Maryland's GOP Circular Firing Squad

Well, it seems the fine folks at Red Maryland are looking for more Republican blood to spill into the Chesapeake Bay  Fresh off after another stinging defeat of the Republican brand; the Molotov cocktail throwers are setting their sights on unseating MDGOP Chairman Alex X. Mooney by firing squad this weekend at the State Party Convention In Howard County.

In their piece, Alex Mooney Must Resign, several editors of Red Maryland lay out specific charges against Mooney and why he should resign from the Chairmanship including this excerpt "While the Democratic machine organized and raised funds to defend their policies, there was no coordinated effort by MDGOP to ensure those laws were defeated at referendum.  The defeat on questions 4 through 6, and to some extent question 7, lies squarely on Alex Mooney.  Instead of organizing and raising money to win those races, Mooney was busy helping Roscoe Bartlett get shellacked by 20 points"

I have several questions that the members of the Central Committee and the media should ask the writers over at Red Maryland.  

1) Where were their actions in this fight?  As a volunteer who crisscrossed around the state at least 20 times, who spoke at Central Committees, Republican Clubs and yes, even Democratic clubs against Questions 4 through 7. I did not run into anyone of the gentlemen who are readying their rifle sights AT ONE EVENT.

2)  Did Red Maryland volunteer any of their resources to work against any of the referendum issues?  I know personally that Red Maryland chose to accept payment for my ballot initiative campaign against Question 5.  Instead of being Conservatives first, and offering their help to get the word out to Republicans to vote against Question 5, they solicited advertising funding from us.  Our ad ran for 1 week and Red Maryland finally decided to say they were against Question 5 on the day before the election.

3) What did Alex Mooney do to support the referendum process?  Again, having been a part of this Congressional District process from day 1, Mooney was instrumental in getting the petition effort started by raising money for a poll that several members of the General Assembly contributed too.  I also know that he was very helpful in raising money for Neil Parrott's MDPetitions.com organization that made it possible for the grassroots activists of Maryland to petition three bad laws to referendum. 

Finally, if we are to have a circular firing squad this weekend, it should be pointed at all of us across the board.  We, yes even I, thought that we would win Questions 6 and 7 because we believed it would happen.  We ALL (from elected Republican office holders, to Central Committee members, to financial contributors and to all of our great volunteers) chose to focus on Republican candidates rather than four issues that had cross party support.  We simply took it for granted that we won a small battle to get these issues on the ballot but we forgot about fighting the war.

P.S. I know that I will come under fire for this - but what the heck - I'm a African-American Conservative Republican in Maryland...  I'm used to it ;-)

Plebiscites of Maryland, Unite!

Last week, fresh off of his victories of the ballot questions, Governor O’Malley made the following statement: "I think we have been best served in our state in the over 200 years or more of our history, by a representative democracy rather than plebiscites.”

As a student of politics, and a frequent visitor to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, I have an understanding of the root word of plebe but hearing in this context made me curious so I looked up the word in Webster’s Dictionary.  Plebiscite means “a vote by which the people of an entire country or district express an opinion for or against a proposal especially on a choice of government or ruler.”

In simple English, plebiscite means that the people have the ability to voice their opinion on a choice made on their behalf by the government.

Governor O’Malley’s choice of words is no accident.  He thinks that the people should have NO voice in how their elected representatives make decisions.  We plebes are not smart enough to figure things out for ourselves and should blindly trust politicians to rule us.

I believe this line of thinking of the Governor comes from two places – arrogance of power and frustration with the referendum process.  The arrogance of power is easily explained because of the one party dominance in this state as well as the fact that O’Malley hasn’t been challenged since the 1999 primary race for mayor of Baltimore. 

His frustration with the referendum process is the more interesting aspect of his move to stifle the plebiscite voice in his political utopia.  Simply put, he was embarrassed that we plebes had the gall to challenge his authority.  O’Malley knows that without the presidential race as air cover he might have lost one or two of his pet projects because of these pesky people and their silly petition process.

Of course, there are two small issues of irony here: 1) In order to change the rules, it will have to go before the people in the referendum process in 2014; 2) If the changes are passed, it will not be in effect until 2015 when O’Malley is no longer in office.

It is up to us, the plebes, to stop this usurpation on our Constitutional rights.  The power of representative democracy comes from the people (plebes) not the other way around. The alternative is O'Malley's mantra: Behave, Be Stupid and Be Silent!