"Moderates," "centrists," and labels

Among the blogs I read frequently are some that use the terms “center” or “moderate.” For example, there is Solomon Kleinsmith's “Rise of the Center” and Rick Bayan's “The New Moderate.” And while I generally think of myself as a “moderate,” I certainly have my disagreements with these blogs. In fact, the comment pages of this blog have seen discussions with Kleinsmith highlighting strong disagreements. Presumably, if other “moderates” read this blog, they also disagree with me on some of the issues I discuss. Which is why I hate these one-word labels.

One thing that got me to thinking again about these labels, and why they are so problematic, is the recent spate of news articles about Jeff Bezos' support — backed up with two and a half million dollars! — for the pro-gay marriage side in the referendum to be held in Washington State. We will have a similar referendum in Maryland this same November. And I will be voting for gay marriage, of course, as anyone who has read this blog could figure out. But I will also be voting to scuttle another law that Governor Martin O'Malley has pushed through Maryland's legislature: the so-called “DREAM Act.” (Unlike the Federal version, Maryland's simply extends in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens resident in Maryland — although they are actually not properly termed “resident in Maryland” since they are not legally resident anywhere in the United States!) In a sense, this is a “moderate” position, as I'm supporting a “left” position on one issue and a “right” position on the other. But I would bet that more people are going to vote exactly the opposite way from me on both issues. And are they to be called “moderate” as well?

Kleinsmith, I know from his comments on this blog, has his own definition of “centrist.” And I don't think I would qualify, though I will not try to put words into his mouth, so I'll let him, if he is still reading this blog and decides to comment, say whether he would call me a centrist or not. But two years ago I supported a primary candidate for Senate, Dr. Neil Cohen, who frankly proclaimed we needed a “moderate” candidate. And I did this mainly because he and I were in agreement on a lot of issues. I certainly agreed with Cohen a lot more than I did with Eric Wargotz, the eventual nominee. And I agreed with him even more than I did with Barbara Mikulski, the actual winner of the Senate election that November. So in that sense I do qualify as a “moderate.”

And yet, I don't really know what that means. Two people might both call themselves “moderates” and yet differ on every important issue.That's what is so bad about one-word labels.

Postmortems - Part 2 (Maryland/California/New York)

A local weekly newspaper in this area printed a headline, following the election, saying "GOP Wave misses Maryland." Yes, it certainly did. As I said in yesterday's post, the most important observation to take from Tuesday's election is that every State is different. Maryland is sandwiched between Pennsylvania and Virginia, both of which were great states for the GOP this year. (Virginia was already so red that there was not much to go redder, but the GOP took 3, or possibly 4, House seats away from the Democrats there. I'll say more about Pennsylvania in a subsequent post.) But in Maryland, as I said in my October 12, 2010 post, the GOP made hardly a dent in the blueness of the State. One House seat, which should have been Republican anyway, but which went to Democrat Frank Kratovil in 2008 because of an internecine split in the local GOP, came back home. A few more seats in the lower house of the State's legislature went red, but in the upper house, a couple went the other way. And a good former Governor, Bob Ehrlich, certainly not a bizarre "Tea Party" type, lost by 10 percentage points to the sitting Governor, Martin O'Malley. In the Senate, one of the most liberal members of the chamber, Barbara Mikulski, had no trouble winning by a much larger margin, over a pretty uninspiring Eric Wargotz, who was pretty much unknown outside his home county. As I said in that post on Oct. 12, it seemed strange to see the GOP winning all over the place, while seeing nothing but blue here at home. It may be because so many Marylanders are Federal Government employees, and thus unsympathetic to a "smaller Government" GOP, and rather sympathetic to a President Barack Obama who the rest of the country was rejecting. As I said earlier, O'Malley even invited Obama into the State to campaign for him, something most Democrats were certainly not doing. Pretty dispiriting, though I'm happy for the rest of the country.

New York didn't look much better. As a native of that State, I tried to follow it; the GOP didn't help their cause very much by nominating a lame excuse for a gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino. They elected a Democratic Governor and two Democratic Senators; most of the time you don't see two Senate seats filled in the same election in a State, but here there was one term expiring and the other seat vacant because Hillary Clinton had left to become Secretary of State, with Kirsten Gillebrand only appointed to an interim position. Both Gillebrand and Chuck Schumer easily won re-election, and Andrew Cuomo, son of a previous Governor, won the gubernatorial office.

While New York State elected the son of a governor from the 1980s and 1990s, California was restoring a governor who had served even earlier, in the 1970s and 1980s, Jerry Brown. Like New York and Maryland, California seemed to be bypassed by the GOP wave. And this one was even stranger, because in California, the GOP had some excellent candidates. Meg Whitman, running for Governor, and Carly Fiorina, running for the Senate, were well qualified, very desirable candidates, and both put millions of dollars of their own money into their campaigns. But Jerry Brown beat Whitman, and Barbara Boxer gained reelection to the Senate over Fiorina. I guess California voters just couldn't see what was best for them, but that's how democracy works sometimes.

