Late last month 13 Maryland corrections officers were among the 25 people indicted in Federal Court for allegedly running a criminal enterprise in a state institution, the Baltimore City Detention Center.  According to prosecutors, the officers helped smuggle drugs, mobile phones and other contraband into the Baltimore jail and other corrections facilities. The ring also involved sex between inmates and female guards. Incredibly four of the officers allegedly became pregnant by prisoner Tavon White, leader of the so-called Black Guerrilla Family.

Amazing too is Governor O’Malley’s response.  He described the prison sex and drugs scandal as a “positive achievement” and credits Corrections Secretary, Gary Maynard, with establishing a state-federal task force “with this goal in mind of going after gangs.”

This is a rerun of a very bad horror movie that continues to replay throughout the O’Malley administration.

Rewind the movie back to 2007, O’Malley’s first year in office.  Patrick Byer is awaiting trial on a murder charge in the Baltimore Detention Center.  Like many of the inmates in that facility, Byers has access to a contraband mobile phone, which he uses to negotiate a murder for $2,500 of the principal witness against him.  Just 8 days before the beginning of Byer’s trial, Carl Lackl Jr. is gunned in front of his house in a crime witnessed by his daughter.

Federal prosecutors eventually succeeded in convicting eight defendants in Carl Lackl Jr.’s murder.

Yet not everyone involved may have been punished.  Mobile phone records showed that Lackl’s killers had contact with corrections officers.  However according to news accounts, prison spokesmen say they are unaware of any officers who were disciplined or fired because of the case.

The Baltimore City Paper reported in a 2009 story on a court case that revealed that in late 2006 and early 2007, 16 correctional officers were identified by an internal investigation as being gang members or having gang ties.  Yet the warden at the Baltimore Detention Center, William Filbert, ordered that the investigation of the problem cease. [1]  Filbert remains an official in the Corrections Department in an even more senior capacity.

Over time the Baltimore City Paper has published multiple stories about Black Guerrilla Family and its grip on the Maryland corrections system.

In this continuing horror movie, 24 people, including 3 correctional officers and a prison employee, were indicted in 2009 in connection with the operation of a drug ring out of several Maryland prisons.  The gang had contraband mobile phones obtained from correction officers and a prison employee.  In June 2011, a corrections officer who assisted the Black Guerrilla Family gang by smuggling heroin and mobile phones into a Baltimore prison was sentenced to serve 37 months in federal prison.

In last month’s indictment press release, the FBI captures the gang’s brazenness by quoting a phone call by Tavon White from jail, in which he touts his total control:

“This is my jail. You understand that? I’m dead serious….I make every final call in this jail…and nothing go past me, everything come to me….Any of my brothers that deal with anybody, it’s gonna come to me. You see what I am saying? Everything come to me. Everything. Before a mother-f– hit a n– in the mouth, guess what they do, they gotta run it through me. I tell them whether it’s a go ahead, and they can do it or whether they hold back. Before a mother-f– stab somebody, they gotta run it through me…Anything that get done must go through me.” [2]

In short, the woeful state of Maryland’s corrections system should not come as “news” to the state’s Chief Executive Officer.  And the arrest of 13 correction officers should hardly be considered a “positive achievement.”

O’Malley’s remarkably awkward defense of his Secretary does not generate any confidence in the Governor’s skills as a manager.  He said that conducting the necessary investigation is “not like getting a cheeseburger at McDonald’s drive through window.” [3]

No one would deny that a criminal investigation is harder than ordering at McDonald’s.  But shouldn’t our Governor being doing more to make it more difficult for a jailed murder defendant to get a mobile phone with which to order a contract murder of a witness?

O’Malley’s Secretary of Public Safety & Correctional Services Gary Maynard has served since being hired in the first month of the Governor’s administration.  If after six years he is unable to correct the very serious problems with the corrections system, then it is time for the Governor to ask for his resignation.

Mark Uncapher

First the County Executive announced a tentative agreement with the Municipal and County Government Employees Organization, or MCGEO under which Montgomery County employees are slated to receive a 13.5% pay raise under the terms of a new two-year contact.

