Harris will be favored to hold this Republican seat. The 6th is the other republican district led by Representative Roscoe Bartlett.
Posted on 02/12/2008 9:58:27 PM PST by icwhatudo
(With all the upheaval around here lately- I put this in breaking to give everyone a shot of good news...and it is breaking btw)
CHESTERTOWN, Md. (AP) - A nine-term Republican congressman critical of the Iraq war has been defeated by a well-funded state senator in Maryland's primary.
Rep. Wayne Gilchrest was narrowly defeated Tuesday by state Sen. Andy Harris.
Gilchrest voted to go to war in Iraq but later said he regretted the decision. A year ago, he was one of two Republicans in Congress to vote for a withdrawal timeline.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Until recently Maryland was divided 4/4 in its congressional representation until the dems redistricted (gerrymandered) Republicans into two main congressional districts. This pretty much guarantees republican wins for these two congressional seats but the problem is that one of these seats was held by a "RINO"-Wayne Gilchrest.
Gilcrest voted with Nancy Pelosi more than any other (r)epublican in congress. He is the poster boy for the word RINO. The way he stayed in power for so long is that he is a veteran who is great on farm/bay issues. The district includes all of Maryland's Eastern Shore which is farm and Chesapeake Bay country.
When the dems gerrymandered the district to include more republicans, (thus emptying two other districts of republicans to ensure a dem pick up of 2 seats), they added large numbers of "western shore" republicans in Baltimore's northern suburbs and areas near the states capital in Annapolis.
This opened up the chance for Conservative Republican State Senator Andy Harris to challenge the (r)epublican incumbent Gilcrest. Harris had the support of the former republican governor Bob Ehrlich and every republican state senator except E.J. Pipkin who declared for the race on the last possible day potentially splitting the conservative vote.
House of Representatives - District 1
U.S. House - District 1 - GOP Primary
Maryland - 216 of 277 Precincts Reporting - 78%
*Harris , Andy GOP 20,792 41%
Gilchrest , Wayne (i) GOP 17,660 35%
Pipkin , E.J. GOP 10,998 22%
Arminio , Joe GOP 857 2%
Banks , Robert GOP 771 2%
Any results form District 3?
...positive news, Gilchrest was among the very few combat veterans who support using the military to normalize homosexuality. He’s gone and that is good.
Well done. I have always accepted as a fact of the universe that Congress was a lifetime appointment. I am very happy to see it disproven.
Harris will be favored to hold this Republican seat. The 6th is the other republican district led by Representative Roscoe Bartlett.
Sounds like good news with Gilcrest’s loss.
The incumbant Gilchrest had a 100% voting rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and was backed by the republican establishment with endorsements from President Bush former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele as well as the liberal Baltimore Sun newspaper.
The pro-life, anti-illegal immigration, no cut and run Harris was endorsed by many local conservative activists, James Dobson, Gun Owners of America, National Right to Life Committee PAC, Eagle Forum PAC, RNC Life PAC, and the Washington Times.
Obviously the Guardian lurks about here.
Who the hell knows about a *primary* congresional election in Maryland besides us? :-)
VERY good.
Wow. That is disgraceful.
However, as you pointed, the redistricting they did has made the district more ideologically conservative. It has now backfired on them - apparently they were sure Gilchrest would be in that seat forever.
The focus here on the Shore will be to try and paint the Democrat as a "authentic Eastern Shoreman" and it is important for Harris to campaign here and point out that conservative values are Eastern Shore values. But Andy should do fine.
I hope this get remembered when people on these threads start 'gushing' over Newt again.
The incumbant Gilchrest had a 100% voting rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and was backed by the republican establishment with endorsements from President Bush former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele as well as the liberal Baltimore Sun newspaper.>>>>>>
Very disturbing to know...but not shocked.
Thanks for the background.
It’s high time there is some house cleaning started!
Let’s get it going on the rest!
The view from MT. Twas recently in Brooklyn NY for son’s wedding. He told me about the Old Stone House on 3rd St and 5th Ave. Went to see it. In aug 1776 there was the first real battle of the Rev war thru what is now Prospect park and swirling around this old dutch farmhouse in Brooklyn. The british/hessians had overwhelming numbers and took the stone house(w/2’ thick walls)from the americans.
Then one of the finest chapters in american history : 400 voluteers from MARYLAND threw themselves in suicide charge after suicide charge against the foe. They lost 300 of their 400 that day alone but it bought Gen Washington enough time to retreat to manhatten and live to fight another day.
Thus your freedom today hinged upon those 400 MARYLAND “give me liberty or give me death” patriots, where could you find any such now in MARYLAND? And now there is a large playground there for children to play on, what better monument to those brave MARYLANDERS than to have died so that little children could enjoy life as a free people on the site where they fell?
Good riddance.
We may see repeats of this with Ron Paul and Walter Jones in eastern NC.
(I hope Republicans don’t do a Ned Lamont number of Ron Paul though, since resources are much better used elsewhere.)
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