Gilchrest votes make him a target

DJ, bad news on this front. Democrats have a strong candidate in Queen Anne County State’s Attorney Frank Kratovil, who announced an “exploritary committee.” You can bet that if Harris wins the primary, Fratovil will run as an Eastern Shore native son against a Baltimore outsider. You know what that could mean.

Looks like your instincts were right.

There is quite a mix of ideas within the GOP, and if this is something which has occurred within the last 2 decades I would guess that a significant part of that is the fact that the left has grown increasingly intolerant. There is something to be said for the old line about how there are “moderate” Republicans, but there are no “moderate” Liberals. And, of course, you’ve seen the way that folks like Bob Casey, Sr, Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller have been treated once they began to think “outside the box” of liberalism. For all the talk of “open mindedness” and “free thinking” liberals are extremely dogmatic. I couldn’t abide by that, even if I agreed with their ideas.

If you know something about Maryland politics you may know about our former Democratic Governor William Donald Schaffer. He’s been treated pretty roughly by the Democratic machine because he didn’t play by their rule book. Essentially, he refused to give policy statements on abortion and homosexuality, while running for Comptroller. That was not well received. To be sure, he’s done a few other stupid things to aggravate this, but he’s a “sinner”.

On the whole, while this phenomena of RINOs does have a tendency to water things down for Republicans and conservatives, being a group which is tolerant and open to ideas is not necessarily the worst thing in the world. Though it’s kind of funny how the opposite of that stereotype is played in the media.

I’ll go a step farther than your “minority party” statement and begrudgingly concede that we are no longer what I would consider to be a conservative nation. I really have struggled with this classification, but I think it bears itself out. Especially, when one uses the “divining rod” of criteria which I have chosen; more people “take” from our nation than “give” back to it.

I think competition within states is a problem, California, in particular. Some of the spread of liberalism, I believe, is actually one of shifting populations. You mention VT, while I would include NH and ME in the northeast and NV, AZ and NM in the southwest. In these locations I believe liberals from LA and NY are essentially fed up with the the fiscal confines of liberalism, they escape to these outlying areas, bringing all their liberal baggage with them and before you know it you’ve captured the state as a potential electoral victory. Ironically, planting the seeds of the very problem that they have sought to escape.

That “hero card” doesn’t play with me and really it never has. I’ll credit Gilchrest, that while he is known to be a veteran, I don’t think that he really trumpets this aspect of his life,...at least for gratuitous political gain.

It’s funny that you mention Graham’s performance as the house manager, something I applauded. In retrospect, I’m thinking this was simply part of a play that Graham made toward the ultimate objective of obtaining power. We are talking about a strategy that he employed nearly 10 years ago to put himself in the catbird seat today. Sound like a “sleeper cell” to you?

Anyway, my beef with folks like Graham is that while I may tolerate the likes of - geez, can’t even remember the dude from RI anymore and don’t have the will to google him - truly red states shouldn’t have to look to people like Lindsay Graham for leadership. The GOP should do exactly what the Democrats have done; develop a list of RINOs in red space and take them out!

It’s been interesting ruminating with you. I am actually a conservative independent. While I am pro-life and pro-family I was shocked to take one of those online ideological tests only to find that I leaned libertarian. Needless to say, I was horrified and have been on the strictest diet of raw red meat ever since.

Great pics of Nashville on yer profile. It’s a cool place, but I haven’t really been there in many a year. My bro lives in Memphis and seems to really enjoy Tennessee. I need to get out and visit him and his tribe. We are both Senator Fred guys. Now, Thompson only needs to declare!

I have some good friends, musicians, who recently moved down to Nashville. There names are Judd and Maggie. They are great songwriters and really good kids to boot.Check them out if they are working on their chops in some of the local establishments.

www.myspace.com/juddandmaggie

Better post this puppy before my CPU coughs and sputters and turns all my work into a blinking cursor. Prayers for Congressman Mills and his family on this day. May he rest in peace.

He had been living on the eastern shore for some time before he was elected from what I gather. Regardless, he’s a beltway insider anymore.

"There is quite a mix of ideas within the GOP, and if this is something which has occurred within the last 2 decades I would guess that a significant part of that is the fact that the left has grown increasingly intolerant."

