Attack on Andy Harris (R, MD 1st) Moves to Radio

from The Baltimore Sun

In a possible sign of things to come, a liberal organization is going after Maryland Congressman-elect Andy Harris, starting today.

The initial strike, over health care, is somewhat reminiscent of the Republican strategy against Harris' Democratic predecessor. Republicans began attacking Rep. Frank Kratovil before he was sworn in and kept it up for much of his two years in the job.

Americans United for Change says it plans to whack Harris over a comment he made about health care at a Washington orientation session for new members of Congress last week. The Baltimore County Republican became a Democratic target after he demanded to know why new congressmen had to wait almost a month for their health care coverage to kick in.

The "Drop it or Stop it" mini-campaign against Harris, who favors repeal of the new health care law, argues that he should either drop his own government-provided health care or quit trying to deny coverage to others, according to the group's spokesman, Jeremy J. Funk.

"Call Congressman Harris and tell him to stop whining about his healthcare – and start fighting for our," declares a 30-second ad the group says it is running on talk radio in Baltimore and Salisbury for two days.

At the same time, the group is extending its anti-Harris effort to Facebook users in the First Congressional District, which covers the entire Eastern Shore and portions of Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Harford counties.

Full text of the radio spot:

Our new Congressman Andy Harris vowed to repeal the new health reform law during the campaign.

So what was the first thing Andy Harris did when he got to Washington?

Harris complained that he wasn’t getting HIS new government-provided health care fast enough.

Say what?

Call Congressman Harris and tell him to stop whining about HIS healthcare – and start fighting for OURS.

If he wants to deny Maryland families quality, affordable healthcare, tell him to start with his own.

Paid for by Americans United for Change.

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Please give generously to the Andy Harris Campaign. He hasn't even taken his seat and the Borking has already begun.

ps - And if you ever get an opportunity to slam Donna Edwards (D, MD 4th), DO IT!

Donna Edwards Fabricates Controversy for Incoming Congressman Andy Harris

So much for collegiality, fair play and the spirit of bipartisanship within the Maryland Congressional delegation.

from The Baltimore Sun

House Democrats are trying to keep the spotlight on Congressman-elect Andy Harris of Maryland. They're demanding that Republicans in Congress declare whether they plan to use taxpayer-subsidized health insurance for themselves and their families, even as they call for repeal of the new health care law.

Harris, you may recall, got unwanted publicity on Capitol Hill after he asked about health benefits during a private briefing for 250 newly elected House members, staff and family this week. The Baltimore County Republican was reported to have expressed surprise that the federal health care plan, which is offered to all federal employees and members of Congress, would not start covering new congressmen until almost a month after they are sworn in.

Four House Democrats, including Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland, began circulating an appeal to their colleagues in an effort to keep the story alive. So far, 35 congressional Democrats have agreed to sign a letter to Republican leaders about the issue.

The Democrats' letter said that Harris, described only as "a Republican Member-elect who ran on a platform of repealing" the new health care law "complained about a possible delay in the start of his employer-subsidized Federal Employees Health Benefits coverage."

The Democrats added that "[u]nfortunately, Republicans, like [the unnamed Harris], are happy to receive care that is paid for, in part, with taxpayer funds, but do not want to extend a similar benefit to hard-working, under- or uninsured Americans." According to the Democrats, the federal government -- the taxpayers -- will pay $10,503.48 of the premiums for each member of Congress who chooses a family policy under the Blue Cross standard option offered by the FEHB program.

The letter went on to demand that Republican leaders survey their members "to find out which of their members will forgo the employer-subsidized Federal Employees Health Benefits coverage before trying to make it harder for others to obtain affordable coverage."

In football, they call it piling on. In politics, there's no such infraction.

Harris did not respond to a request for comment sent to his spokeswoman.

In addition to Edwards, the Democrats circulating the letter are Reps. Joseph Crowley of New York, Linda T. Sánchez of California and Tim Ryan of Ohio.

Below is the full text of the Democrats' letter:

Dear Senator McConnell and Representative Boehner:

We were surprised to read in today’s article “GOP frosh: Where’s My Health Care?” in Politico that some of your incoming members are unhappy with the health benefits they are eligible to purchase under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) – particularly the fact that there is a delay before benefits take effect. Ironically, this is the same predicament millions of Americans currently find themselves in.

