Fresh off GOP gubernatorial election upsets in New Jersey and Virginia, is there hope for a Republican comeback in Maryland?

According to a recent poll, trouble may be brewing for Governor O'Malley in next year's election. The poll, conducted by the nonpartisan Clarus Research Group, interviewed 637 voters in Maryland between October 30 and November 2, 2009.  Perhaps the most troubling sign for Maryland Governor O'Malley was that 48% of voters polled say would they would prefer someone new to win and only 39% say they want to see Gov. O'Malley re-elected.

The front runner for the Republicans would be former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich.  Even though Ehrlich has not committed to running, Clarus included a hypothetical 2010 rematch in their poll with O'Malley leading his former Republican rival by a 47-40 percent margin.

The results of the poll highlighted that O'Malley has a significant advantage over Ehrlich among women and African Americans voters. During the 2006 election, O'Malley defeated incumbent Ehrlich with a nearly 20 point advantage with women voters and a 60 point advantage with African Americans.

From watching Tuesday’s election returns from Virginia and New Jersey, we can see that even in blue states liberalism is failing. Obama talks a great game, and says the right things – such as promoting health care reform through “choice and competition,” – but is unable to produce legislation that matches the rhetoric. And people are wise to the double talk now. We the people know better, and we watch what the politicians do rather than listening to what they say.

Could anyone imagine seeing a Republican take the governorship of deep blue New Jersey? Go back one year and remember how dominant Obama was in Jersey, easily winning the Democrat stronghold, and ask that question again. It is likely that anyone forecasting a Republican taking the governorship just one year later would have been ridiculed and mocked until he moved to a remote island where no-one has televisions, newspapers or internet access. It just seemed impossible. And yet, here we are today, watching more than 50 percent of New Jersey voters reject Jon Corzine and his failed liberal policies.

Watching these two states that went for Obama in ‘08 do such an about face in this short a time should give every Republican in Maryland cause for optimism. If a state like Jersey can elect a Republican to the governorship, and Virginia can support the Republican by a ridiculously large margin of 18 percent, why should we in Maryland not take that as a sign that the Democrats are more vulnerable than ever and move in to capitalize on that vulnerability. As much as Obama has failed on the national stage, Martin O’Malley has failed the State on every level. He promised lower energy costs, but BG&E customers, who thought they had it bad before, saw their rates skyrocket by 85 percent under Martin O! And while talking about the need to lower energy costs for all Marylanders, O’Malley has fought for “Global warming” legislation that will raise energy costs across the board.

One example of this is the $140 million energy tax, which has been passed along straight to Maryland residents. Add in his opposition to allowing a merger between EDF and Constellation to enable the construction of a new nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs, and O’Malley has fought a project necessary just to keep Maryland’s electrical production at current levels. Preventing the production of new energy is not the way to bring costs down.

In addition to his failed energy policy, O’Malley presided over the largest tax increase in Maryland’s history, which had to be conducted in a special session to avoid those pesky constraints imposed on the legislature during the General Assembly. This has helped Maryland ascend to the dubious honor of having the fourth highest tax burden (state and local) in the entire nation. Looking at 2006 data, which precedes the O’Malley tax hikes, Maryland’s individual income tax collections were already the second highest in the nation. All of this does not bode well for the governor of a state neighboring Virginia, which saw the Republican storm into office despite having lower taxes than Maryland..

Given the political winds and the fierce opposition to out of control taxation, government spending and government growth, the Maryland Republican Party is faced with a very favorable environment in 2010. It is now up to the party to turn that advantage into results by giving voters a solid, concrete message to get behind, closing the registration gap (Maryland has approximately one million more registered Democrats than Republicans) and then making sure those Republican voters turn out in force. The opportunity is there, will Maryland seize it?

In a move timed to coincide with the Maryland Republican Party's fall convention, Party Chair Jim Pelura announced yesterday that he would step down as of November 14. The press release follows:

Dr. James Pelura, Chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, has submitted his resignation effective November 14, 2009.   In accordance with the Maryland Republican Party Bylaws, First Vice Chairman Chris Cavey will facilitate the transition for the period until November 14th.

A Nominating Committee has been formed with Montgomery County Central Committee Chairman Mark Uncapher as Chairman and he will follow the nominating process in accordance with our Bylaws.

In a letter to "Republican Leaders" Jim stated he was resigning "for personal and professional reasons" and also noted:

My tenure as your Chairman has at times been trying; however, our steady rebuilding of the grassroots has been very rewarding. For the first time in years, the Maryland Republican Party has asserted itself as the spokesman and the standard-bearer of the Republican philosophy.