I think the left has gone off the scale for intolerance. Tolerate and proliferate the intolerable, and be intolerant of the accepted traditional norms. We can judge you, but don't you DARE judge us ! There's a whole psychology to this diseased, hypocritical mindset. One of the great faults of the right-of-center has been allowing it to proliferate as it has, and there hasn't been an aggressive-enough movement to weed it out at the roots, and that's namely our educational facilities. These Stalinist sausage factories turn out either leftist parrots ready to proliferate evil (the stupid little moron, Rachel Corrie, from Washington state that got bulldozed defending terrorists), or just dumbed-down twits who don't care about much of anything, useful idiots in their own right. The left got its claws into public ed and universities en masse 80 years ago, and now control it almost completely. Through it, they've managed to take normal children and turn them into Hillary Clintons (she herself having been raised in a GOP household, didn't turn into a radical until after she was in college). I would dare say millions have fallen victim and spread this cancer, not only in this country, but so many foreign countries as well. The infamous Vietnamese Communist Ho Chi Minh was educated at a U.S. university. Not many people even realize this. The next generation of Islamic terrorists is being educated in our "we hate America and everything it stands for" public schools and universities as we speak. Absolutely poop-in-your-jockeys terrifying.

"There is something to be said for the old line about how there are “moderate” Republicans, but there are no “moderate” Liberals."

Very few, and those that veer too far away from the party line are either yanked back, threatened, or run out of office.

"And, of course, you’ve seen the way that folks like Bob Casey, Sr, Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller have been treated once they began to think “outside the box” of liberalism. For all the talk of “open mindedness” and “free thinking” liberals are extremely dogmatic. I couldn’t abide by that, even if I agreed with their ideas."

Lieberman was a 100% down-the-line leftist, except for WoT. Because that interfered with the "hate Bush/hate America" line, he had to be shown the door. The rodent primary voters did. But Lieberman still aligns himself with that party, much like a battered spouse who can't leave her husband. It's worse than breaking a narcotics addiction. I look at a party like this, at least with respect to the GOP... I will remain a member as long as they proliferate Conservative causes and ideas. As soon as they demonstrate no interest in that, and copying the left/rodents, I no longer have any need for that party. It ceases to have a reason to exist. In many N.E. states, the party is moribund for that very reason that they sought to copy the left, and when the voters were presented with the choices of "authentic left" and "copy of left", they chose "authentic." It's why Ratsachusetts has an 89% Democrat legislature (well out of whack of actual party registration), the 11% GOP superminority mostly consists of go along to get along leftist RINOs, worse than useless.

"If you know something about Maryland politics you may know about our former Democratic Governor William Donald Schaffer. He’s been treated pretty roughly by the Democratic machine because he didn’t play by their rule book. Essentially, he refused to give policy statements on abortion and homosexuality, while running for Comptroller. That was not well received. To be sure, he’s done a few other stupid things to aggravate this, but he’s a “sinner”."

Yeah, Schaefer was a hoot (but they finally ran him out of office in last year's primary). Definitely un-PC, I remember he endorsed Bush, Sr. for the Presidency, and was a huge pain in the ass to his fraudulency, Parris Spendening. Now it's rubber stamps all over the place with the embarrassment from Bawlamer sitting down in Annapolis. Ehrlich may not have been a gem, but compared to O'Malley, he was solid gold.

"On the whole, while this phenomena of RINOs does have a tendency to water things down for Republicans and conservatives, being a group which is tolerant and open to ideas is not necessarily the worst thing in the world. Though it’s kind of funny how the opposite of that stereotype is played in the media."

No, nothing wrong with new ideas at all, if they're good ones and ones that are innovative. It's why the left is so intolerant, because they are hopelessly statist, and proliferate statism wherever they go. What's so damn frustrating, too, is that the ideological labels don't really fit. Conservatives should really be called "Liberals" (and in Australia, they are -- there is no "Conservative" party -- the left is consigned to the "Labour" party), perhaps one day we'll take the label back and restore it to respectability again.

"I’ll go a step farther than your “minority party” statement and begrudgingly concede that we are no longer what I would consider to be a conservative nation. I really have struggled with this classification, but I think it bears itself out. Especially, when one uses the “divining rod” of criteria which I have chosen; more people “take” from our nation than “give” back to it."

I think we're more teetering. I think if you take individual issues, we still lean Conservative. But if we ever plunge headlong into bonafide Jimmy Carteresque leftism, this nation is finished. I can see that we may be headed for another Civil War in this country, between ones that wish to keep this nation as the Founding Fathers intended, and those that wish to denounce it as an evil, opening it up to the hordes so that it can be utterly consumed and devoured. I think we inch closer to it every day, and crap like this shamnesty stuff are the opening salvos.