It is amazing that your members would complain about not having health care coverage for a few weeks, even after campaigning to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which will help provide coverage to millions of Americans who find themselves without health insurance for months or even years.

We also find it interesting that members of the Republican conference would have no problem taking away health coverage from hard-working Americans, but expect expanded coverage for themselves and their families. The system set up by the Affordable Care Act will allow Americans to choose the plan that works best for them from a variety of private insurance plans, just like the FEHB program that members of Congress are now able to access. The uninsured, small-business employees, and the self-employed will now be able to benefit from this same choice and competition.

It begs the question: how many members of the Republican conference will be forgoing the employer-subsidized FEHBP coverage and experiencing what so many Americans find themselves forced to face? If your conference wants to deny millions of Americans affordable health care, your members should walk that walk. You cannot enroll in the very kind of coverage that you want for yourselves, and then turn around and deny it to Americans who don't happen to be Members of Congress. It is worth noting that in 2011, the Federal government will pay $10,503.48 of the premiums for each member of Congress with a family policy under the commonly-selected Blue Cross standard plan.

It is important for the American people to know whether the members of Congress and members-elect who have called for the repeal of health insurance reform are going to stand by their opposition by opting out of the care available to them at the expense of hard-working taxpayers. We look forward to your response in the coming days about exactly how many of the members in the Republican conference will be declining their taxpayer-supported health benefits.

Sincerely,

Will There be Any Tea for the MD Republican Party?

from The Baltimore Sun

Setting up a possible re-match of the 2010 GOP primary, Brian Murphy's camp began hinting that the conservative upstart wants to be the state's next party chair.

The move has been rumored for days, but gained credence here when Murphy's spokeswoman called to say that the Smith Island Cake investor will appear for three hours Friday afternoon a radio show hosted by former state Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell IV. Karla Graham, the spokeswoman, also said calls have been coming in from county GOP chairs across the state encouraging the run. But she stressed that her boss has not made a final decision.

Murphy lost handily to Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and in September and got a frosty reception from the former governor at an Annapolis rally after the primary. But as his poll numbers plummeted Ehrlich embraced Murphy, calling him "the future" of the Maryland Republican Party at an event with former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani.

If Murphy goes forward, the competition will be familiar. Ehrlich's most recent running-mate Mary Kane has said she wants to take over the Maryland GOP, a position that her husband John Kane held when Ehrlich was in office. Murphy would undoubtedly position himself in the same posture he did during the election: An outsider with business success hoping to shake up the Republican party.

And, with the Ehrlich-Kane team losing to Gov. Martin O'Malley by double digits in year where the GOP made national gains, the Maryland party faithful might be more interested now then they were two months ago.
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Update - This story was all the make-believe wet-dreams of the Baltimore Sun's "progressive" reporters.

Public Employee's Feather their Nest and Invite Harford Countians to Bend Over & Grab their Ankles

from The Harford County Dagger

From the Harford Campaign for Liberty:

I want to make you all aware of the upcoming fleecing of the Town of Bel Air.

This is nothing more than a naked grab of the taxpayers wallet. The Bel Air Town Commissioners are going to vote on Monday 11/17 to increase the pension obligation of the town for new retirees by between 10%-15%. This is an outrage. The current pension rate is 40% of final year’s income.

If approved, it would grow to 50%-55%. This is a huge increase in the entitlement obligation for the town. Most governments are looking for ways to REDUCE their obligations. Not Bel Air! The state of Maryland is $1+ Billion in the hole for 2011. Harford County is $40 Million in the hole. Worse, the state of Maryland is going to push teachers pensions back on the counties, thus worsening the financial standing of local government.

Yet, during one of the biggest recessions in the nation’s history, one where 9,000 folks in Harford are unemployed (Aegis front page 11/10) the Town of Bel Air thinks it is an excellent time to pass the loot to their friends!! This is an abuse of power at worst. It is irresponsible & incompetent governance at best. Neither are good. Both are unacceptable. Politicians who use the public coffers to enrich their friends or themselves is one of the reasons there is a Tea Party & a great reason to throw them out at the next opportunity.

WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT THIS?