It's bizarre!

Here I am, reading the headlines showing a major Republican year, and I'm sitting in a state that obstinately refuses to go along. The Real Clear Politics poll summary shows the GOP picking up enough seats to move from behind 59-41 to a 50-50 tie, with Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas possibly setting a new record for worst defeat of an incumbent Senator, and yet, Barbara Mikulski is winning polls by a nearly 20 percent margin over Eric Wargotz. It's just bizarre.

What gives in this state? As dissatisfied as the whole country is with President Obama's performance, here the Governor, Martin O'Malley, actually brought him in to campaign for him. This is really curious. O'Malley must be just about the only Democrat that isn't running away from the Obama link as fast as possible.

I feel I've gotten stuck in a bizarre caricature of a body politic.

How to Vote in 2010

It's four weeks until Election Day, but because some states have early voting, it may be useful to mention these recommendations this early.

There are thirty-something states with elections for the United States Senate this year. With various degrees of enthusiasm, in all but two I hope that readers of this blog will vote for the Republican candidate, as a rebuff to the Harry Reid leadership if for nothing else. (Hopefully, Reid will himself be retired by this year's vote, but I hardly expect Chuck Schumer's leadership to be any different.) In some cases, such as Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, and even Eric Wargotz in my own state of Maryland, there is not much enthusiasm on my part, because the Republicans are rather badly flawed, and there could have been better candidates chosen in the primaries, but defeating the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda is first on the priorities. In other states, there are candidates about whom I am truly enthusiastic, such as Carly Fiorina in California. But in every case (except two, as I said), the Republican candidate is to be preferred.

The two exceptions are at opposite corners of the country: Florida and Alaska. In both cases there are Republicans who lost their party's nomination, but chose to run as independents, who are better than the official nominees, and who actually stand a chance to win. Unlike the usual situation, where voting for an independent would simply help elect the major-party candidate further from the preferred one, in both states the Democrat is probably going to finish third, behind both the official Republican candidate and the independent. And both Charlie Crist and Lisa Murkowski deserve support. I hope people in those states who like this blog will vote for them.

In the House of Representatives, the situation is somewhat similar. Obviously, in 434 of the 435 districts the name of Nancy Pelosi will not be on the ballot. But in a sense a vote for any Democrat is a vote for her, and helps the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda. So, in 434 districts (the one exception will be mentioned in a moment!) I hope the vote of anyone who reads and likes this blog will be cast, when possible, for the Republican. (In some of them, I'm sure, this will not be possible because the Republicans will not have a candidate, but I'm not sure which, or even how many, districts they are.)

Now that one exception: If you happen to live in the Sixth District of Virginia and read this post, I hope you will consider voting for Jeff Vanke, the Modern Whig Party's candidate. Though he is running against a Republican, the more votes Vanke gets, even if he does not win, the more there will be a sign of popular desire for some moderation in the two parties' combative attitudes. I do not expect Vanke to win (though I would not be unhappy if he did!) but I hope he gets a respectable vote total.

There are gubernatorial elections in a lot of states. I don't know much about most of the candidates, but I do heartily endorse Bob Ehrlich in Maryland, who was an excellent Governor when he was in office from 2003 to 2007, and I certainly hope that Californians will elect Meg Whitman. (The difference in terminology is simply because I only "endorse" candidates in elections where I myself can vote.)

I hope that readers of this blog will vote for the candidates I have mentioned favorably in this post.

A case of déjà vu

This primary reminds me of another one, way back in 1994, so to me it was déjà vu. In that year, just as in this one, I really identified with a particular candidate (in both cases, for the United States Senate). Both lost in a primary. But there are differences.

Ruthann Aron was almost exactly my age, originally from New York City, and in so many ways like me (even if she was female) that I truly identified with her in her candidacy to replace Paul Sarbanes in the Senate. I agreed with her politically as well, and volunteered in her campaign, and it was a heart-breaker to see her lose to Bill Brock, who had been a Senator from Tennessee in the past. But in that case, Brock was a good enough candidate that once the primary was over, I went to work in his campaign. Unfortunately, Sarbanes beat him.

Because I had identified with Ruthann Aron so closely, it really hurt when I heard, a few years later, that she'd been found guilty of trying to kill her husband. Hopefully, that aspect of the 1994 election doesn't have a repeat.

