RNC in Maryland Overlooks Values Voters?

An interesting article from Blue Ridge Forum:

Chart: Values and Immigration-Control Votes Exceed Romney Votes in Maryland

Take a look at our chart (click here) showing that Governor Mitt Romney’s statewide total of votes for president fell behind the statewide total of either those opposing the Maryland version of the Dream Act (Ballot Question 4) or those opposing the same-sex marriage law (Ballot Question 6) . The data comes from the Maryland Board of Elections.

The opposition to same-sex marriage vote statewide exceeded the Romney vote statewide by 28 per cent.

See how the voting fell out in your locality on the chart’s county-by-county breakdown. Note also the votes against the two questions in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Prince Georges County.

What these numbers show is the strength of Maryland grass-roots conservative constituencies.

But the data also suggest that the GOP Establishment tone of governor’s Romney’s campaign may have limited his appeal to these constituencies.

Does it also show that the Reagan model of a market-friendly and values and national or homeland-security coalition never took root in Maryland?

Opportunities lost: successfully defeating these two measures — with the Maryland GOP visibly playing a strong role – would have opened doors to two strong grass-roots constituencies, the faith community, and working class and small-business voters. Click here for more on the last.

But the the ballot ratifications of same-sex marriage and (in effect) sanctuary-state Maryland are galling defeats for many conservatives who already have their own list of grievances over what they see as the state GOP’s fecklessness.

An opportunity remaining: The Maryland GOP should weigh in against so called ‘sustainability’ or ‘smart growth’ programs – not just through symbolic General Assembly bills — but through constant public jawboning, challenging state regulations, and lobbying Congress to cut off Federal appropriations to state planners for such mischief. Carroll County commissioner Richard Rothschild has been a national voice against these schemes, putting together a world-class conference to expose them.

The GOP Fall Meeting

The Maryland GOP will have their fall meeting in Howard County on November 30-December 1, according to that County’s website (click here).

Other groups on the right-center plan to attend – Patrick McGrady’s Maryland Liberty Caucus in a November 12 email entitled “Rockin’ the MDGOP Back to Its Roots” declares –

“You and I both know that the Maryland Republican Party is run from the top-down. The Republican Establishment doesn’t stand for conservative principles. They don’t appreciate the diverse, energetic, and conservative arm of the Party.

It was so bad at the Republican Party Convention in Tampa that after the rules were changed to silence the conservative grassroots activists like you and me, Romney adviser Sununu even thanked the Maryland Republican National Committeeman, Louis Pope (who served as the Vice Chairman of the Rules Committee) for whipping the votes on the rules change. Here’s the video of that: Go to 02:27:54 in the video to see Sununu thanking Pope for helping ram through the bad rules changes.

But now that the standard-bearer has been defeated, it is time to help build a home for the Liberty voters in the Republican Party here in Maryland and nationwide. And so, the restructuring begins with us.”

At the time of the Tampa convention, we also deplored these dark dealings. (Click here and here.)

Now we learn that there is even a Facebook page entitled “NO confidence vote on all executive members of the MD GOP here!

One hopes there is wiser counsel in the state GOP, urging serious reform and policy coordination with — not just deference to and incumbency protection of — the Republican state lawmakers.

Who Wants To Join The Old Line State’s GOP?

Maryland conservatives ask us how can they recruit without some specific menu of Maryland GOP positions on exigent issues.

Many conservative voters do have somewhere else to go, as last Tuesday showed. And recall the number of votes Brian Murphy received in his 2010 primary contest with former governor Bob Ehrlich.

The Maryland GOP Establishment (party and significant law-makers) need to declare what specific policies they will (or will not) support: what will they propose about public pensions (click here), and how will they guard against public-school malpractice (click here), to name just two of many current concerns.

The right-center dissenters from the GOP Establishment come in several flavors . . . from values voices, to Tea Partiers, to homeland-security conservatives, to libertarians.

They have some differences but share many convictions, and right now the foremost may be that an unproductive state GOP leadership — whether in the Party or in the General Assembly — is toxic for the Maryland Republican Party’s future.