The Resolutions to approve this legalized theft will be voted on in the Town Commissioners meeting on Monday 11/15/2010 at 39 North Hickory Avenue @ 7:30 p.m. We need to get the word out on this ASAP.

We need to get people out to the Town Commissioner Meeting to speak out, protest this abuse & hold these Town Commissioners responsible to their employers…the taxpayers of Bel Air. The Commissioners were trying to sneak this through without anyone noticing. So much for transparency. This is flat out wrong plain & simple. I have included the link of the website for the Bel Air Town Commissioners.

Please call them & email them.

Voice your outrage at this assault on the town treasury. Please ask your friends & family to do the same. The people are not their private piggy bank!

Sincerely,
Harford Campaign for Liberty

P.S. Please speak out about this abuse of taxpayer money on Monday at 7:30 at the Bel Air Town Commissioners meeting! See you there!
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Follow up 11/16 from the Dagger comments section....

Tonight Resolution #947-10 was heard before a packed house of over 50 people at the Bel Air Town Hall. Testimony from one of the plan administrators conferred that the pension fund currently has $3.5 million dollars in assets, after recent loses, with a total of 60 town employees participating. A total of six people it is believed would chose retirement if the current plan is enhanced as proposed in the new bill.

If the current resolution is adopted someone currently making $100,000 a year in salary would have their annual pension raised from $40,000 to between $50,000 to $55,000 dollars. If that person lives 20 years, the pension plan would pay out between $1 million to $1.2 million dollars for this single person. Remember the plan currently only has 3.5 million in assets.

It appears the current plan is unsustainable, and any increase in benefit payments is simply ludicrous. I am sure the current employees eligible for retirement have been good public servants and they deserve all that was promised to them when they accepted employment. But enhancing the current plan is simply giving the lion’s share of the accumulated assets to those currently eligible, leaving the scores of other good Bel Air Town employees that will follow in retirement the crumbs. And ultimately, over the years, how much will the retirement fund have to be bailed out by the Citizen’s paying increased property taxes.

The Council voted tonight to table the current Resolution until an independent advisor can review the current state of the pension plan. In light of his comments, and questions, the only Councilman that made it clear he was against enhancing the payouts of the retirement plan was Terry Hanley. It was clearly the Citizens in attendance and Mr. Hanley that slowed down and derailed this run away train tonight.

Why DC is Broken and Needs a Paring Down Followed by a Bureaucratic Flushing

America is more than a mere plaything for the cognitive elites... and the only cure for this new malaise is a restoration of America's founding principles of liberty.

from Charles Murray @ AEI

The tea party appears to be of one mind on at least one thing: America has been taken over by a New Elite.

"On one side, we have the elites," Fox News host Glenn Beck explained last month, "and the other side, we have the regular people." The elites are "no longer in touch with what the country is really thinking," Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle complained this summer. And when Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell recently began a campaign ad by saying, "I didn't go to Yale," she could be confident that her supporters would approve.

All this has made the New Elite distinctly touchy (see Maureen Dowd's "Making Ignorance Chic"), dismissive (see Jacob Weisberg's "Elitist Nonsense") and defensive (see Anne Applebaum's "The Rise of the 'Ordinary' Elite").

"Elite?" they seem to be saying. "Who? Us?"

Why are the members of the New Elite feeling so put upon? They didn't object back in 1991, when Robert Reich said we had a new class of symbolic analysts in his book "The Work of Nations." They didn't raise a fuss in 2000 when David Brooks took an anthropologist's eye to their exotic tribe and labeled them bourgeois bohemians in "Bobos in Paradise." And they were surely pleased when Richard Florida celebrated their wonderfulness in his 2002 work, "The Rise of the Creative Class."

That a New Elite has emerged over the past 30 years is not really controversial. That its members differ from former elites is not controversial. What sets the tea party apart from other observers of the New Elite is its hostility, rooted in the charge that elites are isolated from mainstream America and ignorant about the lives of ordinary Americans.

Let me propose that those allegations have merit.

One of the easiest ways to make the point is to start with the principal gateway to membership in the New Elite, the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities. In the idealized view of the meritocrats, those schools were once the bastion of the Northeastern Establishment, favoring bluebloods and the wealthy, but now they are peopled by youth from all backgrounds who have gained admittance through talent, pluck and hard work.

