Vote Republican

From: Mike DavallChairman, Harford County Republican Central CommitteeAbingdonWhen the topic of voting or elections or politics comes up, I often hear people say "Why bother? My vote won't make any difference."My answer is that according to Harford County folklore, Havre de Grace came within one vote of being selected as the capital of the United States.One vote can make a difference!The Republican Party has an outstanding slate of candidates in this election. Each is well qualified and has worked hard to earn your vote.

Running for public office in a district where your party is a minority is always tough, but registered Democrats now enjoy a slight edge in Republican-dominated District 9a, covering western Howard County and Ellicott City. Republicans hold all the public offices in District 9a, but since the last state and local elections in 2006, registered Democrats have slipped past the Grand Old Party, 26,434 to 25,666 as of July 21. There are also 12,427 unaffiliated or other voters, including one registered Whig, according to election board records.

Jeanie Austin,66, co-chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1989 to 1992, died Saturday in Orlando, Fla., two weeks after she was diagnosed with bone cancer. Second in power and influence to fellow co-chairman Lee Atwater during the Bush administration, she was a tireless party builder, traveling around the country and urging working people -- especially women -- to vote Republican. In 1984, she launched an improbable bid to become chairman of the party in Florida. Under her leadership, Republican voter registration climbed from 36 percent to 42 percent, Bob Martinez became the first Republican elected governor in 20 years and Connie Mack won the U.S. Senate seat held for 18 years by Democrat Lawton Chiles.

Catholics voted decisively in this month's election for Barack Obama, 54 percent to 45 percent, according to exit polls. This was a big reversal from four years ago, when Catholics favored George W. Bush by 5 percentage points. Now the debate is on. The U.S. Bishops, meeting last week in Baltimore, wrestled with the implications of election results that showed Catholics rejecting the dictates of the most conservative and outspoken bishops, who urged parishioners to vote Republican. The putative argument for these bishops was that only Republicans are sufficiently pure on the abortion question.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The decay of liberalism into a synonym for cynicism is writ large in the frantic dishonesty of the campaign against Proposition 226, the ballot initiative that would bar California unions from spending a member's dues for political purposes without the member's written permission, renewed annually. The opponents' mendacity is a measure of the intellectual poverty of their arguments, but also a natural byproduct of an anti-deliberative process for making laws.California unions spend $40 million a year on politics, 90 percent on Democratic candidates and causes.

Del. John J. Bishop Jr. and Del. Martha S. Klima, both of Baltimore County, have announced they will run for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. They are the first incumbent Republican state legislators to run for the Senate (or for governor) in well over a decade. One of the problems with the Republican Party in Maryland has been the lack of a tradition of apprenticeship -- of moving up the ladder from one level of responsibility and visibility to the next.Democrats have embraced this approach.

One reader's ponderings on '98 electionNow that the election is over, a few random thoughts come to mind. Maybe I'm the only one, but I wonder:Did voters in Carroll County actually consider the issues or just decide to vote Republican? Would it really have mattered if the Democrats had run a full slate?Is the slow growth movement dead? Despite Carolyn Fairbank's remarkable effort, two growth advocates were elected to the county board of commissioners.And speaking of that outcome, will Julia Gouge have any say in policy in the next four years, or will the "soul mates" run the show?

Having nominated Ollie North for the U.S. Senate from the Commonwealth of Virginia, the birthplace of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, is there any way in which the Republican Party can further disgrace itself?How about choosing Ross Perot as the GOP candidate for president in 1996?Could this really happen?Well, who could finance an entire campaign out of his own pocket other than a Texas billionaire who made his money selling electronic stuff to the government he detests?Who among the various Republican candidates has an organized band of followers (United We Stand, America)

Havre de Grace. -- Tom Horton is not only one of my favorite columnists and book-writers, but a good friend, too.We have crawled through winter marshes together, been out in each other's boats in all kinds of weathers and waters, shared newspaper gossip, and helped each other off and on in various ways.He's a good shipmate who knows the Bay and steers a straight course, although he's been known to turn a little green in a heavy sea, and he sometimes snores.So it's with reluctance that I take issue with some of Cap'n Horton's recently published political views.

When I read or hear a story about the separation of church and state, it's hard for me to relate. When I was growing up in the inner city on Baltimore's west side, I saw firsthand the challenges that urban kids face: poverty, violence, promiscuity, chemical addictions and family disintegration. The government has spent trillions of dollars trying to reverse this spiral of social disintegration, yet the problems grow worse each day. The separation of church and state is a suburban, not an urban, issue.