This same week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend a pay freeze for Federal employees first enacted in 2011. The legislation is intended to override an Obama executive order raising federal salaries by 0.5% in March. Maryland State employees have fared slightly better than Federal employees. They received no pay increases last year, followed by a 2% raise this past January 1, 2013, and an expected 3% raise effective next January.

At the same time thousands of Washington area employees of government contractors are holding their collective breathes regarding the possible impact that sequestration could have on their jobs in March. But even those keeping their jobs have not seen pay increases for several years.

Not surprisingly, the Montgomery County teachers union was audibly licking their chops at the prospect that this deal with the county’s employees union would give them even more leverage for their own negotiations. The Washington Examiner quoted Tom Israel, executive director of the Montgomery County Education Association which represents more than 12,000 public school teachers and employees, as saying that the proposed contract ‘could mean a better deal for teachers as the MCEA negotiates with the school board over employee compensation for next fiscal year.’. Indeed, in recent years the Montgomery County Board of Education has extended more generous wage and benefit increases than received by other county employees.

Montgomery County’s current 2013 operating budget of $4.6 billion reflected a 5.6% increase over the prior year. Consistent with the economy at large, county revenues from existing taxes have been growing only modestly. Consequently the added spending was only possible because of a 4.5% increase in the real estate tax rate and an extension in the energy tax. Going forward, inevitably more county tax increases will be necessary to pay for these latest added public employee costs.

Prior to this week’s labor agreement, Montgomery County had been anticipating a $134 million shortfall for in fiscal 2014, even assuming no employee pay increases. Already county departments were considering budget cuts of 5%. Personnel costs comprise 80% of the county budget, or $3.6 billion. In effect, Leggett is adding an extra 10% of total spending, increasing the budget at a rate which well beyond that rate tax revenues are growing.

So what on earth is County Executive Leggett thinking, especially since he is planning to run for reelection next year? In effect, it can be argued that his is a cynical political calculus that he benefits more from outsized public employee contract increases than the inevitable tax increases to pay for him will cost him. Even to the extent that some pay increases are offset not by tax increases but by reduced service levels, Leggett understands the considerable value of active public employee union support. Since 2009, library funding has been cut 30%, transportation 26% and recreation 23.5%.

Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman

A century of state gun laws provides a useful yardstick for comparison on their effectiveness in preventing violence.  The number of gun households varies dramatically in the country from under 7% in Hawaii to about 60% in Wyoming, in part because
of differences in law.

So, what does the gun ownership data tell us about homicide rates?

Despite the significant differences among states in the number of guns and the difficulty in obtaining them, there is no statistical correlation that supports the pro-control premise that fewer guns or making guns harder to obtain makes a state safer.   For example, gun related homicides are nearly half as common in pro-gun Virginia, as in Maryland.  Although gun homicides are less prevalent in Hawaii than elsewhere, not surprisingly knife-related homicides are also significantly more common.

State gun control laws began in New York in 1911, largely in response to a highly publicized murder.  New York passed the “Sullivan Act” which requires licenses for New Yorkers to possess firearms small enough to be concealed.   Possession of these firearms without a license was made a misdemeanor, and carrying them a felony. Although subsequently amended, the Sullivan Act remains on the books.

The “Sullivan” of the law is named for a remarkably unsavory figure, a notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall State Senator, Timothy “Big Tim” Sullivan.  During the late 19th and early 20th centuries he controlled much of the city’s prostitution, illegal gambling and other criminal activity in the lower party of Manhattan.  The year after “his” law passed, Sullivan was judged mentally incompetent as a result of his tertiary syphilis and committed to a sanitarium.

Richard F. Welch author of a biography, ‘King of the Bowery: Big Tim Sullivan, Tammany Hall, and New York City from the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era,comments: “Cynics suggested that Big Tim pushed through his law so Tammany could keep their gangster allies under control.  Hoodlums who forgot who really ran things in the city could be easily arrested if found with a gun – or if one was slipped into their pocket.”

