April 2003

Yeah You Know Me, We Hate the Maryland GOP
Why Maryland Republicans are a Special Kind of Moron

Some of the most inspiring political stories involve small groups of men and women, isolated outside of the political power structure, creating changes in the system for the good of all people. Think about the Civil Rights movement and women's suffrage, for large scale examples. Their stories are of people who, for years, would not be taken seriously, but persevered until they effected significant change in America. These are the stories we learn about in History class. These stories inspire outsiders today to believe that, all in due time, their voice will be heard, and their quest victorious.

Status as an outsider is a point of pride for many. One advantage to being an outsider is that you have the freedom to stick to your guns, as it were. People, such as many Objectivists and Libertarians, can rally for elimination of taxes and big government knowing that their ideas will never be feasible for a country with such size and responsibility. Being on the outside, whether it be on the left or the right, gives one liberty to always say "I told you so…our plan would have prevented that.." and the like.

Don't get us wrong, being on the outside does not mean that you're wrong. There is a logic behind lowering taxes and making the Federal government smaller, just as there is logic in leftists push for living wage laws and tough clean air regulation. And at one point Ralph Nader seemed quite the fanatic for insisting we all wear seatbelts (whereas now he's just the asshole who may have brought about demise of the US Constitution as a result of vanity- thanks Ralph!). But all your ideology must take a back seat to 'compromise' when you become a player in politics. In time, if you never become more than a bit player in the occasional fight for airtime in print and on talk-radio, you become irrelevant. It's the curse of being an outsider, if one falls prey to the temptations that lie within one's self-righteousness.

In Maryland, the perennial outsiders are the Republicans. For years, they have taken a back seat in big time politics because of the overwhelming Democratic majority. But in recent years, as Democrats and Republicans have lunged towards the middle-ground in politics, GOP influence has started to grow. But as opposed to the Democrats, who have always played the part of the know-it-all big brother, the increase in power has yet to change the Republicans from playing their part as the snotty and spiteful brother.

The King of Maryland Republicans these days is Governor Bob Ehrlich. He was elected into office by the growing right-moderate electorate in the state's newer suburban counties and the clearly resentful Republican majority in the state's opposing rural extremities. He defeated a supposedly impervious machine candidate with a used car dealer's slickness and the appearance of being an underdog outsider. 51% of the people bought what he was selling, and now the Republicans are in the drivers seat, as it were.

Of course, being in the drivers seat meant the Republican agenda would begin to steer the state, General Assembly willing. But you can't steer the state's legislative agenda if you cannot let go of the arrogant idiocy of their long held beliefs.

Maryland Republicans have made a name for themselves over the years as not only outsiders, but legislative weaklings. Occasionally, a liberal idea may be killed by a conservative-minded Democrat, but never by a Republican him or herself. Most of the time, they would gather, all 10 of them, for a lunch-time rally to declare that the Governor had a bad idea (and to urge Clinton's impeachment.) Few, if any of their rallies amounted to anything but a side-note in an average day.

Their defiance of the majority and their unwillingness to make concessions in the Legislative process, unless it involved state money for their district, made them irrelevant. Instead of actually working to represent the interests of the citizens that elected them, the Maryland GOP just yells and the screams to get attention (about being ignored) like so many 5 year olds. Policy driven by spite is never sound policy.

Just as the Republican's were celebrating a victory for Bob Ehrlich, the ultimate backfire occurred. Current House Speaker Cas Taylor had been defeated in his election by the largely anti-gun control people in his county. They overlooked the thousands and thousands (if not millions) of dollars his power in Annapolis had brought to them because of their blind devotion to the NRA. Such a loss effectively buried any influence conservative rural Western Maryland (and by extension through Taylor's "One Maryland" policy, the Eastern Shore) would have in the Legislature. So the NRA essentially sold the Maryland Republican Party's base down the river. While even the state Republican Party was cheering for Taylor's loss, their victory began to stall the new Governor's agenda.

With a new, anti-slots, House Leader, Ehrlich's promise to balance the state budget with slots at race tracks began to die a slow, inevitable death. Of course, the Governor, with all the arrogance of an outsider convinced that he belongs in the game, killed nearly every other item on his agenda with his push to pass a slots bill. He burned bridges and revealed his inability to govern. The years of Republican irrelevance came home to roost.

