Odd eligibility rules

One thing that puzzled me last year was Brendon Madigan's candidacy for the Comptrollership of Maryland. One would think he would start lower down the chain, say as a Delegate in the State legislature, before tackling a Statewide office. It turns out that the Comptrollership is just about the only office that the 18-year-old Madigan was eligible for! Both houses of the State legislature (called the General Assembly in Maryland) have minimum ages which are much higher (I just read where there is a Constitutional amendment being proposed that would lower those ages for both chambers to 21, which would still exclude someone Madigan's age), and all the other statewide offices have qualifications Madigan would not have met — age or otherwise. So it's strange. Madigan ran for the Comptrollership, it seems, because this was the only office in the whole State he qualified for!

On the results of Tuesday's primary elections

Tuesday's primaries were quite a mixed bag. On the one hand, it seems that Bob Ehrlich won renomination rather easily, with three quarters of the vote. It seems that Maryland voters understood that Sarah Palin's endorsement of his opponent, Brian Murphy, should be discounted because she has little knowledge of Maryland issues. And like the Governorship, the Comptrollership nomination went to this blog's endorsed candidate, William Campbell, who got nearly two thirds of the votes. (Interestingly, 18-year-old Brendan Madigan, whose candidacy impressed me even if I could not endorse him because Campbell was so clearly the best candidate, got a hefty quarter of the vote, so he should be reasonably happy with the results.) But on the other hand, the Senate primary was not so good. If I were a "spin doctor," I could put it in a way that sounded good: there were two candidates that got all the media attention: Eric Wargotz and Jim Rutledge, and of the nine other candidates, our endorsed candidate, Neil Cohen, had one of the two biggest vote totals, coming up to a near tie with the largest one. But that is just spin; the reality is that 6% of the vote is a pretty poor showing, with two other candidates each getting more than five times as many votes. This November, of course, I will vote for Wargotz over Barbara Mikulski, but without much enthusiasm; but I must say that I'm glad that Jim Rutledge did not win.

The race for House of Representatives from this district (Maryland's 8th) was close. But Bruce Stern, who was endorsed by this blog, lost in an extremely close race. The candidate whose signs seemed to be most conspicuous, Bill Thomas, came in last among four candidates. But the winner, Mike Phillips, has to run against Chris Van Hollen in November, a daunting task.

The one position left is that of County Executive. In that election, a candidate who was probably perceived as a joke by many, Daniel Vovak, but had some good ideas in fact and did appear to me to be serious in this election, was running against a candidate who concealed his positions on everything — never put out anything, either in print or on the Web, that I could find, Douglas E. Rosenfeld. To me it was a surprise that Rosenfeld won, with about two thirds of the vote, but I guess that the voters could not take Vovak seriously.

There were primaries next door in Delaware and in the District of Columbia, as well. In Delaware, it seems that Republicans must have had a death wish. I cannot understand them nominating Christine O'Donnell, who has no chance of winning in November, over Mike Castle, who would have been a likely winner in November. But unlike Maryland, in Delaware Sarah Palin's and the "Tea Party" leaders' endorsements counted too much for the GOP's best interests. I'll discuss the District of Columbia vote in another post, because there is a lot I want to say, and this post is getting long.

An unendorsed candidate who still impresses me

As the title says, this posting is about a candidate who was not endorsed by me, but who is, I think, very impressive: Brendan Madigan. I doubt that he will win the nomination for State Comptroller, and even if he does, I am certain he would not be able to beat Peter Franchot in November (though if he does win the nomination, I will vote for him in November!), but I think he has done a creditable job of mounting a professional campaign. If I had not discovered it when I saw a YouTube video of an interview he did for Maryland Public Television, it would be hard to believe that this campaign was being run by an eighteen-year-old. He has done a very professional job.