"I think competition within states is a problem, California, in particular. Some of the spread of liberalism, I believe, is actually one of shifting populations. You mention VT, while I would include NH and ME in the northeast and NV, AZ and NM in the southwest. In these locations I believe liberals from LA and NY are essentially fed up with the the fiscal confines of liberalism, they escape to these outlying areas, bringing all their liberal baggage with them and before you know it you’ve captured the state as a potential electoral victory. Ironically, planting the seeds of the very problem that they have sought to escape."

Simply put, it's $hitting in their nest until it's up to their ears, packing it up, moving to areas where there's no $hit, and rather than adapting to the area and realizing WHAT IT TOOK to keep it pleasant and clean, they precede to $hit all over it as with before. Soon you have mountains of $hit everywhere. Frightening about California, and specifically the Bay Area, it once used to be some of the most Republican areas of the nation. 70 years ago, it was represented in Congress by a Conservative Jewish Republican lady named Florence Kahn, and had anti-Communist Conservative Italian-American Republican Mayors like Angelo Rossi, who never feared taking on the union thugs. These people were heroes who kept the city one of the most family-friendly and morally clean and desireable ones to live in the nation. Even the East Bay, Oakland and Berkeley, were Republican bastions clear up until the late '50s. Then the Marxist left took over. The last Republican Congressman from the East Bay, who was defeated in '58, packed it in and moved to Idaho. He saw the writing on the wall. I don't think most folks today can even fathom many of our great cities once used to be respectable and safe Republican-led communities. Thanks to those aforementioned educational facilities and their media/cultural sidekicks, they turned these places into $hitholes. This evil has been going on a long time, and we're the frog in the boiling water that is only noticing our predicament.

"That “hero card” doesn’t play with me and really it never has. I’ll credit Gilchrest, that while he is known to be a veteran, I don’t think that he really trumpets this aspect of his life,...at least for gratuitous political gain."

I don't think there's anything wrong with playing the card, if you have the credibility to play it. Kerry tried to play it, but he has no credibility. Assuming his medals were actually properly gained, and we don't know that they were for 100%, he was helping the other team, and still is. That team wants to see America destroyed. BTW, Kerry was also a Republican... until he went through our great American collegiate system. See again what more monsters are made by them ?

"It’s funny that you mention Graham’s performance as the house manager, something I applauded. In retrospect, I’m thinking this was simply part of a play that Graham made toward the ultimate objective of obtaining power. We are talking about a strategy that he employed nearly 10 years ago to put himself in the catbird seat today. Sound like a “sleeper cell” to you?"

Yup, it does. But hopefully someone will rise up and challenge this buffoon next year in the primary.

"Anyway, my beef with folks like Graham is that while I may tolerate the likes of - geez, can’t even remember the dude from RI anymore and don’t have the will to google him - truly red states shouldn’t have to look to people like Lindsay Graham for leadership. The GOP should do exactly what the Democrats have done; develop a list of RINOs in red space and take them out!"

Missing Linc Chafee. There was the prime example of a RINO who was "copy of left" vs. his rodent opponent of "authentic left." We gained nothing with his election (in fact, in 2000, I endorsed his 'Rat opponent because at least he was pro-life, unlike the little RINO turd). His voting record was identical to Hillary's. Had he won reelection, and had we been exactly at parity in seats, he would've switched parties faster than Rosie O'Donnell scarfing down twinkies at the cafeteria. His loss was no loss, as that seat was worthless as soon as he occupied it. His dad, John, was no gem, either (and the only reason his father was a Republican was because he saw the Democrats hijack control of the state in the mid '30s, which it has effectively controlled ever since, and he never forgot that -- but he loved leftism more than the party's Conservative base, so hence had little in common with it as the years progressed).

"It’s been interesting ruminating with you. I am actually a conservative independent. While I am pro-life and pro-family I was shocked to take one of those online ideological tests only to find that I leaned libertarian. Needless to say, I was horrified and have been on the strictest diet of raw red meat ever since."

I'm a little dubious of those tests, since they often don't have the answers that match my views, and the questions they ask aren't often the best examples. I'm only libertarian to a small extent, since Libertarians are extremists of another sort. We either have the all-government types on the left, or none-at-all on the libertarian side, and I prefer the "small, Founding-Fathers-style-efficient and responsive, innovative government", which makes me a "moderate" (heh !). The irony about leftist Marxism is that its purest form is closer to libertarianism (no government), which is why the hard left DOESN'T EVEN GET leftism right ! They not only ruin cities, they f*ck up their own ideology away from its roots. It's why "liberalism" no longer means what it really is.