Ehrlich was promised a "honeymoon" or sorts by General Assembly leadership. In fact, somewhat ideologically neutral Senate Leader Mike Miller even supported slot machines. Yet Ehrlich somehow still managed to blow it. The gambling folks didn't like their take, so Ehrlich agreed to give them some more out of Public Education's share. This was the beginning of the end. Of course, the Governor's refusal to negotiate with legislators on this, and most, legislation began to reveal the incredible naiveté of this one-time legislator. How can one so quickly forget how to play the game? Then everything fell apart. It soon became clear that this administration was clueless on how to administer. Midnight press conference announcing revisions to proposals were just the start of the fiasco. Apparently, the Governor had hired a staff that couldn't handle the administration of a Greyhound Station, not to mention an entire state.

Ehrlich was given quite a break on some very controversial choices for his cabinet. For instance, he managed to name his campaign manager to be Budget Secretary. The man has very little experience dealing with complicated finance issues, and is not even a CPA. Additionally, Ehrlich's choice to run the Department of Transportation, the largest department in the state in terms of both personnel and budget, is a former legislator and lawyer who knows nothing about transportation issues except that he doesn't like sitting in traffic in his luxury sedan. And he's a notorious asshole. The Governor was given a pass on these two boobs, yet still insisted on naming an inexperienced mid-level official from Michigan to head up the Department of the Environment. Clearly unqualified, the clearly peeved legislature denied a Governor's selection of a cabinet member for the first time in the State's history.

Bob Ehrlich seems to think his political capital is unlimited.

So this is the kind of "leadership" one sees in the Maryland Republican party. Such long-enduring outsider status may be the result of obvious incompetence. But to add to the incompetence, there is tremendous arrogance and stubbornness. As the state faces annual budget shortfalls approaching a billion dollars, the governor refuses to consider any tax increases to make up the gap that his precious slots bill was supposed to fill. So instead of allowing Montgomery County to attach a $27 car registration fee, roads from Bethesda to Takoma Park will start to crumble, and essential transit services may start to disappear, thus weakening an already crumbling economy.

But the Governor plans to teach legislators a lesson. The Governor thinks he is the most popular man since Charles Lindberg, despite winning the election by a mere 2%. He plans to take his message to the people, and talk about smaller government. His still-campaigning style of governance may be borrowed from the Bush Administration, but it is certainly less likely to play in Maryland. Marylanders on the whole may claim to like "smaller government", but when the see it, they are sure to not like it in the least. Maryland delivers more services to it's people on a per capita basis than just about every state in the nation. Once these services start to disappear, Bob Ehrlich is sure to look like the asshole of the century, as the first to go will surely be relief to the urban and rural poor, and the last to go will be the currently unfounded Inter County Connecter, an environmentally infeasible roadway in the wealthy Washington suburbs that is sure to not relieve traffic as touted, but also cost several billion dollars to construct.

This is the quality of governance that the citizens of Maryland receive from the Maryland Republican party. Gridlock though stubbornness and arrogance at best, total incompetence at the other end of the scale. But as much as we fault Ehrlich and his stupid party leadership for the sure-to-be-declining quality of life in Maryland (a very wealthy state, by the way), we fault the rank-and-file party members the heaviest. They asked for this, and now the rest of us have to suffer along with it.

These are the same kind of idiots who voted for George Bush because they didn't like Bill Clinton. Purely spiteful. One should never be motivated just by the notion of being contrary. Once should be contrary out of deeply held and well conceived principles. Voting against Ehrlich's opponent, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, because her father was Bobby Kennedy is retarded. Just as voting for Princeton-educated Bob Ehrlich because he sounds "regular" with his dumb Merlin accent is an act that shames democracy.

Ehrlich made his campaign more about personality than competence or sound policy. This tactic may have gotten him into the Governor's Mansion, but it's put the rest of the state in a dangerous position as it becomes more and more clear that Bob Ehrlich has far more personality than skill. In fact, he is nothing but personality. He speaks of himself in the third person and thinks that all problems can be worked out over beer and pizza at the Governor's Mansion.

To all the people that voted for this smug asshole, we say you get what you deserve. By why did you have to bring the rest of us down with you? Are you so spiteful of the Democratic Party's good governance and proper stewardship that you are willing to destroy this moderately progressive and wealthy state? If you can't have it your way, nobody can have it at all? Well, why don't you take that attitude and move to Virginia, where the Republican Party there is more than willing to run the birthplace of eight presidents into the ground.