This year, I didn't actually volunteer for the campaign of Neil Cohen, but I strongly identified with him anyway. And I certainly meant it when I formally endorsed him in this blog, and on multiple occasions wrote on his behalf. But, just like Ruthann Aron, my candidate lost in the primary. Unlike Bill Brock, Eric Wargotz, who won the primary, is someone I can only support lukewarmly; there are good things about him, so I certainly will vote for him against Barbara Mikulski, but any candidate who, on the first page of his campaign literature, boasts of being a lifetime member of the NRA is someone I can't be too happy with. As I said, I will vote for him in November, but this may be the last post I will make about Eric Wargotz.

So it's not identical to 1994, but it certainly reminds me of that year.

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.

The "conservative lesbian" - so conservative it trumps her lesbianism, and anti-free-speech as well?

Cynthia Yockey blogs under the name "A Conservative Lesbian." And it is, on the one hand, a good thing to have people of other-than-straight identities demonstrating that they don't have to be left-wing politically. But she is letting her right-wing politics go beyond her self-interest, even, backing the extreme homophobe, Jim Rutledge, for the U. S. Senate seat currently held by Barbara Mikulski.

On August 2, she made a post strongly backing Rutledge. I give her the benefit of the doubt: at that time she might not have seen Rutledge's anti-homosexual rants on his website. On September 6, I posted a comment on her blog, in which I expressed surprise that a self-declared lesbian would back a vicious homophobe. Her response was to deny that Rutledge was anti-gay and say that "his opponent, Eric Wargotz" was the anti-gay one. (As is usual, she assumes that nobody but those two are serious candidates.) When I pointed out that I didn't much care for Wargotz either, but that I had seen Rutledge's website both before and after he had removed the words in question, she refused to accept my comments, essentially accusing me of lying or misremembering what I saw, and ultimately deleted my responses to her arguments — the response of someone who cannot make a logically-sound argument but just doesn't want the other side to be heard. (Please look at my earlier post, too.)

I have never deleted a comment that simply disagreed with my positions — the only things I have deleted were spam advertisements — but have instead given my side. Cynthia, apparently, knew my arguments were too powerful to refute, so simply deleted my comments.

When I first posted my comment on Cynthia's blog about Jim Rutledge's homophobia, she could have responded in two reasonable ways: she could have said "I didn't know about this; I'm withdrawing my endorsement of Rutledge!" or she could have said "I will have to continue to support him because of his stands on other issues," as I myself did with regard to Bob Ehrlich despite his positions on some transportation issues. But her response — challenging my honesty — is unacceptable.

One person who was not at all surprised by my catching Rutledge in a sudden change of position was Neil Cohen. When he read my September 8 post, he sent me an e-mail message, which included this paragraph:

I was reading your blog today and I have to tell you that you bring up a significant point about changing the web page. Jim changed his policy on oil drilling after the BP incident so I decided to shoot some screen shots of his pages. Sorry to tell you that part of his free speech page I didn't copy.

So anyone out there who have been thinking of voting for Rutledge, please be aware of his weasel-like nature.

Has Jim Rutledge changed his spots?

Until the last week in August I knew very little about the candidates who were running in next week's Maryland primary election. I knew that Bob Ehrlich was running to regain his old spot as Governor, and I knew his opponent's name was Brian Murphy, because Sarah Palin had conspicuously endorsed Murphy's candidacy. But I knew nothing at all about any of the other races on the ballot. Specifically, I did not know who was running for anything but Governor; I had seen some extremely large banners promoting Eric Wargotz for Senate, but didn't even know whether he was a Republican or a Democrat. And I think I'd seen an online ad accompanying a Google search with the name of Jim Rutledge, but knew no more than his name.

So I spent a lot of time searching out the information. As it happened, once I found out the names of the Senate candidates (the first office I decided to research), just about the first site I looked at was Rutledge's. His site had a number of hyperlinks taking up the issues in several categories; one of those was "freedom of speech." Since I've a very big interest in First Amendment issues, I went to that one first. And most of that section was devoted to a charge that people promoting the "homosexual agenda" were preventing him from being heard on the other side. I must say that the idea that this was the biggest freedom of speech issue in his estimation truly appalled me, and I recalled very little else about Rutledge after that.

A few days ago, I was looking at some blogs and I noticed that the "Conservative Lesbian" blog is supporting Rutledge, which struck me as very weird, given that he was such a vicious homophobe. So I decided to post a comment on her blog, expressing surprise that a self-identified lesbian would support someone like that. And for the purpose of directing her to the proof that he was so bad, I went to look at Rutledge's site in order to get the exact URL for the page where he made his homophobic rant about their interference with his freedom of speech. I could not find it. I guess that since he knew that the "Conservative Lesbian" blog is supporting him, he decided that he could not put his finger in her eye?

Surely Rutledge hasn't suddenly changed his mind about gay people in the middle of an election campaign, has he?