"Great pics of Nashville on yer profile. It’s a cool place, but I haven’t really been there in many a year. My bro lives in Memphis and seems to really enjoy Tennessee. I need to get out and visit him and his tribe. We are both Senator Fred guys. Now, Thompson only needs to declare!"

Yeah, kinda like waiting for Godot (or Guffman). I support him, but I won't say he's perfection, but nobody in politics usually is (or many other walks of life). However, he is head and shoulders above the field. I rather wish sometimes we'd get over this obsession with "copying Reagan", I think Reagan would be embarrassed by it. This is a different age than it was when Reagan came riding in 26 1/2 years ago (just as absurd to have asked Reagan to be another Ike, 28 years after he first came to DC, or another Goldwater -- and Reagan disliked the moniker of being a Goldwater Conservative, for good reason), and we have far different problems today. If Reagan were living today, he'd not be Reagan, he'd be someone else. Everyone is a product of a particular age, and we should remember that. We can seek to emulate them in their particular character, but in many other things, it becomes more anachronistic. I don't want Fred Thompson to be Reagan in 1980, I want him to be Fred Thompson 2008, and hope and pray he has what it takes to correct the gargantuan number of problems facing this nation, both domestically and internationally. It's not going to be easy for him.

"I have some good friends, musicians, who recently moved down to Nashville. There names are Judd and Maggie. They are great songwriters and really good kids to boot.Check them out if they are working on their chops in some of the local establishments."

It's funny, despite being a Nashvillian, I was never one for the local music scene. Aside from some old timers here and there, I tend to dislike country music (of course, I also tend to dislike most modern music after 1980. Most of the stuff today is simply dreadful, with (c)rap being the worst -- yet another corrosive element in our society that has harmed countless lives. How in the span of only 30 years, Black artists could go from the likes of giants such as Nat King Cole and Sam Cooke to those "fill-in-the-blank" individuals that spew that vile, misogynstic, criminal, hateful gangsta, et al, rap).

"Better post this puppy before my CPU coughs and sputters and turns all my work into a blinking cursor. Prayers for Congressman Mills and his family on this day. May he rest in peace."

I echo those remarks. Mills would probably still be alive today at 82.

Baltimore County ? But that’s not even in the 1st,....

&&
Actually, I have not looked at the map recently, but I am pretty sure they gerrymandered it to include the Eastern Shore and part of B’more County.

Yeah, apparently I was looking at an old map. The MD rodents really clusterf*cked the GOP to shrink them from 4 to 2 members after ‘02.

Here’s a description of the 1st from RINO Gilchrest’s site:

The District encompasses all nine counties of the Eastern Shore (Worcester, Wicomico, Somerset, Dorchester, Caroline, Talbot, Queen Anne’s, Kent and Cecil), along with substantial portions of Harford and Baltimore Counties (Bel Air, Churchville, Level, Hickory, Kingsville, Mays Chapel, Germantown, Glen Arm and parts of Perry Hall and Cockeysville) and a small part of Anne Arundel County across the Chesapeake Bay (Broadneck,Arnold, Severna Park, Millersville).

And here’s the URL for Harris’s exploratory site.

http://www.andyharris08.com/

Here is the exploratory campaign website for Harris, who is challenging Wayne Murtha Gilchrest.

http://www.andyharris08.com/

Hey. Nice post.

I think we’re on the same page with regard to most of this stuff. For someone form Nashville you sure know your Mayland.

If you’d like to get a bit more of a flavor on the Free State and politics some of the better programs can be streamed on a Saturday morn at:

www.wbal.com

Governor Ehrlich, as you mentioned, is a real gem compared to Lilmarty. He has a one hour spot I believe at 10 am EST on Saturday. I liked him a good bit despite some of the obvious issues that we did not agree on (stem cells was a big one and a reluctance to address our burgeoning illegal immigration problem because “it’s a Federal issue). Anyway, the show is him and the former first lady. So, far the program’s been a bit of puff, but easy listening for a Saturday morn. It’s pleasant.

The former first lady is a real pistol! It’d be nice to have her run for Governor next.

As far as I can tell, Ehrlich is supposedly going to defer to Mike Steele for the Governorship in 2010. I was rather hoping in the meantime that Ehrlich goes and challenges Dutch Tofuburger in what’s left of his old House bailiwick.