Letters to the Beyond

Sometimes I get letters. Sometimes Derek Fink sends them to Republican voters in Council District 3. And this one is quite the doozy. Please read it for yourself.
Fink Letter

Bud hit a lot of the points on Friday, but a lot of them deserved continued discussion.

In the third paragraph, Fink declares that he likes to get right to the point. Except for the obvious fact that if you are two paragraphs in and haven't made a point yet, then you probably don't like to get right to the point.

Fink says: "We must begin, at the local level, to take back our government from those out-of-touch liberal politicians and bureaucrats." Which of course is a very interesting statement. For you see, incumbent County Councilman Ron Dillon is a Republican. Our three Delegates are Republicans. Our State Senator is a Republican. Our County Executive is a Republican. Our Register of Wills, Clerk of the Court, Orphans Court judges are Republicans....

....so has Derek Fink called out his own party as being full of liberals. As Bud notes, "if there's a problem at the local level, then it's only fair to blame the party in power," which in this case is our party. Which if there is a problem at the local level, does that mean he is declaring Delegates Nic Kipke and Steve Schuh, two guys who stuck their necks our early to endorse Fink, as liberals? I tend to believe that both of those gentlemen would dispute that notion, but apparently their guy might think otherwise.

Fink goes on in the letter to do the really classy thing of attacking his opponents personally, just not by name:

My opponents in the Republican Primary have records of supporting "Big Government" along with checkered pasts and both political and legal baggage. They have been members of the Democrat Party, one has a criminal record, and there are countless bankruptcy filings, financial problems, and foreclosures in their pasts.

Well, there is a rich irony in Fink's campaign putting out a statement like this, especially given the controversy surrounding Fink's campaign and his separation in his business dealings with Cookie Kiser. But of course, the implication that all of his opponents have legal baggage is also easily debunked by searching the Court Records; former County Councilman Dutch Holland, for example, is only listed in court cases related to his duties as a County Councilman. Why would Fink insinuate that Holland had legal problems without naming names OR providing any evidence?

There are other less interesting parts of the letter. Fink lays out an alleged "Six Point Plan" for success that goes into no more detail than the unoriginal, not at all detailed bullet points that have been on his website for a year.He does talk about one of my pet issues, direct election of the Anne Arundel County School Board, without actually acknowledging that he has zero power as a County Councilman to make a change to our current process.

What does this letter ultimately tell us about Derek Fink. It tells of of a campaign that remains in a continued panic. A campaign that does not connect with voters in District 3. A candidate that is desperate to win and remove roadblocks from his campaign, regardless of the methods. It also talks a little bit about the character of Derek Fink, which given the things that we have already discussed and some of the unsubstantiated rumors that surround Fink continues to be in question. If the guy who throw Nic Kipke and Steve Schuh under the bus for political gain, what will this guy do if he gets elected to the County Council?

I for one will not be voting for Derek Fink on September 14th.

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.

The Continuing Saga of Derek Fink

Derek Fink's stock seems to be falling faster than Barack Obama's as more discussion goes on regarding his business arrangements with Cookie Kiser.

Below is an image of a letter that is circulating regarding Fink's conduct in the matter, and it does not paint a very pleasant picture of Fink's conduct during this matter.


Bottom line is that Derek Fink does not at all seem like he is on the up and up.....

Where there is Smoke....

If you remember the Derek Fink story from earlier this month, you can conclusively say that there is trouble in paradise for Fink. Just check out the Facebook fan page for Cookie's Kitchen restaurant:

In an attempt to create clarity Cookie Kiser owner of Cookies Kitchen, Cookies City Line Diner & Cookies Bay Meadow Grill would like to make the following announcement: She no longer has any affiliation personally, professionally or politically with DEREK FINK.

I think that settles one aspect of this story. But I can't wait until we really get to the bottom of this one....

The Perils of Choosing One

Life's tough when you're the chosen one in a local election. Take, for example, Derek Fink a Republican candidate for County Council in the 3rd District. One of the candidates running to succeed Current Councilman Ron Dillon, Fink has been anointed as the establishment candidate in the race, supported by many local elected officials and by movers and shakers within the area business community.

(Nobody can exactly say why Fink is the chosen one. His career experience is more as a political functionary than as the "restaurant owner" he would like to portray himself as. And I met the guy once, and he seemed relatively aloof and clueless, but that's a story for another time).

What is very interesting however is how every solitary mention of one of Fink's prominent initial backers has completely vanished from his campaign website.

Ruth "Cookie" Kiser is the owner of the famous Cookie's Kitchen restaurant and Pasadena. She has been a longtime instrumental and important figure in the Pasadena business community. She has also been a longtime supporter of Republican candidates and causes here in Anne Arundel County, a financial backer of the candidacies of Bob Ehrlich, Steve Schuh and (curiously) Democrat George Johnson.

Kiser also has played a significant role in Fink's ability to mount a credible campaign. She gave Fink the opportunity to run Cookies Bay Meadow Grille in the Baymeadow Industrial Park. She was Fink's campaign treasurer when he opened his campaign finance committee in 2008, and donated $1,000 to Fink's campaign. She's even listed in property records as co-owner of Fink's home. That's a pretty significant commitment Kiser made to Fink.

However, upon the relaunch of Fink's campaign website, every mention of Kiser on his site has been scrubbed. She has been replaced as Treasurer as of November 5th. Fink's website, which used to mention specifically his employment at the Grille, now says only that "Derek is a small business owner in the County."

What happened? Who knows for sure. There are a number of rumors that are swirling, none of which are substantiated enough to publish.

The reason I mention this story (other than the fact that I am a resident of the 3rd District) is to demonstrate once again the perils of the establishment closing ranks around a candidate without doing their homework. A number of elected Republicans have given Fink their full and unadulterated support in this primary and at the moment it seems that this closing of ranks was predicated more around the fact that Fink was embraced by the business community and Fink's service as Steve Schuh's campaign manager than it was by the idea that Fink is the best candidate to serve the people of the district.

We as Republicans need to make sure that we do our homework in our primary elections, and not let establishment endorsements be the only guide of the candidates we support with donations of time and money....

Challenging the Slate

As you know, one of the reasons the plotters of the GOP leadership fiasco here in Anne Arundel County went about their actions was their efforts to use the Central Committee as a slate for their County Council candidacies in the 2010 elections. I noted at the time that, due to their actions, these Central Committee members would not go unchallenged in their quests for power.

Well, at least one person has stepped up to the plate. Lawyer, blogger, and former District 31 House Candidate Jimmy Braswell will likely be a candidate for County Council in the 3rd District. He will likely be taking on ethically challenged Central Committee member and former Democratic County Councilman Tom Redmond in the primary.