After a century of New York gun control laws, that state has one of the lowest percentages of gun owning households.  However seven out of ten states with a majority of households with guns have lower homicides rate and homicide rates with a gun than New York.  This is even after the state’s once high homicide rates high began dropping dramatically starting in the 1990s during the Giuliani Administration.  Today that state is much safer than Maryland because of more effective policing rather than gun law changes.

Even though Maryland has the eighth lowest percentage of gun households (21%), every single one of the ten states with a majority of households owning guns has a lower homicide or gun homicide per 100,000 people.  Many other gun control jurisdictions with low proportions of gun ownership show similar higher homicide rates. Compare Texas (35% gun households) with California (21% gun households). California, like Maryland, has both a higher homicide rate and a higher gun homicide rate than the Lone Star State.

So despite the Governor’s claim that his are “data-driven, results-oriented strategies,” the actual numbers suggest simply a reflective knee-jerk reaction that “guns are bad,” therefore they should be legislated against.

One of the regrettable consequences of this ideological response is a failure to more carefully examine the mental health issues associated with the mass killings that have generated the recent upsurge in interest in gun legislation.

For example, both James Holmes in Colorado and Adam Lanza in Connecticut were apparently receiving psychiatric care prior the tragedies they are accused of.  However little is known of their circumstances because of patient confidentiality.  Yet the FDA already requires that for over 30 commonly prescribed anti-depressants contain a so-called “black box warning” on their products’ labeling to include warnings about increased risks of suicidal thinking and behavior, known as suicidality, in young adults ages 18 to 24 during initial treatment.

Numerous studies suggest substantial benefits for the large population of adolescent and young adults for whom antidepressants are prescribed, including an overall reduced risk of suicide.  In part because the sample sizes used for most controlled drug trials are so small, though, it is hard to detect for rare events such as suicide.  More is needed to be studied about this, especially if some patients have a higher risk of such extreme reactions.

In a memorable turn of a phrase, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the expression “Laboratories of democracy” to describe how a “state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

After a century of experimentation, the lab results are in.  Stricter gun laws do not make states safer.

Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman

Source Notes:
Gun Ownership
The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) surveyed 201,881 respondents nationwide in 2001, asking them, “Are any firearms now kept in or around your home? Include those kept in a garage, outdoor storage area, car, truck, or other motor vehicle.” compiled at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/guns/ownership.html
http://www.usacarry.com/forums/general-firearm-discussion/9841-percent-firearms-ownership-state.html

Crime Data
State-level homicide characteristics database – Bureau of Justice Statistics 2004 American FactFinder – United States Census Bureau 2004 compiled at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state

As Herbert Smith, a professor at McDaniel College and coauthor of the book Maryland Politics and Government: Democratic Dominance recently told the Baltimore Business Journal,   “It’s a reach of almost galactic portion to go from a medium-size state to the national scene… It’s a tremendous jump.”

Earlier this week the National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar wrote an unflattering analysis of the possible 2016 Democratic Presidential contest between Andrew Cuomo and Martin O’Malley.  He asked if either Governor was”Ready for Prime Time?” see

Kraushaar comments: “The intensity on gun control is still on the side of the opposition, with only 4% listing it as their most important issue in the latest Gallup survey. More important, defining one’s candidacy by being the biggest gun restrictionist in the field is a surefire strategy for general-election problems in the Rust Belt swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Even battleground Colorado, filled with the diverse, well-educated voters that gravitate toward Democrats, is a state where ‘liberal Denver lawyers own handguns, and the Democratic governor takes his son to hunting safety classes,’ as the New York Times put it.”

So what is O’Malley up to?

O’Malley’s political strategists are targeting a single segment of the Democratic primary electorate.  These are what author Joel Kotkin calls “Gentry Liberals.”   Kotkin defines them as combining four basic elements: cultural liberalism, activist environmentalism, fealty the nation’s public employee unions and faith in ‘post-industrial’ capitalism.  Kotkin observes that while Gentry Liberals are only one part of the Democratic coalition, they a nevertheless extremely influential in Democratic Presidential primaries.   However, when this O’Malley strategy conflicts with reaching more traditional working class Democratic voters, the “Gentry” gets preference.

