Should Grassroots Conservatives Support the MDGOP?

Today, MDGOP chairwoman Audrey Scott begins her 5 day “Take Back Annapolis and Washington Town Hall Tour” with stops in Annapolis (noon, Conte-Lubrano) and Salisbury (6:30 PM, Wicomico Youth and Civic Center).  The tour criss-crosses Maryland and finishes up Friday in Bowie.

Scott is to be commended for her efforts.  If the MDGOP were a functioning party, I have no doubt that Scott would be an excellent chair.  Sadly, the MDGOP is not a functioning party and has little sign of becoming one in the near future.  Check out successful, conservative, state Republican parties.  They’re NOTHING like the MDGOP.

Why?  Grassroots conservatives have no say in how the party is governed and aren’t particularly welcome.  The party deliberately separates itself from the grassroots by promoting a layered, “big fish in a little pond” approach to governance.  At a recent county central committee meeting one member went so far as to claim that, “They (Tea Party activists) need us more than we need them.”  This fool obviously has never had any real experience in WINNING campaigns.  My money is on the folks that seem to be willing to knock on doors, make phone calls, and write letters.  That ain’t the folks who think that the Republican Party elects candidates in this state.

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Roy Blunt for Senate ????

I often read with amusement that the GOP is dead.  I’ve heard all of this before, only to see the GOP come back bigger and stronger than ever.  Given that Barack Obama is fast becoming a younger, more charming version of Jimmy Carter I’m not too worried.   However …every so often we do something so completely stupid that I question whether we deserve to win or not.

Case in point – former House Minority Whip Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) candidacy to succeed Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO).  If Blunt is the type of candidate we’ll be running in 2010 I fully expect the Dems to trounce us again.

How can we expect the average voter to take us seriously if we are running guys who personify the reasons that the voters threw us out to begin with.  In his video Blunt says that we can’t “borrow and spend our way to prosperity”.  Guess what guys, Blunt was part of the leadership that turned the Congressional Republican majority from a bunch of fiscally responsible conservatives to a bunch of mealy-mouthed spendthrifts.

What’s next?  Tom DeLay for Senate?  How about John Boehner for President?  How about a new party?

If the Missouri GOP can’t find some young DA or state legislator to run, give the seat up before putting someone like Blunt into the Senate.  I know that Blunt comes from a politically powerful family, and is powerful in his own right.  However, if the NRSC or RNC is willing to throw conservative principles so far down a well then the wishful thinking of the left could just become a reality.

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Bailout – Leadership Absent, Hypocrisy Abounds

Where was the leadership during yesterday’s bailout debacle in the Congress?  It surely wasn’t wasn’t coming from either the Democrat or GOP camps.  Unfortunately, hypocrisy – the life’s blood of Washington – seemed to be in ample supply on both sides of the aisle.  With claims that the world economy will collapse without action by the US Congress, it’s been politics as usual – except the players are getting more air time.

It’s the Democrats fault.  No, all of the blame lies with Republicans.  Let’s blame it all on President Bush.  Your head will literally spin watching the players pass the buck.

While everyone spoke prior to yesterday’s vote, if you were a Democrat you seemed to parrot the same speech:

We need to all come together because this is the nation’s problem.  It’s the world’s problem.  And of course we all know that this is due to the failed economic policies of the Republicans.

Republicans used a similar tack; simply claiming that this debacle lays at the feet of Dems.

You’ll seldom here me say this, but the truth is somewhere in the middle.  It is absolutely true that we can trace the root of SOME of these problems to the Clinton administration … even the administration of Jimmy Carter.  It is equally true that too many Republicans approved of a system bereft of reasonable regulation and allowing institutions to merge to the point that they were too big too fail.

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