That idealized view is only half-right. Over the past several decades, elite schools have indeed sought out academically talented students from all backgrounds. But the skyrocketing test scores of the freshman classes at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and other elite schools in the 1950s and 1960s were not accompanied by socioeconomic democratization.

On the surface, it looks as if things have changed. Compared with 50 years ago, the proportion of students coming from old-money families and exclusive prep schools has dropped. The representation of African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans has increased. Yet the student bodies of the elite colleges are still drawn overwhelmingly from the upper middle class. According to sociologist Joseph Soares's book "The Power of Privilege: Yale and America's Elite Colleges," about four out of five students in the top tier of colleges have parents whose income, education and occupations put them in the top quarter of American families, according to Soares's measure of socioeconomic status. Only about one out of 20 such students come from the bottom half of families.

The discomfiting explanation is that despite need-blind admissions policies, the stellar applicants still hail overwhelmingly from the upper middle class and above. Students who have a parent with a college degree accounted for only 55 percent of SAT-takers this year but got 87 percent of all the verbal and math scores above 700, according to unpublished data provided to me by the College Board. This is not a function of SAT prep courses available to the affluent--such coaching buys only a few dozen points--but of the ability of these students to do well in a challenging academic setting.

Far from spending their college years in a meritocratic melting pot, the New Elite spend time with people who are mostly just like them--which might not be so bad, except that so many of them have been ensconced in affluent suburbs from birth and have never been outside the bubble of privilege. Few of them grew up in the small cities, towns or rural areas where more than a third of all Americans still live.

When they leave college, the New Elite remain in the bubble. Harvard seniors surveyed in 2007 were headed toward a small number of elite graduate schools (Harvard and Cambridge in the lead) and a small number of elite professional fields (finance and consulting were tied for top choice). Jobs in businesses that provide bread-and-butter goods and services to individual Americans, which make up the overwhelming majority of entry-level openings for aspiring managers, attracted just 1.7 percent of the Harvard students who went to work right after graduation.

When the New Elite get around to marrying, they don't marry just anybody. One of the funniest and most bitingly accurate parts of "Bobos in Paradise" was Brooks's analysis of the New York Times's wedding announcements. Go back to 1960, and the page was filled with brides and grooms who grew up wealthy but whose educations and occupations did not offer much indication that they were going to set the world on fire. Look at the page today, and it is studded with the mergers of fabulous résumés.

Three examples lifted from last Sunday's Times: a director of marketing at a biotech company (Stanford undergrad, Harvard MBA) married a consultant to the aerospace industry (Stanford undergrad, Harvard MPP); a vice president at Goldman Sachs (Yale) married a director of retail development for a financial software firm (Hofstra); and a third-year resident in cardiology (Yale undergrad) married a third-year resident in pathology (Columbia undergrad, summa cum laude).

The New Elite marry each other, combining their large incomes and genius genes, and then produce offspring who get the benefit of both.

We are watching the maturation of the cognitive stratification that Richard J. Herrnstein and I described in "The Bell Curve" back in 1994. When educational and professional opportunities first opened up, we saw social churning galore, as youngsters benefited from opportunities that their parents had been denied. But that phase lasted only a generation or two, slowed by this inescapable paradox:

The more efficiently a society identifies the most able young people of both sexes, sends them to the best colleges, unleashes them into an economy that is tailor-made for people with their abilities and lets proximity take its course, the sooner a New Elite--the "cognitive elite" that Herrnstein and I described--becomes a class unto itself. It is by no means a closed club, as Barack Obama's example proves. But the credentials for admission are increasingly held by the children of those who are already members. An elite that passes only money to the next generation is evanescent ("Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations," as the adage has it). An elite that also passes on ability is more tenacious, and the chasm between it and the rest of society widens.

What Herrnstein and I did not fully appreciate 16 years ago was how relentless this segregation would be. It is hard to get numbers--no survey has samples large enough to calibrate precisely what's going on with the top percentiles of the population that I'm talking about--but the numbers we do have, combined with qualitative data provided by observers such as Brooks, Florida and Bill Bishop, in his book "The Big Sort," are persuasive.