A  Cuomo-O’Malley showdown over the Gentry Liberal primary voter brings to mind the last northern liberal Governor who won his party’s nomination, Michael Dukakis.

Dukakis made a central pillar of his campaign his economic record and the so-called “Massachusetts Miracle.”  Unemployment, which was more than 12% (the highest for any industrial state) when he first took office in 1975, shrank to less than 3% (the lowest of any industrial state).  State and local taxes, which had been the highest per capita of any of the states, were reduced to the eighth lowest.  Ironically his state’s spending and tax reductions were the product of the policies of the Governor who unseated Dukakis in 1978. Nevertheless personal income in Massachusetts has grown faster than in any other state during the 1980′s.

How will Cuomo and O’Malley compete on each of their state’s economic records?

Just over a year ago, Governor Cuomo forged an agreement with the Republican State Senate and the Democratic Assembly on his proposals to cut taxes.  For New York manufacturers, the corporate income tax rate was cut to 6.25%.   Contrast with O’Malley’s tax-raising legacy, including 24 tax and fee hikes since 2007, including raising the corporate income tax from 7% to 8.25%.

Change Maryland’s Larry Hogan points out that New York’s decline of year-over-year manufacturing jobs is 1.4%, which is less than half of Maryland’s decline during the same period. Citing Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, Hogan notes that Maryland has the second-worst decline year-over-year in manufacturing of any state. Maryland’s loss of 4,500 manufacturing jobs, a 4% loss, is eclipsed only by West Virginia which saw a 5.4% decline in the same period. The long-term decline in this sector transcends governors’ administrations.

Since 2002, Maryland has lost 33% of its manufacturing jobs, the sixth-worst decline in the nation. The dismal trend has only worsened since O’Malley became governor. Since 2007, Maryland lost 20% of its manufacturing employment base, the 10th worst decline in the country. Over 26,000 manufacturing jobs vanished during that time.

Not just Maryland manufacturing jobs have been lost thanks to “O’Malley-nomics.”  Thousands of jobs in western Maryland have been prevented as a result of the state’s ban on natural gas exploration fracking.  Marylanders need only look across the border to Pennsylvania to see what might have been.

Maryland voters for Dundalk to Cumberland take heed, Governor O’Malley has given up on your interests in favor of the “wine and cheese” voters of the 2016 Presidential primaries.

Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman

Last year, O’Malley sought to phase in a 6% sales tax on gasoline, effectively raising the per-gallon price about 7 cents per year for the next three years.  A transportation funding shortfall results, in part, from $1.1 billion in raids on the fund to pay for other projects, as well as a reduction in  the share of mass transit operating costs covered by fare box revenues.

These raids occurred despite the state’s long wish list of expensive projects, including widening the Capital Beltway ($5.8 billion); replacing the Harry W. Nice Bridge connecting Southern Maryland to Virginia ($885 million); building the mass-transit Purple Line ($1.9 billion) in the Washington suburbs and Baltimore’s Red Line ($2.5 billion); widening Md. 5 in Prince George’s County near Clinton ($1.1 billion), and building the Corridor Cities Transitway rapid bus system in Montgomery County ($800 million).

Over $5 billion on the Governor’s wish list is for new mass transit projects.  This reflects the long-standing ideological commitment of transportation planners to a theory that the only way to reduce highway congestion is to use mass transit to “entice” drivers from the roads.  Nearly half of Maryland’s transportation spending is devoted mass transit despite the fact that cars account for approximately 97% of all travel.

These planning “experts” cling to their “diversion” theory despite compelling evidence that it does not work.  After spending billions over the past two decades on public transit, Maryland mass transit’s increase of 52,000 daily commuters has been more than offset by a 62,000 loss in car pool commuters.  Driving alone became substantially more popular, comprising 73% of all commutes in the state in 2008.  Between 1990 and 2008, 93% (400,000) of all new commutes were by single-occupant automobiles.  In fact, almost many as many commuters have been “diverted” from the roads by working at home (47,000), as were by mass transit.

In short, these planners cannot make good on their promise of less crowded roads in exchange for more mass transit spending.  This should come as no surprise to anyone looking at a map and considering the distribution of jobs and homes.  A century ago centralized job locations could be feed by convenient trolley lines within a 10 mile radius.  Today our metropolitan areas now span thousands of square miles with population densities that cannot support widespread mass transit usage.

