Vitale Plays Fast and Loose with the Facts

Cathy Vitale's first mailer has hit the street, which you can see here. Red Maryland, as you know, has already endorsed Delegate Tony McConkey and Vic Bernson for Delegate in this district, but that does not change the factual inaccuracies with Cathy Vitale's first mailer.

There are two key points that need to be refuted here:

1. Slots:
Vitale claims to have fought to "Give citizens the right to vote on slot machines at Arundel Mills."

Well, that statement clearly does not past the smell test for two reasons:

- The Statement is just factually wrong; there was never a provision in the slots ordinance that would have allowed the ordinance to go to a vote. The only reason that there will be a referendum on slots is because of the work of people like the Stop Slots Arundel Mills whose volunteers signed petitions and then fought the case all the way to the Court of Appeals in order to give citizens the right to vote.

- Vitale voted no on the ordinance that changed the zoning for the Arundel Mills slots project. But she only voted not after delaying the voter for weeks. This delay actually created the environment that allowed a coalition of four votes to be cobbled together in order to actually pass the slots resolution over Vitale's alleged objections. The fact of the matter is that they delay is what ultimately led to the passage of the zoning ordinance.

I don't think that the folks who actually are fighting the war on slots at Arundel Mills are going to appreciate Cathy Vitale taking credit for their work. I asked the folks at Stop Slots at Arundel Mills for their thoughts, and the note I received indicated that "Cathy did in fact help us, and has been helping us all along." But of course that does not the change the fact that the referendum effort could have been avoided had it not been for Vitale's delaying tactics.

2. Help for Families:
Vitale also claims that as a Delegate she would "Help Working Families" and "Reduce Taxes."

Well, let us take you back to 2007 when Cathy Vitale (along with her compadre, now State Senator Ed Reilly)fought tooth and nail to require that new single-family homes constructed in Anne Arundel County be outfitted with sprinkler systems. This is a requirement that increased the cost of home construction in Anne Arundel County by $1 per square foot. Cathy Vitale's actions directly increased the cost of new homes for working families in Anne Arundel County, and are typical of the nannystate liberalism that we would expect from Montgomery County, not the most conservative legislative district in Maryland.

As Greg said, there is a reason that we endorse the folks we endorse. We endorse good conservative candidates who will fight for lower taxes and smaller government. Cathy Vitale is a big government "conservative"and she is not giving voters the facts in her campaign pieces.

From the Fink Files

We find ourselves talking about Derek Fink once more, who you may remember got himself tied up in a business imbroglio with one of his diehard supporters back in January. Well, it sounds like Fink has never recovered from this snafu as his campaign is now asking surrogates to try to clear the field from him.

Fink had Delegate Steve Schuh, one of Fink's longtime supporters and the man who allowed Fink to manage his 2006 Delegate campaign, approach County Council candidate Carl "Dutch" Holland about withdrawing from the Republican Primary here in District 3. Schuh allegedly told Holland that he "had no chance at winning" and that Holland should withdraw because of it.

While it it true Holland did not file until late in the filing period, this is not Dutch Holland's first rodeo; he has long been involved in county politics. Holland served on the County Council from 1990-1994. Holland was the first Republican to win in the 3rd District, ending the stranglehold of four-term Democrat Bud Ahern. Holland would win the Republican nomination in three straight elections, losing the general election to then Democrat Tom Redmond in 1994, and then defeating the newly minted Republican Redmond in 1998. Holland also finished second in a hotly contested Republican Senate Primary in 2006 despite little campaigning, achieving nearly a quarter of the vote on name recognition alone.

That means that Holland has to be considered one of the three frontrunners in this Republican Primary right there along with Fink and the aforementioned Redmond.

What is interesting about this development is the fact that it makes crystal clear that Fink has never recovered from the severe damage he inflicted on his ties with the Pasadena area business community over the Cookie Kiser fiasco. The fact that Fink feels it necessary to approach a candidate who just entered the race last week shows that the Fink campaign is in a panic over their chances of winning on September 14th.

This is a sign of tremendous weakness on the part of a candidate whose operation thinks he is an unstoppable juggernaut.

Baltimore Sun should tread carefully on issue of race and the tea parties

So The Baltimore Sun today had a very perplexing editorial this morning supporting the NAACP for it's declaration that the Tea Party movement is a racist movement. Not perplexing because they should support racist activity; obviously every well-thinking person should find racial discrimination appalling and disgusting.

But the editorial comes out supporting an NAACP position that the NAACP is already backtracking from given the hullabaloo over the disparaging nature of their statement. And of course its lack of facts. As I noted on The Marc Steinter Show yesterday the tea party movement, particularly here in Maryland, is representative of the entire Maryland population, made up of a cross-section of parties, races, and creeds. The keynote speaker at these Annapolis rallies multiple times has been Republican Congressional Candidate Charles Lollar, an African-American from Charles County.

Timothy Dalrymple has a well-written piece regarding racism in the tea party and why the entire movement cannot be painted with a racist brush, and why the liberal intelligentsia is quick to pain it in that light. Here's a sample:

The charge that the Tea Party is racist is a perfect object lesson in liberal misinterpretation of conservatives. It is, of all the charges leveled against the Tea Party movement, the most inflammatory and the most politically damaging. Yet the accusation says more about the accusers than the accused.