We know, for one thing, that the New Elite clusters in a comparatively small number of cities and in selected neighborhoods in those cities. This concentration isn't limited to the elite neighborhoods of Washington, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and San Francisco. It extends to university cities with ancillary high-tech jobs, such as Austin and the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle.

With geographical clustering goes cultural clustering. Get into a conversation about television with members of the New Elite, and they can probably talk about a few trendy shows--"Mad Men" now, "The Sopranos" a few years ago. But they haven't any idea who replaced Bob Barker on "The Price Is Right." They know who Oprah is, but they've never watched one of her shows from beginning to end.

Talk to them about sports, and you may get an animated discussion of yoga, pilates, skiing or mountain biking, but they are unlikely to know who Jimmie Johnson is (the really famous Jimmie Johnson, not the former Dallas Cowboys coach), and the acronym MMA means nothing to them.

They can talk about books endlessly, but they've never read a "Left Behind" novel (65 million copies sold) or a Harlequin romance (part of a genre with a core readership of 29 million Americans).

They take interesting vacations and can tell you all about a great backpacking spot in the Sierra Nevada or an exquisite B&B overlooking Boothbay Harbor, but they wouldn't be caught dead in an RV or on a cruise ship (unless it was a small one going to the Galapagos). They have never heard of Branson, Mo.

There so many quintessentially American things that few members of the New Elite have experienced. They probably haven't ever attended a meeting of a Kiwanis Club or Rotary Club, or lived for at least a year in a small town (college doesn't count) or in an urban neighborhood in which most of their neighbors did not have college degrees (gentrifying neighborhoods don't count). They are unlikely to have spent at least a year with a family income less than twice the poverty line (graduate school doesn't count) or to have a close friend who is an evangelical Christian. They are unlikely to have even visited a factory floor, let alone worked on one.

Taken individually, members of the New Elite are isolated from mainstream America as a result of lifestyle choices that are nobody's business but their own. But add them all up, and they mean that the New Elite lives in a world that doesn't intersect with mainstream America in many important ways. When the tea party says the New Elite doesn't get America, there is some truth in the accusation.

Part of the isolation is political. In that Harvard survey I mentioned, 72 percent of Harvard seniors said their beliefs were to the left of the nation as a whole, compared with 10 percent who said theirs were to the right of it. The political preferences of academics and journalists among the New Elite also conform to the suspicions of the tea party.

But the politics of the New Elite are not the main point. When it comes to the schools where they were educated, the degrees they hold, the Zip codes where they reside and the television shows they watch, I doubt if there is much to differentiate the staff of the conservative Weekly Standard from that of the liberal New Republic, or the scholars at the American Enterprise Institute from those of the Brookings Institution, or Republican senators from Democratic ones.

The bubble that encases the New Elite crosses ideological lines and includes far too many of the people who have influence, great or small, on the course of the nation. They are not defective in their patriotism or lacking a generous spirit toward their fellow citizens. They are merely isolated and ignorant. The members of the New Elite may love America, but, increasingly, they are not of it.

The Absolute LAST Thing the GOP Needs...

from The Baltimore Sun

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will be appearing on CNN's Sunday talk show this weekend, and if host Candy Crowley wants to make news, perhaps she should ask if he's interested in leading the national Republican Party for the next two years.

Bush, who has already ruled out a run for president in 2012, is being interviewed with his big brother, currently campaigning for his place in history and selling books.

Jeb, on the other hand, is taking a victory lap after Florida Republicans scored big in last week's election and may be looking to raise his political profile.

He has close ties to Marco Rubio, who won election to the U.S. Senate and will be the nation's first Hispanic senator with tea party connections. Meantime, Florida Republican Gov.-elect Rick Scott has placed three of Jeb's close political associates and former aides on his transition team.

As the next national Republican race, the one for national committee chairman, takes shape, a member of the anti-Steele caucus, Katon Dawson of South Carolina, has been dropping Jeb's name into conversations about possible alternatives to incumbent Chairman Michael S. Steele, who is expected to seek another two-year term in January.

Dawson said earlier this week he'd had no indication that Bush was interested. Today, he emailed that "a big, big name" could join the chairmanship contest late next week. Asked if the name might be Jeb Bush, he replied enigmatically that "no names surfaced yet."

