MD-SEN--A win for Steele--Probably
By mattclimbs Posted in 2006 | Spotlight Blogs — Comments (27) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
From the Diaries
Jay Bryant at Real Clear Politics says that the recent endorsement of GOP candidate Michael Steele by a group of African American Democrats "might be the most important political development in the country this week." According to
University of Maryland political scientist Ron Walters, yesterday's endorsements are "going to go through the black community like a rocket. It's going to be the talk of the county, the state, maybe even the nation."
The endorsements by all five of the black Democrats on the Prince George's County Council and former County Executive Wayne Curry come at a time when Steele needed the boost. However, Democratic candidate Ben Cardin (who is white) called it nothing more than an endorsement of Steele's race. Bryant notes that Steele is from Prince George's county, in fact prior to becoming Lt. Governor, Steele headed the county's Republican party and has spent much of his political career building in-roads for the GOP among the county's middle class and affluent black citizens.
Part of it is that Steele is a Prince Georgian. The county leaders know him, like him and respect him. But that alone wouldn't be nearly enough to cause them to break ranks with their party in a critical election.What it's really all about is that blacks in Maryland have begun to realize that they've been being snookered by the white-dominated Democratic Party all these years. As Riddick put it, "They've been showing us a pie, but we never get a slice."
Voting statistics aren't kept by race, of course; they call it a "secret ballot" after all. But if you work out the math, you can pretty easily demonstrate that something like half of all Maryland Democratic voters are black. Half!
What have Maryland blacks gotten for their loyalty to the party? Virtually nothing. Oh, sure, they get representatives to legislative offices in districts where they have the overwhelming majority. Occasionally they get to be Mayor of Baltimore - although the current mayor is white, and running for Governor, something no black mayor could even seriously consider.
Indeed, in the entire history of the state of Maryland, exactly one person of African-American heritage has been elected to any statewide office. His name is Michael Steele.
But there are, I believe three other motivations and none have to do with Steele's race.
Read on...
First, Steele is a massive proponent of education and is not beholden to the education establishment. The county, which is the wealthiest majority black county in the nation, still suffers from poor schools in much of its territory. Steele, who lead Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich's commission on education, has been a big proponent of education change, including school choice and even vouchers. The Prince George's leaders want change in education and will support a leader who seeks that change.
Second, Steele, like many Republicans, strongly supports small business. While the black leaders and Steele may disagree on minimum wage and other workplace issues, all realize that small business is likely to bring about advancement in the county for poor blacks and anything that can be done to bring about more capital investment in the county the better off the county will be.
Third, and finally, there is a little bit of regionalism going on here. For decades, going back at least 50 years, all of the major state wide offices, Governor, U.S. Senator, Comptroller and Attorney General have been held usually by people (white people) from the Baltimore area. Aside from Parris Glendenning, Ehrlich's predecessor in the Governor's mansion, no non-Baltimore person has been governor in nearly a century. With the massive growth of the Washington suburban counties, like Prince George's, Montgomery, Frederick, Howard, and southern Maryland, many people are looking for a shift away from the Baltimore-centric politics of the past.
Many statewide offices this year will be won by someone not from the Baltimore area; not governor, since Ehrlich and Democratic candidate Martin O'Malley are both from Baltimore, but Attorney General (Republican Scott Rolle is from Frederick County and Democrat Doug Ganzler is from Montgomery) and Comptroller (where heavy favorite Peter Franchot is from Montgomery). The retiring Paul Sarbanes, who held the Senate seat Cardin and Steele are vying for, is from Baltimore as is Maryland's other Senator Barbara Mikulski.
These black leaders in Prince George's county no doubt believe that it is time that the U.S. Senate have a Marylander not from the Baltimore area.
Does race play a part, I am sure it does, and that is part of the appeal of Michael Steele to blacks. High profile endorsements like these from P.G. County and that of media mogul Russell Simmons (who endorsed Steele's opponent in 2002) may mean that, at least in Maryland, there may be a sea change in black voting patterns in the state. Six more days and we will know.
As soon as we get Michael Steele elected, the GOP needs to recruit Wayne Curry to switch parties and take out Barbara Mikulski in 2010!
Republicans play ideological politics and Democrats play identity politics. If the GOP can get a fiscally conservative, free market, socially conservative candidate who can neutralize the Democrats' game of identity politics, that may very well pave the way to Rove's "Permanent Republican Majority." I think that it'd work a lot better than this crappy Big Government "conservatism" that is practically the antithesis of what Reagan was about.
As a part of this strategy, we need U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, to come home in 2008 to run against Solomon Ortiz in TX27.
The point of these endorsements is not necessarily that these individuals are going to jump ship and become Republicans but that the Democrats need to stop taking black voters for granted. It's not that they disavow the policies they've run on for years and years, it's that they decry their lack of opportunity. Call him a token, an Oreo, or any other disgusting insult, Michael Steele is still, as the article said, the first African American to hold statewide office. Until the Democrats show a willingness to nominate black candidates for higher office, some black Democrats are willing to vote for the man and not the party.
That Ehrlich considered Curry for the Lt. Gov. slot suggests that he's probably not too far from being a Republican. Offering him the next Republican nomination to be the next Senator from the state of Maryland may be too much for him to pass up. He might feel like leaving the party of George Wallace and joining the party of Lincoln. :-)
have two GOP senators...
...and may the dkos crew and the rest of the far left soon realize that no one in the country is more racist than they are.
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
not only with voters generally, but with black voters particularly.
Add to this the fact that many black voters are also churchgoers, and there's even more of a match between blacks and the GOP.
Steele is proving that the GOP can obtain a substantial amount of support from black voters. Why are blacks overwhelmingly Democratic? Because they haven't been seriously courted by the GOP!
