] in the next 40 years. It is a shame.”

The woman who uttered these words: Mary Kane, Bob Ehrlich’s running mate and probable darling of the establishment set. According to the Washington Post, she’s “interested” in making a run. (A tip of the hat goes to Ann Corcoran for spotting this.) Does that quote above square with this tidbit from the Post piece?

“I believe in the Republican Party, and I don’t think we should give up on this.”

It doesn’t sound like you believe in the party too strongly if you dismiss our chances of electing a governor in the next four decades! Richard Cross over at Cross Purposes does a nice job of looking at what the party achieved on a local level (although he missed Wicomico County; I took care of his oversight.)

And, just like the Bushes kept the presidency in the family after the eight-year respite of Bill Clinton, the Kanes may regain control of the Maryland Republican Party after a four-year hiatus where both Jim Pelura and Audrey Scott served as chairs – Mary’s husband John was Bob Ehrlich’s hand-picked choice to run the MDGOP from 2002-2006. Mr. Kane’s legacy is one of defeat – Ehrlich didn’t win re-election and the party all but bankrupted itself in the effort to keep him in Government House. (His tenure is part of the reason why the Maryland Republican Party needed its line of credit. Much of the remaining financial problem stemmed from a disastrous year of fundraising in 2007, with the projections likely based on the 2006 budget prepared by John Kane.)

Having only met Mary Kane briefly – most recently at her early voting campaign swing through Wicomico County – I don’t have a personal problem with her, but I can’t see her prospective tenure as being productive.

As I’ve pointed out before, the definition of insanity is to do the same thing and expect different results. If the Maryland Republican Party believes it can continue with an “establishment” person at the helm, don’t be surprised if we reach heretofore unknown lows in the next election cycle. Such a move will alienate the people the party needs most in the grassroots, and as we saw this time around a lack of grassroots support doomed the Ehrlich/Kane ticket while conservatives like Andy Harris and a number of others at the local level won with strong backing from the heretofore politically inactive.

It’s a Pyrrhic victory for the self-appointed party elite to be in charge of a sinking ship, but if conservatives allow the wrong choice to be made December 11th they’ll be kicking themselves daily for the next four years.