Pursuing the party job would let Bush re-enter the partisan realm, as memories of his brother's administration fade. He's a prodigious fundraiser--which is what the job of national chairman is really all about--and he could help the party reach out to Hispanics--a high-priority task if Republicans hope to thrive in a rapidly changing America.

One Republican strategist with Bush and Rubio ties, who said he'd heard no talk of a Bush run for chairman, nevertheless said that he loved the idea.

Over the next two years, a generation of potential Republican rivals will be duking it out for the presidential nomination. If one of them unseats Barack Obama, it could well end Jeb's chances of becoming a third President Bush (he'd be 67 in 2020). Otherwise, he could be well-positioned for a run in 2016, when the White House would be wide open again.

Of course, it's by no means clear that he has any interest in the party post. Has he got the patience for the more mundane aspects of the job? Would he consider the position beneath him? Has he got better things to do? And would he be trying to emerge too soon? After all, his mother recently remarked that the country is "Bushed out," as Crowley said in an online posting.

Was Your Write in Vote Recorded/Counted Harford County? Check and See

2010 General Election Write in Votes

Hoyer & Pelosi Send Clyburn to the Back of the DNC Bus... AGAIN!

from The Baltimore Sun

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland formally announced his candidacy Monday for House Minority Whip, the second-ranking position in the House Democratic leadership.

Hoyer is currently the second-ranking Dem, as Majority Leader, a position he'll lose when the Republicans take over in January. The southern Maryland congressman had been seen by some as a possible Minority Leader in the next Congress but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided she wanted the job after her demotion from the top spot in the House.

Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest ranking African-American in Congress, has also announced his pursuit of the Whip position.

A source close to Hoyer said the Marylander has the votes to win. The election will be conducted by secret ballot, and there's no guarantee that the pledges he has received will actually turn into votes. However, a defeat at this point would be a major surprise.

Clyburn may wind up getting another position in the leadership, as top Democrats attempt to work out a plan that would head off a messy internal fight, probably the last thing they need after getting stomped in last week's midterm elections.

Democrats Hold Harford Sherriff's Office

from The Dagger

Several close local races highlighted Tuesday’s general election, with state senate and delegation and the Harford County Sheriff’s races all seperated by just a few percentage points.

Sheriff Jesse Bane narrowly defeated Republican challenger Jeff Gahler in a close battle. The two went back and forth throughout the early returns, with Gahler claiming a brief, slim margin of less than a percentage point over Bane before the incumbent regained the lead.

At about 9 p.m., the mood at the Bane camp was upbeat, but by 9:45 those presented were more somber and the sheriff appeared concerned.

Just before midnight, however, the sheriff said he was just “relieved” with the close win.

“It’s been a long year, a lot of work, a lot of stress, and now I don’t have that,” he said.

Bane said he expected the race would be tight. “I faced a major effort to remove Democrats,” he said. “I was not only fighting to hold onto the office but fighting a movement to remove Democrats and incumbents from office.”

Bane added that he did not believe the filing of charges of theft and misconduct in office against Maj. Mark Forwood, one of his top deputies, just 24 hours before the election, played a role in the slim margin of victory.

“No, I don’t think it played a role,” he said. “The stage was already set months ago.”

Gahler conceded the race via a voicemail to Bane, calling Bane immediately after the last results were made public.

“It’s over, and Jesse has won,” he said. “We both ran very good campaigns. I congratulate him on a well-deserved win.”

Gahler added that he hoped Bane would take action on some of the issue brought to light during the race. Asked about his future plans, Gahler said, “We’ll see what the next few years bring for Harford County.”

District 34 incumbent Sen. Nancy Jacobs narrowly lost to Art Helton in Harford voting, but appeared to retain her seat with strong Republican returns in Cecil County. Across the district, she held a double-digit lead just before 11:30 p.m.

Harford County Council District A incumbent Dion Guthrie defeated challenger Yvonne Baldwin with 55.8 percent of the vote to Baldwin’s 44.1 percent.

In the County Council District F race, incumbent Mary Ann Lisanti edged out challenger Sheryl Davis Kohl, claiming 51.6 percent of the vote to Davis Kohl’s 48.2 percent.