Given the bitterness of so many Hillary Clinton supporters that the woman they thought would be America's first female president will not be, the more they hear the suggestion that Sen. Barack Obama's win is illegitimate, the more likely they are to bolt. If Senator Clinton's voters embrace the story that "a man took it away from a woman," denying her a victory she deserved, they're at risk of staying home come November, or holding back from the volunteering and get-out-the-vote efforts necessary for the Democrats to prevail.

When I read or hear a story about the separation of church and state, it's hard for me to relate. When I was growing up in the inner city on Baltimore's west side, I saw firsthand the challenges that urban kids face: poverty, violence, promiscuity, chemical addictions and family disintegration. The government has spent trillions of dollars trying to reverse this spiral of social disintegration, yet the problems grow worse each day. The separation of church and state is a suburban, not an urban, issue.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, joined yesterday with a bipartisan group of critics to reject a proposed agreement to extend the Patriot Act, dealing the White House an embarrassing setback and dashing its hopes that Congress would vote on the sweeping anti-terrorism law before adjourning for Thanksgiving. Speaking at a news conference called by senators who have threatened to filibuster the House-backed legislation unless it provides greater privacy protections, Specter said he disagreed with House negotiators over the expiration dates for two of the law's 16 provisions.

WASHINGTON - The generation-long political retreat of Democrats across the South is disintegrating into a rout. President Bush dominated the South so completely in last month's presidential election that he carried nearly 85 percent of the counties across the region - and more than 90 percent of the counties in which whites make up a majority of the population, a Los Angeles Times analysis of the election results and census data shows. The Times analysis, which provides the most detailed picture yet of the vote in Southern communities, shows that Bush's victory was even more comprehensive than his sweep of the region's 13 states would suggest.

The Howard County Council approved bills last night to allow the county to spend more money to buy environmentally preferable products and encourage redevelopment by increasing the housing allocation for the U.S. 1 corridor. Sponsored by west Columbia Democrat Ken Ulman, the bill on purchasing would allow the county to spend up to 5 percent more than the lowest bid to buy supplies that are environmentally preferable - using recycled resources or creating less pollution. The legislation "will have no fiscal impact this year," Ulman said, because the county already purchases recycled paper and items that are mercury-free.

So what is Maryland, arguably one of the most reliable Democratic states in the union - that cast its ballots for Jimmy Carter over Ronald Reagan and Al Gore over George W. Bush - doing electing a Republican governor? Perhaps it was just an aberration, the standard once-in-a-generation alignment of the political stars that puts a Republican in the Governor's Mansion. It last happened in 1966 when a badly split Democratic Party nominated the conservative George P. Mahoney and the state went for Baltimore County Executive Spiro T. Agnew, considered a moderate Republican.

Catholics voted decisively in this month's election for Barack Obama, 54 percent to 45 percent, according to exit polls. This was a big reversal from four years ago, when Catholics favored George W. Bush by 5 percentage points. Now the debate is on. The U.S. Bishops, meeting last week in Baltimore, wrestled with the implications of election results that showed Catholics rejecting the dictates of the most conservative and outspoken bishops, who urged parishioners to vote Republican. The putative argument for these bishops was that only Republicans are sufficiently pure on the abortion question.

Running for public office in a district where your party is a minority is always tough, but registered Democrats now enjoy a slight edge in Republican-dominated District 9a, covering western Howard County and Ellicott City. Republicans hold all the public offices in District 9a, but since the last state and local elections in 2006, registered Democrats have slipped past the Grand Old Party, 26,434 to 25,666 as of July 21. There are also 12,427 unaffiliated or other voters, including one registered Whig, according to election board records.

For a woman who could resort to profanity, yelling and even smashing things to make a point, Helen Delich Bentley was remarkably serene two days after losing what she insists will be her last run for public office. Sitting in her Timonium campaign office, the 78-year-old Bentley watched CNN with her campaign manager, Michael S. Kosmas. She munched on leftover turkey sandwiches and a cherry-topped homemade cheesecake while volunteers drove through Anne Arundel County taking down her yard signs.

There are two-thirds as many Republicans as Democrats in the new 42nd Legislative District, but for the Maryland GOP, those look like pretty good odds. Ten Republicans are running in the Sept. 10 primary in the Towson-area district, confident that more people there vote Republican than register that way. With the strong popularity in greater Towson of Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., the likely Republican nominee for governor, and Douglas B. Riley, the party's candidate for county executive, Republicans believe they can win two, if not all three, of the delegate seats there.