Critics of the Tea Party point to a smattering of racist signs at rallies around the country, to the low percentage of minorities involved in the movement, and to a study that purports to show high levels of "racial resentment" among tea party supporters. These arguments are, however, mere justifications for a position already taken. Liberals were inclined to believe Tea Partiers racist even before such "evidence" was available. That is, the belief that Tea Partiers are racist is not an evidence-based belief. It is a belief in search of evidence.

What I propose, then, is the Theory of the Missing Motive. Since the education establishment has failed to convey a thorough and unprejudiced perspective on differing political points of view, even highly educated liberals possess a cartoonish, easily-dismissed image of American conservative thought. Liberals cannot believe that Tea Partiers are actually motivated by the passions and the reasons that Tea Partiers claim motivate them, because liberals in general are alienated from those passions and insufficiently educated in those reasons.

It is essentially a failure of imagination. Liberals cannot imagine themselves into a way of thinking in which conservatives do what they do and believe what they believe for good reasons. And since they cannot believe that conservatives are motivated by rational beliefs and admirable motives, they must appeal to darker, more primitive impulses to explain their behavior. The racist motive presents itself as a natural and convenient explanation.

Liberals, in other words, were always going to believe that a movement dominated by white conservatives is racist.

Of course, there are other more complicated issues at work here too, also with a Maryland Connection. One of the cites that we have seen from several sources is that the leftist organization Think Progress has been knowingly using signs brought to Tea Party rallies by liberal plants as evidence to show that the Tea Party movement is racist. Not that this is a surprise since Think Progress is well known for its deceitful nature. As for the Maryland connection, remember that District 30 Delegate candidate Judd Legum is the founder of Think Progress, and I cannot imagine that the residents of District 30 want to be represented by somebody like Legum is associated with such bigotry and such lies.

Both sides of the aisle should condemn racial bigotry when it is present and when it is seen. However, little evidence has been presented that the Tea Party movement is in an of itself racist. It looks like, however, the left is creating racial fronts in an effort to discredit the Tea Party movement. I eagerly await the condemnation of these groups from the Sun and the NAACP.

Taking Action

Since Martin O'Malley seems to be hellbent on brushing aside the continued MARC train issues to the point that one of these days #MARCfail is going to actually become a trending topic on Twitter, Governor Ehrlich is actually trying to do something constructive; listen to MARC's customers through the creation of a "Commuters for Ehrlich" caucus of transit riders who are fed up with the continued failure of Martin O'Malley's MTA.

The group will be led by Craig Borne, who is featured in this video:



I have long been critical of the failures of Martin O'Malley's transit administration; and it is heartening that Governor Ehrlich is taking positive action to solve problems for Maryland.

A False Flag

Now I speak of something that several Republicans have talked about privately, but nobody has spoken about publicly until now...

....is Daniel Vovak a Democrat in disguise?

Sure Daniel Vovak has ostensibly "run" for several offices as a Republican, included a "campaign" for President in 2004 when he wasn't eligible, seeking the Republican nomination for Senate in 2004 when the Republican nominee was disqualified (ironically, that selection went to former Marylander Alan Keyes, who got the right to get trounced by Barack Obama that November). Vovak then sought the Republican nomination for Senate here in Maryland in 2006, running a relatively Seinfeld-esque campaign while wearing a wig, followed up by his quixotic campaign for State Party Chair last year. In between, he managed to come up with a hairbrained movie concept about the Monica Lewinsky that starred Paula Jones and wrote a novel with himself as the main character.

His latest publicity stunts haven't really done much better as far as establishing credibility. He's running for Montgomery County Executive, ostensibly as a Republican but taking wildly odd political positions many of which run contrary to basic Republican principles. In the meantime, he's also trying to hire a Democratic County Councilman to run his administration, attended Martin O'Malley's campaign kickoff. His latest stunt is publicly pointing out that the Maryland Democratic Party thanked the Republican Vovak for his donation. And Vovak even manages to throw this quote in there:

I'm probably the only Republican since Connie Morella whom Democrats can trust.

I think it is safe to say that Daniel Vovak is not a Republican, at least by any ostensibly reasonable definition of what it is to be a Republican. Not only does Vovak not take any reasonably Republican issue positions in his campaign, but it also is clear that any time that Vovak obtains even a modicum of publicity for his schemes, it is always in a light to brings disdain and embarrassment to the Maryland Republican Party.

Daniel Vovak may be a registered Republican. He may be a candidate in a Republican Primary. But it is clear that Vovak is not a Republican, merely a liberal operating under a false flag in order to bring shame to our side. And I don't think that we should pretend that he is anything else any longer...

Pictures are worth more than a thousand words...

Just a quick note to the fine folks who are in charge of the newly re-designed martinomalley.com website.

Those pictures that you guys have put up on the website sure are pretty....

....they are also pictures that have been taken under the auspices of the Maryland State Government. Which means those pictures are owned by the taxpayers of Maryland, not the O'Malley Campaign.

So, folks at the O'Malley campaign....did you pay to use those photos, or are you blatantly violating state law regarding the use of state-owned photography?

Inquiring minds want to know.....