Microeconomic analysis has worked through the numbers in which single-occupant car drivers make an entirely rational choice in trading the higher commuting costs of a car for less time spent commuting.  In effect, even a 5 minute reduction in commuting time is worth the equivalent of 2% of income.

To make matter worse, even when Maryland does build highways, it does so expensively.

Compare the state built Inter-County Connector with the private Dulles Greenway.  Both are about the same distance.  The ICC is 14 miles and the Dulles Greenway 13 miles.  Both charge equivalent tolls.  Both were built through largely undeveloped parts of the Washington exurban area.  The Greenway was able to purchase all its land from the original owners at market prices, without resorting to commendation proceedings.  The privately-financed Greenway cost $315 million to build in the 1990s, while the ICC cost $2.5 billion to build in the past decade.

Not only is the Greenway covering its capital costs entirely from tolls, as a private entity it pays millions in real estate property taxes each year.  While the Greenway struggled in the early years, by 2005 ownership changed hands for a price nearly twice its initial construction cost.

Some of the eight- fold cost difference can be attributed Maryland’s reliance on antiquated labor contracting processes.  Other added costs came from extra spending insisted on by environmentalists.  Another problem is that weak transportation management has been a characteristic of the O’Malley Administration.  For example the previous Maryland Department of Transportation Secretary announced in April that she would be leaving the cabinet post.  Yet eight months later the Governor has yet to announce a replacement.

“This is very poor timing to have a rudderless ship,” comments Change Maryland’s Larry Hogan.  He further notes that not having a permanent Secretary in place at the largest department in state government handicaps effective management.

Going forward, the first step in any discussion of Maryland transportation policy must be making more efficient use of existing resources and a reexamination of spending priorities.

Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman

In staying out of the healthcare exchanges, states avoid regulations promulgated by HHS that give states no meaningful flexibility or advantage by operating their own exchanges, relative to a federal exchange.  Those states would simply be acting as vendors to HHS.

However since Martin O’Malley is our Governor, naturally Maryland has decided to rush ahead no matter what the cost may be.  Already one set of projections finds that new taxes and fees will be necessary to fund Maryland’s state’s exchange because annual administrative costs in 2015 will be $201 per enrollee.[1]

Higher administrative health insurance costs are only the tip of the iceberg of increased costs Marylanders face under Obamacare.  Earlier this year on the campaign trail President Obama was still claiming that health exchanges would lower health care premium costs.  I say “still claiming” because the Washington Post’s fact checkers” gave his lower costs claim a decided “thumbs down,” citing in part data that Maryland individual health care premiums will go up on average by 34 to 36%.[2]

When Obamacare was passed, Democrats assumed that they could simply force states to open exchanges and to expand Medicaid to pay for expanded coverage.  Although the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate was constitutional as a “tax,” the court also very significantly ruled the Medicaid expansion was entirely voluntary for the states.  This aspect of the decision gives states leverage to avoid Obamacare’s Medicaid cost, control, and coverage burdens.

As a carrot to entice states to implement Obamacare, the Federal government offers temporary funding support to the states.  However beginning in 2020, states will begin to shouldering an increasing share of the Obamacare burden.

Speaking on behalf of other Governors that have rejected the Medicaid expansion, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, said: “The Obama administration’s refusal to grant states more flexibility on Medicaid is as disheartening as it is short- sighted.  The current Medicaid system is broken, and it is an inefficient mechanism for expanding coverage.”

The potential future budgetary burden facing Maryland could be larger.  If the majority of states continue to opt out of the healthcare exchanges and the Medicaid expansion, then Congress is likely to shift an even larger share of costs back on the few participating states.

Marylanders have seen this movie before and therefore should be forewarned about how it will turnout. Already growing Medicaid spending has been a significant driver of the State budget, from $3 billion per year in 2000, to $7 billion in 2012.  The 8% annual compound growth rate is well above the rate of the rest of the budget.

