Post-worthy comment #98740
I was thinking about writing a follow-up to President Obama's speech last night but all that would've been was republishing the Maryland GOP's response along with my thoughts, which mostly echo Jim Pelura's sentiments anyway. It doesn't help that the Maryland Democrats don't see fit to trumpet their President's accomplishments, or at least attempt to pin blame on Obama's predecessor for everything that's gone wrong for the last fifty years. They must know that I would have plenty of fun blowing all those straw men away.
Instead, I happened to moderate comments moments ago and stared at two of them, which for simplicity's sake I'll meld into one statement:
So what did you Reddies do to boost the real Rep(ublican) candidate in the Salisbury Mayoral contest — Bob Caldwell (not Della Penna)? Nothing, I presume!
First of all, neither Caldwell nor Mike Della Penna was present at our meeting Monday night. (Both did have literature onsite, as did Jim Ireton. Now that takes a little chutzpah.) I presume that may have been because City Council meets at the same time; however, our meeting ran late enough that either or both could have made an appearance. Of the two, Mike has actually attended more GOP events over the recent past.
But both the Republican Club and the Central Committee have adopted a policy where we don't support any candidate prior to the primary as a body. Certainly I'm sure both organizations have those who support one or the other, most likely more support Caldwell simply based on name recognition. Furthermore, the election only affects a small number of members - only one of the seven elected to the Central Committee actually lives inside Salisbury, although at least three others work within city limits. Likely this is true among the WCRC membership as well.
But, one may ask, why did we invite Pocomoke City mayor and General Assembly candidate Mike McDermott to our meeting? Well, he's the first one to declare. We'll be happy to entertain GOP candidates for the General Assembly as they decide to jump into the race - after all, we have 17 meetings - give or take - until the primary, assuming the state maintains a September 2010 schedule.
Without even knowing whether we'll have a stake in the race, we're co-sponsoring a Mayoral forum in Salisbury next month with the Wicomico County Democratic Club. One would like to think that one of the two Democrats contending for the post would be eliminated, although turnout will obviously be key. This is especially true when you consider District 2, where the vast majority of the city's GOP stalwarts reside, does not have a contested City Council primary.
However, just because neither the Wicomico County Republican Club nor the party's Central Committee have backed a candidate, my commentor (who went by the nom de plume "Bubba Buster" this time; this person comments regularly under a variety of names) should not assume that there's no GOP interest in the race. We're just allowing the party faithful the freedom to back whichever candidate they want.
Allow me to switch subjects. Since I actually grabbed a flyer from Jim Ireton, I do have a question about something he wrote. I know that several of those who read here inhabit the left side of the aisle and are likely Jim's supporters (I'm not too unsure Jim himself doesn't drop by from time to time), so here goes.
If, as you claim, you'll have "the city checkbook open for all taxpayers to see", does that count the deposits made by the state and federal governments and where all that spending goes? I think it would probably be quite an eye-opener to see how much our city (and county) receive from those entities. Perhaps the strings attached to the receipt of those funds can be placed in the public eye as well.
For many years, my biggest contention with the receipt of federal and/or state funds by a local governmental unit comes from the strings attached to it. The inverse is also true - witness the withholding of funds if some action is not done, such as holding back highway funding if certain DWI or seat belt laws aren't passed.
As an example, Ireton's "Wicomico River Project" (see October 14, 2008 release here) has as its "partners" the Maryland Department of the Enivironment, Army Corps of Engineers, city, county, "river stakeholders", "environmental community", "poultry industry", Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and "boating community". A large dose of the money needed surely will come from the first two entities, so what will those two need to extract for their pound of flesh?
(By the way, whoever runs Ireton's site really should separate those items out better.)
This isn't to pick on Jim because this question should be asked of every candidate. He just made a campaign issue out of transparency as it appears his party's standardbearer did last night (see, I tied this together well didn't I?) But a closer look at what both said may reveal the number of caveats attached to their statements, and that's why I bring up the question.