Their votes are out there, waiting for us. Are we men enough to ask for them?
Go Steele!
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
I tended to blow it off because this was, after all, Maryland but the momentum certainly is with Steele now and he may pull it out after all.
I still like the chance of picking up NJ better. But they both have striking similarities. They're both in blue states with weak democratic nominees and strong republicans. Picking up either will be hard, but they're both possible. NJ more so considering Menendez's approval sits in the 30s.
I don't agree. Kean in NJ is milquetoast - running on the name and an "I'm not a corrupt guy" platform. His recent calls for the resignations of Don Rumsfeld and Denny Hastert (dumb - who really cares what the Senate candidates think about Denny?) have probably soured a lot of Republicans in NJ without attracting all that many unaffiliated types. Probably hurt him more than it helped. It's still all about Menendez there.
In MD you have a really strong andidate with a real and positive platiform, running against an empty suit (I live in DC and I've yet to see a single ad from Cardin telling me what he wants to do as a Senator - all I see is that "Michael Steele is bad"). Steele is picking up endorsements from very public Democrats and is exciting people around the state. With Ehrlich picking up the Post's endorsement, Steele will get some coattails, and the ability to attach himself to the positive agenda that Ehrlich pushed and that earned him the Post's endorsement. I haven't seen any endorsement in the Senate race (someone correct me if there is one out there).
Steele has momentum and is a real captivating guy when you meet him in person - he can excite you to put in the time and energy for him, and I'm sure he's excited some otherwise Democrat voters to cast a ballot for him. Kean seems to be sagging in the polls. If I had to pick which seat I wanted more - I'd rather Michael Steele than Kean any day, and I think he's really the better bet at this point.
I also believe that Cardin has not said one thing in an ad, or even in speeches I have read, that talks about what he wants to do as a Senator. This may be okay in a race where he had such an advantage. But Steele has made his campaign about ideas and he has a lot of them.
Maryland voters are much more savvy than Cardin is giving them credit for. Marylanders, like everyone else, tend to like to have something to vote for rather than something to vote against. So far, Steele has been providing things to vote for, Cardin has not.
In Maryland, because they are wards of the paternal state.
But this is no longer true of PGC blacks. Even if many of them are government employees they are, and see themselves, as professionals, not as holders of spoils benefices. They need to see that they have more in common with small business owners than with welfare dependents in Baltimore City.
Montgomery county will remain an ideological wasteland and Baltimore city a welfare dependency. Both unthinking donk strongholds. PGC blacks should be reaching out to the rural areas of Maryland and Baltimore County to build alliances that allow them to be swing voters controlling state elections and getting what they want.
"PGC blacks should be reaching out to the rural areas of Maryland and Baltimore County to build alliances that allow them to be swing voters controlling state elections and getting what they want."
We have a constitutional republic, after all. It not the party, its the local control. It would be good for them and the country.
that you're right although it's a LONG way to go yet.
Trading Santorum, Chafee, and DeWine (2 losers and 1 great senator) for Steele, Bouchard, and Kean (2 great senators and a RINO.)
I could live with that if Santorum got a recess appointment to the Third Circuit and then became the next Attorney General to make sure that a Romney Administration delivered us outstanding judicial nominees for the next 8 years. :-)
I'll trade one senate seat for NO MORE SOUTERS! OR MEIRSES! :-)
that would lead to an SC seat if one opens up for Bush in the last two years. It'd be hard for the Senate to blackball one of their own.
Ashcroft also did not have a walk in the park.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?
I love Rick Santorum, but he is not SCOTUS material. Maybe Third Circuit material, but what I'd really like to see is Rick Santorum be the next Attorney General in the Mitt Romney Administration to make sure that we get great conservative judges on the federal circuit and on the Supreme Court for years to come. :-)
What defines "SCOTUS material?"
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
http://devine-gamecock.townhall.com and www.race42008.com
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
Great blog entry bro
I recently won on of Hugh Hewitt's "Vox Blogoli" contests to write on what one considered to be the race that would mean the most for the GOP to win. I think a Steele win is fatal to the just Dem Part's own justification for its existence. Steele would be a living breathing refutation of the basis for the party and shows most of their agenda for the last 35 years to be a lie.
see my essay
http://devine-gamecock.townhall.com/g/dc379487-5420-4c59-ab1b-a661914061...
http://devine-gamecock.townhall.com and www.race42008.com
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
for 5 years and my mingling with the locals showed just how liberal (Democratic) they are...(most looking out for a grant from the locals). If Steele pulls this out, I may just have to change my opinion of MD. Maybe they are finally getting upset with all the corruption! What a mess it was...
It hasn't changed. Republicans in this part of the state would be RINOs almost anywhere else. MD does have some real republicans out west and on the eastern shore though. I loved punching the chad for Roscoe when I lived up in Frederick.
Still with the WalMart and early voter stunts, the Dems have been being so visibly stupider than the stupid party... Well, let's just say I expect to see a fair number of clothespins on noses on Tuesday.
This Friday the Senate Poll will be out in the Sun. Rumor has it that it is a good poll for Steele and they are trying to hide it in the Friday addition. This could mean that Steele is close or maybe ahead by the weekend.
The Sun is bias as hell but there polls have always been pretty good.
Ehrlich and Steele have all the momentum in this State and wouldn't it be a laugh if they both won. Baltimore City's Dead will roll over in their graves if they haven't voted!
My Prediction... Ehrlich: by 4 - Steele: will be counting till December
and his wife yesterday at a campaign stop.
The Sun poll will show Ehrlich at -1 was my understanding.
A poll just out shows the MD Governor race a deadheat - I'm hoping we'll get Senate numbers soon.
I have voted - have you?