Just before 11 p.m., the mood at Democratic county headquarters was somber, with those present holding out hope for Helton and monitoring the District 34A delegation race.

In that race, Del. Mary-Dulany James led Harford voting, followed by Glen Glass, Patrick McGrady with 24.1 percent, and Marla Posey-Moss. The same order followed in statewide voting just before 11:30 p.m.

Incumbent Delegates Wayne Norman and Donna Stifler maintained an insurmountable lead in District 35A voting, easily claiming re-election to their seats. Stifler said she eager to get back to work, and focus on lowering taxes and improving the local business environment.

“I don’t care who’s governor, we need people to be able to hire other people,” she said.

County Executive David Craig claimed a second election victory, with more than 80 percent of the vote over Constitution Party candidate Mark Fisher. Craig took the stage at his victory party to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “I Won’t Back Down,” telling those assembled that he would continue to prepare the county for BRAC and move the county school system “from good to great.”

Craig noted that it was his 20th election, but the first in which he did not face a Democratic opponent.

“I believe it was because people in the Democratic party appreciated what I had done as much as people in the Republican Party,” he said. In his speech, Craig spoke of “promises kept,” including education, quality of life, and economic development.

Craig said 60 new jobs are created in Harford County each week.

“Nowhere else in the state can you find anyone else who does that,” he said.

On crime, Craig said, “We’re going to make all of Harford County safe, not just the northern portion, not just the middle portion.”

Gov. Martin O’Malley claimed 32 percent of Harford’s votes with more than ha, while challenger Robert Ehrlich took 63 percent.

Moments after early voting results were announced, Democratic Register of Wills candidate Tom Hopkins conceded the race to Republican Derek Hopkins, delivering a statement to The Dagger at one end of its mobile news lab, while his opponent was congratulated by supporters at the other. In the statement, Tom Hopkins commended Derek Hopkins on a “professional, positive” campaign.

Hopkins gave the first victory speech of the night at Ehrlich/Craig HQ, asking the assembled crowd, “is this a great night for Republicans or what?”

Later, Hopkins said he would hold to his campaign promise and his wife Katrina, a 12-year veteran of the Register of Wills office, would step down shortly. He hoped that she would be able to remain in the court system in some capacity.

Hopkins added that he would cease doing auctioneering business in Harford County or Baltimore County under his own banner, but would maintain out of state business.

In the Board of Education races, Bob Frisch defeated Jansen Robinson for the District A seat, with 66 percent of the vote. In District B, Cassandra Beverley appeared to defeat Ron Eaton, claiming 50.9 percent of the vote to Eaton’s 48.6 percent. Rick Grambo defeated Lorrie Warfield for the District F seat with 55 percent of the vote.

Frisch said he was “humbled” by the result and said it was proof that voters “did their homework.”

About his oversized campaigns, one of which was pictured on The Dagger, he asked, “Does size matter? I think it did matter.”

In what was by far the most combative of the three school board races, Bob Frisch beat Jansen Robinson by a margin of 2 to 1. Robinson said that he planned to continue serving the community and that some good had come out of the campaign, “Now there will be some more eyes on the Board of Education.”

The school board race in Fallston/Abingdon District B ended Election Day with Cassandra Beverley ahead of Ron Eaton by just 291 votes.

Asked whether she was declaring victory, Beverley said that would be “premature”, and she would instead await the results from absentee ballots. With at least 473 absentee ballots to be counted in District B, Bevereley said that she was planning to attend the first absentee ballot canvass scheduled for Thursday, November 4 at the Board of
Elections office in Forest Hill. Beverley said she had not yet heard from her opponent, Ron Eaton. Eaton did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

With 7,008 votes on Election Day, Grambo was the top vote-getter among the all of the school board candidates in all three districts.

“I’m happy that the voters in District D chose me,” Grambo said, “I’m going to work hard to make sure their voice is heard.” Grambo said that he also wanted to thank his North Harford opponent Lorrie Warfield for running a clean campaign.
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Harford County Election returns here.

The Corrupt Suvive the Tea Tsunami

Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi... are ALL still members of Congress.

This Leviathan called the US Government is rotten from the head on down. And when the system cannot be counted upon to take out its' own garbage, it's become time for a new system that can.

VOTE!