In 2009 the Obama Stimulus package offered state “bonus” Federal funding for Medicaid, provided the state agree to expand the program.  The catch was the Federal funding was only temporary, running out in 2011.

Under the leadership of Republican Governors, even so-called traditionally “blue” states, such as New Jersey, Michigan and Wisconsin, chose to hold the line on Medicaid expansion. Connecting the budgetary dots, this year’s state tax increase was a direct consequence of the state agreeing to ramp up Medicaid spending in 2009 with short-term Federal funding, and then being unwilling to return to old benefit levels after the money ran out.

Congress seems highly unlikely to tax the entire country to pay for programs which fewer than half the states participate in.  So when the “extra” Federal support for Obamacare runs out for Maryland, as it is likely to do, Maryland will be faced again with the choice of having the make up the difference with state tax dollars.

As a result of a key aspect of this past summer’s Supreme Court decision, states have more flexibility in avoiding Obmacare related costs.  State that fail to use this flexibility will take on more spending – and face higher taxes – than states the fail to do so.

Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman

[1]http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/12/obamacares-medicaid-expansion-and-state-exchanges-risky-for-states

[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/president-obamas-claim-that-insurance-premiums-will-go-down/2012/08/09/424048f2-e245-11e1-a25e-15067bb31849_blog.html , http://mhcc.dhmh.maryland.gov/smallgroup/Documents/affordable_care_20110711.pdf

“How can such a large central committee work?”

Two years ago, Montgomery County’s Republican Central Committee has changed its size, increasing from 19 members to 48 members. The change was made in order to increase the opportunities for Montgomery County’s grass roots Republicans to more actively participate in the party’s affairs.

This change was made possible because in early May 2010 Governor O’Malley signed legislation allowing both the Montgomery County Republican and Democratic parties to adjust their Central Committees sizes. As a result of the new law, the size of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee is no longer set by the state’s election law.  Instead, the Central Committees are allowed to set their size consistent with the requirements of their state party by-laws.

The state Republican Party’s rules allow a maximum of two central committee members for every resident member to the Maryland House of Delegates from a county. Because Montgomery County has 24 delegates, our Central Committee number can become 48.  We elect five members from each legislative district and eight members at large.

Our committee size reflects a significant departure from the approach of other counties, such as Howard County’ Central Committee which has 9 members or Anne Arundel which has 13.  I do not presume to tell them how to organize themselves, however I do believe our approach has advantages for us.

After two years, I strongly believe, and I think most of our members agree with me that our new approach works well.

First, more members has meant been we have been able a broader cross-section of conservative and Republican activists are actively included in our party’s operations.  The notion that our Central Committee only makes room for the “party insiders” rings hollow in Montgomery County when so many are included.

Second, with 48 members, we have been able to drawn upon the specialize talents of a wider range of people.  Working through our committee structure, teams of members have tackled specific needs of the party.  Some members have been elected to by their peers to join our Executive Committee, currently 24 members.  Other members have, instead, have concentrated on specific committees, such as Communications, Technology, Finance and Precinct Organization.  Still others have been especially involved in the legislative district precinct organization.

Interestingly our biggest membership “retention” problem has been member leaving to move out of state.  Five out of the past seven vacancies have resulted from members resigning because they were moving out of Maryland.  In their place we have been able to attract Republican activists.  In fact, in most cases the new members were already supporting the party in one of a number of capacities.

We have more to do, just as Republicans across the country.  In Montgomery County, our Central Committee is better positioned to do so by having 48 members, rather than 19.

Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s excellent response is direct and to the point: “America already has one liberal political party; there is no need for another one. Make no mistake: Despite losing an election, conservative ideals still hold true.”

Yet the debate reveals that the suggestion candidates need appeal to “crossover voters” can be a controversial notion, at least in some Republican circles. This reflects a fear that the strategy implies that Republicans must compromise their core principles in order to win.

Gerrymandering has divided large parts of the country into districts in which representatives, either Republican or Democrats, need only compete for primary votes in order to hold office.  As a practical matter, entire political careers can be spent without ever having to appeal for independent votes, let alone voters from the other party.