When I was growing up, one had to be twenty-one to vote. Lowering the voting age to eighteen was a cause I had favored, but by the time it came about, I was already too old to benefit from the change, having reached my twenty-eighth birthday. But I had formed my political opinions pretty completely by an even younger age (around 14). So I am certainly willing to believe that young people are capable of reasoned political thought. But I'm sure I would not have been able to organize a candidacy for statewide office at eighteen. Madigan has done an excellent job in this regard. And I want to compliment him on this.

New observations on the candidates

There are, it turns out, YouTube clips on most of the candidates appearing on the primary ballot. These even include some candidates that I could not get any other information on. And now, having seen these clips, I have some further observations.

Of the three candidates for Comptroller, my support still goes to William Henry Campbell. But Armand Girard, about whom I knew nothing until now, actually has one point in his favor. He is strongly committed to the idea of getting the slot machines built that are supposed to reduce our dependence on tax revenues. So am I; and neither Campbell nor Brendan Madigan has really addressed this question. Madigan, the third candidate, has one interesting point in his favor, which might count against him too: he is young: only eighteen. Perhaps we need some new blood. But I think perhaps Madigan needs more experience before taking on a job as big as the state Comptrollership.

I have watched videos, too, of nearly all of the U. S. Senate candidates. Some of the minor ones don't look that bad, and in fact Joseph Alexander's position on mass transit is excellent. But just as a bad position on transit does not count enough to lose my vote for Bob Ehrlich, an excellent position on transit will not get my vote to Alexander and away from Neil Cohen.

No changes, then, in my endorsements, but some interesting illumination.

Endorsements

Today I went over all the candidates whose names will appear on my ballot in two weeks, with the exception of those who are unopposed, those running for Board of Education (I do not vote in those elections, for three reasons which do not need to be explained in this post), and some of the party central committee positions (where I know nothing about the candidates and have no way to get the info I'd need).

I have now marked my sample ballot, and the people I have decided to vote for are also the people I will formally endorse in the name of this blog. For this purpose, candidates who have no web site of their own and have not given their positions to anyone like the Gazette, I assume are not serious candidates, and exclude them from consideration.

For Governor and Lieutenant Governor (you vote for them together, as a team), I have already expressed my support for Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. and Mary Kane. Hopefully, the endorsement of their opponents by Sarah Palin does not sway many Maryland Republican voters. Gov. Palin got my vote two years ago for Vice-President, but as a part of a ticket headed by John McCain, and while (as I've said before) I do not demonize her as liberal Democrats do, I think her endorsement does not count for much in my estimation. I think the most salient fact influencing my vote is that I believe that Bob Ehrlich made a good Governor from 2003 to 2007, and deserves to be returned to that office.

I've tried to find enough information on the three candidates for Comptroller. One of them gives none, so the decision is between William Henry Campbell and Brendan Madigan. Really, both seem to be well-qualified, and it was the hardest of all my decisions to make. The thing that finally made me choose Campbell over Madigan was that Madigan's campaign seemed to be very negative on Amtrak, which is where Campbell was chief financial officer. Madigan's Amtrak-bashing made me choose Campbell.

The United States Senate race is only difficult because there are eleven candidates. I've discussed many of them, and most of the others really had no information about themselves. My being impressed with the moderate stances of Neil H. Cohen is unchanged; all this post does is make it official: he is my choice for the Senate.

The next and almost last race worth discussing is Representative. While Chris Van Hollen will probably win no matter who is nominated, Bruce Stern seems, like Neil Cohen, to be the kind of moderate that the Republican Party needs. Stern, therefore, gets my vote and my endorsement.

The Action Committee for Transit has put out a pamphlet on the positions of the candidates on transit. Most of the candidates on their list are Democrats, and I can't vote in that primary (couldn't even if I were in their district!) but they do cover the race for the Republican candidate for Montgomery County Executive. On transit issues, the best candidate is Daniel Vovak, and he also has a blog that looks like its author is someone worth supporting. So Vovak gets my vote and my endorsement.

Since I've been impressed by Stern and Vovak, I will also vote for them in their campaigns for party central committee. On that one, though, I'm supposed to pick eight candidates out of nine. I won't, though. There is too little info on the other seven.