I am firmly convinced that a new dialogue has been started with my Chairmanship and it is my hope that this dialogue will continue.

Much of the controversy about Pelura's tenure stemmed from a perceived lack of fundraising prowess and continual bickering between three separate wings of the Maryland GOP: those who backed former Governor Ehrlich and saw the party as a vessel for his return to elective office, members of the General Assembly who wanted the party apparatus for their ends, and conservative activists at the local level who felt ignored, particularly those representing rural Maryland. It was a balancing act difficult to accomplish in good times, let alone a poor electoral cycle as 2006-08 was.

The dialogue Dr. Pelura started was one of actually listening and paying attention to the smaller counties. After all, they are the areas of Maryland which actually vote Republican. Granted, there's not a one-size-fits-all solution to ending Democrat dominance statewide but certainly those running on the other side in stronger GOP areas have found they need to move rightward to compete - case in point Frank Kratovil's Congressional campaign in 2008. (It doesn't matter that they're reliably liberal votes once they win - they're counting on voters to believe the promises and not look at the record.)

So, now that Pelura is gone, it's not unrealistic to expect 2011 to dawn with Republicans in all the statewide offices, a sweep leaving poor old Ben Cardin as the lone Democrat in the state's Congressional delegation, and unprecedented 141-0 and 47-0 margins in the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate respectively, right? After all, wasn't Jim Pelura the sole source of the problems?

Look for a number of people to step out of the woodwork now and claim to have all the answers to the woes of the Maryland GOP. It will make for an interesting and newsworthy convention in November, and the coalition building will begin immediately for those who wish to succeed Jim.

For Republicans in Maryland, 2009 just became a campaign year.

When President Obama was elected, he and the Democrat controlled Congress promised the American people a new era of government.  This new tone would be post partisan, fiscally responsible, transparent, lobbyist-free, open, honest and ethical. 

How are they doing so far?

The folks at Maryland Politics Watch recently talked with Lt. Governor Anthony Brown to talk policy and politics. Mixed in among the banal progressive pablum we get this from Brown

Ehrlich had no interest in governing at all and when he left there was no evidence of his presence in state government.

 Actually there was a lot of evidence, chiefly a budget surplus, which Brown and his boss quickly spent.

One thing Brown left out or his interlocutors failed to ask him was about his strong arming lawmakers on the floor of the house to kill Jessica’s Law on behalf of his masters in the tort lobby.

The Waxman-Markey cap and trade will hopefully die in the Senate. However, Marylander’s must ask, what about governor Martin O’Malley’s own version of Waxman-Markey, the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act? 

The law tasks the Maryland Department of the Environment to devise a plan (cap and trade) to reduce GHG emissions 25% from 2006 levels by 2020 and 90% from 2006 levels by 2050. The state’s manufacturers colluded with the environmental lobby to exempt themselves from the reduction mandates. The bill also mandates that there be no loss of jobs, and that any plan protect the state’s “economic well being.”  However, the bill specifically targets  energy and transportation sectors of Maryland's economy

The law also states that it is in the best interest to achieve the goals of the Maryland Commission on Climate Change’s recommendations.  That commission was nothing more than a grandiose push poll designed to fabricate evidence for O’Malley and his green allies’ policy prescriptions. The MCCC Climate Action Report  (CAP) was paid for and written by global warming alarmists.

The Beacon Hill Institute analyzed the underlying economic methodology of the CAP and found:

The Beacon Hill Institute has previously reviewed the cost-benefit methodology employed by CCS in four other states: Washington, Colorado, Minnesota, and North Carolina. The Institute found three serious problems with the CCS cost-benefit analyses:
1. CCS failed to quantify benefits in a way that they can be meaningfully compared to costs;
2. When estimating economic impacts, CCS often misinterpreted costs to be benefits; and
3. The estimates of costs left out important factors, causing CCS to understate the true costs of its recommendations…

The CAP report provides zero guidance to policy makers regarding the desirability of policies aimed at reducing GHG emissions. It fails to perform the most basic task of any cost-benefit analysis–quantifying both the costs and benefits in monetary terms so that they can be directly compared. The analysis mistakes costs for benefits. Astonishingly, the report posits net economic savings from policies intended to reduce GHG emissions without counting the value of those reduced emissions. Unfortunately for Maryland policy makers, these same three problems plague the CAP report, rendering it unsuitable for making any informed policy decisions.

With all we know about the economic disaster of GHG emission reduction schemes, one wonders why O’Malley, who campaigned on lowering energy rates, would champion a policy designed to increase them.