However not all of America is so neatly divided into “red” and “blue” zones.  Eleven states with Republican Governors voted for Obama.  While this is certainly a sobering reality for the Romney campaign, it is also a reminder that the balance of political power in this county continues to rest with ticket splitters.

A majority of these “Obama voting -Republican Governor” states also elected majority Republican delegations to the House of Representatives.   Together they elected 70 Republicans compared with 36 Democrats to the House.  This 34 seat advantage mirrors the majority of the House Republicans nationally.  Without them, Nancy Pelosi would be Speaker again.

There are, of course, countless other examples of conservatives and Republicans winning in “Blue States.”  Even the “bluest” states, states never in contention at the Presidential level,  have in recent history elected many more Republican Governors than Maryland has, such as California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

No one would accuse Ronald Reagan of compromising his principles as he attracted the “Reagan Democrats.”  As the Great Communicator, he had the gift for reaching voter’s actual concerns, rather than dwelling on the issues that conservatives thought voters needed to hear about.

In Montgomery County, Connie Morella remains as a political icon for her ability to appeal to cross-over votes.  Even after redistricting in 2002, she held 48% of the vote in a district that John Kerry got 69% and Obama got 74%.  Only a remarkably few politicians in the country have been able to attract so many votes outside their party’s base.

As a path forward after this year’s debate over “You didn’t build it” and “the 47%,” recent remarks by Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron about “aspiration politics” should resonate.

“Line one, rule one of being a conservative is that it’s not where you’ve come from that counts, it’s where you’re going.  We just get behind people who want to get on in life: the doers; the risk takers; the young people who dream of their first pay-check, their first car, their first home and are ready and willing to work hard to get those things.  While the intellectuals of other parties sneer at people who want to get on in life, we here salute you.”

Governor Jindal makes much the same point with his advice to the party: “We have to boldly show what the future can look like with the free market policies that we believe in. Conservative ideals are aspirational, and our country is aspirational.”  We need to “[c]ompete for every single vote, the 47% and the 53%, and any other combination of numbers that adds up to 100 percent. President Barack Obama and the Democrats can continue trying to divide America into groups of warring communities with competing interests, but we will have none of it. We are going after every vote as we try to unite all Americans.”

David Cameron puts it even more succinctly:

“They call us the party of the better-off.  No.  We are the party of the want to be better-off, those who strive to make a better life for themselves and their families – and we should never, ever be ashamed of saying so.”

Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman

Even if you can only spare two hours, there are a variety of way you time can be put to good use.  The best way to get involved is to sign up our website at http://mcgop.com/signup-2/

Be sure to leave contact information, including email and mobile phone.

Phone Banking

Our phone banking is continuing at the Bartlett Victory Center at 18540 Office Park Dr. Montgomery Village, MD 20886.  For more information on helping, contact Office Director: Kari Snyder – Karigopvictory@gmail.com ~ (240) 780-2395

Early Voting

Next Saturday early voting begins, and a strong Republican presence is required at each of the five locations in Montgomery County.  Republican volunteers will be greeting voters outside each location.  Trained Poll Watchers will also be working with Board of Election staff inside the polling places.  Call 301-417-9256 for more information.

Our Early Voting presence provides two functions.

First we want to have a physical presence outside all five locations while voting is going on with signs and literature to greet voters.   Second we will be using trained poll watchers inside to locations. In some instances it will be necessary for volunteers to combine the two roles. Our visible external presence can help provide some deterrence to potential problems.   Without getting ahead of the training process, all volunteers will have the necessary documentation to allow them to go inside the polling places.

Super Saturday

Also next Saturday, the  Maryland Republican Party StrikeForce is coming Montgomery County to GOTV for Romney/Ryan, Dan Bongino, Ken Timmerman and Roscoe Bartlett + provide ballot education materials.  For the past month, each Saturday Republican volunteers from around the state have converged on a specific county to focus on supporting local efforts.

