The 30 second war begins
Striking the airwaves first, First District Congressional hopeful Andy Harris went for the obvious issue on everyone's minds: energy independence.
While I wholeheartedly support the idea of more domestic oil production, I'm slightly more hesitant about the alternative energy angle. As Harris puts it in his "Prescription for the Pain at the Pump":
Provide incentives for technological innovations in alternative forms of energy like nuclear, cellulosic ethanol, solar, geothermal, and hydrogen cell.
I guess I think the opportunity to come up with an ingenious solution to the problem and make a fortune isn't incentive enough? To me, it's not the federal government's place to reward or retard a particular solution, it's the free market's job. The reason that ethanol, solar, geothermal, and hydrogen cell aren't already ingrained in the energy market is the expense necessary to use them, at least compared to oil. That's not to say the situation will last forever, but I don't believe the solution lies inside the Beltway. If anything, get them out of the way!
Opponent Frank Kratovil was certainly licking his chops and something tells me that his first commercial out of the gate is going to slam Harris on his General Assembly energy record - that is, if he continues with the script already laid out in his campaign's response to the Harris TV spot. Personally, I happen to think Andy was correct in voting against most, if not all, of these market-bending, job-killing, expense-increasing garbage bills that eminated from Annapolis over the last four years. Descriptions of several of these and how I would have voted myself can be found on my General Assembly voting record pages. (Remember, Frank Kratovil has no voting record, so we're led to assume he would have voted the opposite way on the measures.)
And while Frank Kratovil may suggest that Andy Harris is for dirty water, the water's not bad enough in Chesapeake Bay to keep Andy's supporters from hosting a Chesapeake Bay Cruise fundraiser on Friday, September 26th, a cruise that will originate in Crisfield. Dustin Mills is the guy with the full details on the cruise, and he can be reached via e-mail - dustin@andyharris08.com. (Bummer, I have a conflict that evening. Too bad it's not that Saturday evening instead.) There's not a lot of tickets available as I found out last night, so time is of the essence.