Are we at it AGAIN?

Slowly percolating over this summer "silly season" of politics is yet another bid to damage the leadership of Maryland GOP Chair Jim Pelura.

The latest installment of the saga concerns Pelura's idea to come up with a "Contract With Maryland" for the 2010 elections. Based on the 1994 "Contract With America", the idea was to develop a list of principles Republicans in the General Assembly could push in the next session and beyond. Obviously they would need a majority to enact whatever legislation the Contract entails, but the idea is to compare and contrast the proposed and probably conservative agenda of Maryland Republicans with the tax-and-spend, business-unfriendly miserable economic and job-creation record General Assembly Democrats have compiled over the last several years.

Yet General Assembly Republicans have put up a less than robust welcome to Pelura's plan. Perhaps they're taking a page out of the Bob Michel playbook.

I imagine it's not really fun to be a Republican in the Maryland General Assembly. There's not much to do but listen to your conservative constituents complain about the state of affairs, introduce bills and amendments which are routinely slaughtered in voting, and watch the other side gleefully pass legislation to benefit their special-interest buddies.

Then again, you could be the head of the party who is routinely savaged for practically any move he makes. Have you ever noticed that no one worries about who the leader of the Maryland Democratic Party is? (For the record, their party chair is Susan Turnbull.) Of course, she is simply a titular head because the party belongs to Governor O'Malley.

Therein lies one of the problems Maryland Republicans have, and it's reflective of the party on a national scale. With no political leader, non-political figures like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are trashed as leaders as is Sarah Palin now since she left the governorship of Alaska behind. They certainly get the slings and arrows from the Left and the media (but I repeat myself.)

However, the Maryland Republicans have a titular leader who's thus far sitting on the sidelines for 2010, biding his time. It seems to me part of the frustration with Maryland Republicans comes from not knowing what Bob Ehrlich will do. Obviously the party thrived with him as Governor and many in the GOP hierarchy seem to long for the days when he controlled the party.

Perhaps the Pelura saga comes to an end once Ehrlich decides what he'll do. In the meantime it occurs to me that the energy spent figuring out ways to snipe and undermine Pelura could better be spent going after the REAL enemy. At a time when there's a whole host of motivated voters and volunteers receptive to the GOP message we need to focus our resources on harnessing that energy which has become available to us over the last 4 1/2 months.

In 2010 we'll have the chance to oust a number of Democrats who talk a conservative game yet run to Annapolis and vote with the Beltway liberals. After that, the GOP can select a new Chairman because Lord knows that after the abuse he's taken for stepping up Jim Pelura would be crazy to run again.

It's time to worry about the enemy without rather than create the enemy within.