Today, on Saturday October 27 the kickoff will be at 18540 Office Park Dr. Montgomery Village, MD 20886 (Bartlett Victory Center).  After a kick off rally, volunteers will do door to door canvassing in Congressional District 6 and 8, and phone banking for Bartlett form his Victory Center and for Ken Timmerman form the Montgomery county Republican headquarters (15833 Crabbs Branch Way Rockville/Derwood).   Sign-up here: http://www.mdgop.org/super-saturday/

72 Hours

The following Saturday morning, November 3 a kick-off rally in front the Montgomery County Republican headquarters will proceed with get out the vote efforts.

Beginning at 8:00 am      Precinct Chairs start to come and pick up Precinct Bags

10:00 am – Rally with call candidates – get doughnuts, bagels and coffee for volunteers and attendees (paid for by Bethesda Architects)

Speaking -

• Rep. Andy Harris MD-1
• Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan
• Del. Neil Parrott
• Frederick County Commissioner Blaine Young and his Bus
• National Committeewoman Nicolee Ambrose
• Ken Timmerman
• Dan Bongino (invited)
• Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (invited)

Election Day

Volunteers are needed to work with the Precinct Chairmen at the polling locations as Poll Workers.  For more information, see the Precinct Chairman job description below.

Poll after poll shows the Presidential election to be extremely close.   In the popular vote contest, a vote in Maryland is equal to any in the country.  A popular vote mandate will strengthen President Romney and Vice President Ryan in the coming years.

So, don’t delay – sign up at:

http://mcgop.com/signup-2/

Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman

We are down to the wire for this all important election and this time we need to put a face on the Republican Party in this county. We are asking that you be that face for just a short time during early voting week. We need your help! Whether you are a Republican or Romney-Ryan volunteer, or one supporting another Republican candidate, we need you.

Even if you can only spare two hours, there are a variety of way you time can be put to good use. The best way to get involved is to sign up our website at http://mcgop.com/signup-2/

Be sure to leave contact information, including email and mobile phone.

Phone Banking

Our phone banking is continuing at the Bartlett Victory Center at 18540 Office Park Dr. Montgomery Village, MD 20886. For more information on helping, contact Office Director: Kari Snyder – Karigopvictory@gmail.com ~ (240) 780-2395

Early Voting

Next Saturday early voting begins, and a strong Republican presence is required at each of the five locations in Montgomery County. Republican volunteers will be greeting voters outside each location. Trained Poll Watchers will also be working with Board of Election staff inside the polling places. Call 301-417-9256 for more information or sign-up at . Sign-up

Our Early Voting presence provides two functions.

First we want to have a physical presence outside all five locations while voting is going on with signs and literature to greet voters. Second we will be using trained poll watchers inside to locations. In some instances it will be necessary for volunteers to combine the two roles. Our visible external presence can help provide some deterrence to potential problems. Without getting ahead of the training process, all volunteers will have the necessary documentation to allow them to go inside the polling places.

Super Saturday

Also next Saturday, the Maryland Republican Party StrikeForce is coming Montgomery County to GOTV for Romney/Ryan, Dan Bongino, Ken Timmerman and Roscoe Bartlett + provide ballot education materials. For the past month, each Saturday Republican volunteers from around the state have converged on a specific county to focus on supporting local efforts.

On Saturday October 27 the kickoff will be at 18540 Office Park Dr. Montgomery Village, MD 20886 (Bartlett Victory Center). After a kick off rally, volunteers will do door to door canvassing in Congressional District 6 and 8, and phone banking for Bartlett form his Victory Center and for Ken Timmerman form the Montgomery county Republican headquarters (15833 Crabbs Branch Way Rockville/Derwood). Sign-up here: http://www.mdgop.org/super-saturday/

72 Hours

The following Saturday morning, November 3 a kick-off rally in front the Montgomery County Republican headquarters will proceed with get out the vote efforts.

Election Day

Volunteers are needed to work with the Precinct Chairmen at the polling locations as Poll Workers. For more information, see the Precinct Chairman job description below.

Poll after poll shows the Presidential election to be extremely close. In the popular vote contest, a vote in Maryland is equal to any in the country. A popular vote mandate will strengthen President Romney and Vice President Ryan in the coming years.

So, don’t delay – sign up at:

http://mcgop.com/signup-2/

Mark Uncapher
Montgomery County Republican Chairman