The Conservative Lesbian claims that Rutledge has not changed his site and says in her response to me that it is Eric Wargotz who used to be publicly homophobic in his campaign and has now changed his site to emphasize his economic conservatism. Perhaps so, as far as Wargotz is concerned — but as to Rutledge, I saw the anti-homosexual rant with my own eyes before I made my August 31 posting. Groucho Marx once said, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" (I first thought it was Mark Twain; sorry for the need to correct it!) Sorry, Cynthia, if you want to support Rutledge, it is certainly your right to do so, but don't try to tell me he isn't one of the most bigoted homophobes to have ever put out a Website. [She claims, apparently, that Rutledge can not be a homophobe because he has an openly gay (but economically conservative) brother who is supporting him. That doesn't cut much ice with me. Rutledge's brother may be discounting the homophobia because he loves his brother, and agrees with his economic conservatism. I happen to have a very good friend who is gay, but a practicing Roman Catholic. He has no problem, even though the Church condemns him, because he truly believes in Catholic doctrine (and one of his first lovers was a priest!)]

One thing that bothers me about the Conservative Lesbian's response is her refusal to admit that I saw what I did. Obviously, there was no reason for me to do a screen capture at the time, as I was just researching these candidates for my own decision on who to support. I had no idea I was going to run across a self-declared lesbian actually supporting Rutledge! But her response to my comment simply floors me — apparently because I can't show her a screen capture, she doesn't believe I saw what I saw!

All I can imagine is, she is so committed to Rutledge that she can't believe he is that much of a homophobe.

Glad to see it!

Although most people seem to be treating the Republican primary for U. S. Senator from Maryland as simply Wargotz vs. Rutledge, I was heartened to see, from a bus going home yesterday afternoon, a "Cohen for U. S. Senate" sign on somebody's lawn. Now I have to wait till Primary Day, however.

For more on Dr. Cohen, please look at this YouTube clip. It convinced me even more that I've made the right choice.

More on the U. S. Senate primary (continued)

I usually do not like doing even two posts in a row on the same subject, but here I'm compelled to do three.

I got an e-mail from Neil Cohen, who took me to task for implying that his candidacy was not serious. The only candidate I had used the word "quixotic" about was John Kimble, however. I certainly did not mean to imply that Dr. Cohen was not running a serious campaign; only that the people who were putting out information on the primary were writing about it as if it were a two-person race between Eric Wargotz and Jim Rutledge, which made it hard to believe that any other candidate was likely to win the nomination. But I have no poll results, and if I had, I'd have a clearer picture of who is leading.

Let me be perfectly clear. There are two reasons I might want to see a candidate nominated. Either the candidate is particularly close to me politically, or he is more likely to win against the Democrat. And on both grounds, Neil Cohen seems to be the one. Anyone who reads this blog knows what I believe in, and that in particular I've been very negative about the "social conservatives" who are taking over the Republican Party. So far, Dr. Cohen seems to be the only one who does not belong to that faction. In particular, Jim Rutledge seems to be so far out that he sees homosexuals under every mushroom, cutting off his right to speak against them. Eric Wargotz does not seem to be so far out, but he has willingly embraced the label of "social conservative." Dr. Cohen has proclaimed himself the only moderate in the race, and his positions, while differing some from mine, are far closer to mine than the others'. (I could not expect a Republican candidate for anything to agree with my position on the Second Amendment, for example. But Dr. Cohen's position, at least, doesn't seem to treat it as the absolute freedom to avoid all regulation that others make it.)

And as for electability, a far-right conservative is much less likely to be able to draw off some of the votes that Barbara Mikulski usually gets every six years than a moderate candidate. And this means any moderate has a better chance than any extremist.

So let me apologize to Dr. Cohen if it seemed I was questioning his seriousness as a candidate. Right now, in fact, I would tentatively endorse his candidacy, and the only reason the endorsement is tentative is that I still have not looked at some of the other candidates.

More on the U. S. Senate primary

I admit that with 11 candidates, I probably will not end up looking at all of them by the time I get to vote. I've seen the information about one more since my posting of yesterday: Gregory Kump. He can't seem to spell, and an interview that he gave to the Gazette does not make me very confident that he has the brains to be a Senator. But, having looked at five of the 11, I'm slowly making my choice. As I hinted yesterday, more and more, Neil H. Cohen looks like the one.

If a Republican has any hopes of taking enough votes away from Barbara Mikulski to win, he'd better not be too far right. Extreme right voters, of course, will probably vote for any Republican. But there aren't enough of those in Maryland to win. Only a moderate has any chance to peel off voters from Mikulski's right flank at all. (Besides, I'd find it harder to support an extremist than a moderate anyway.) So, both on electability and on closeness to my own thinking, Neil Cohen looks like the one to get my vote. He seems to be the only moderate in the race; his campaign literature says he is, and I haven't found anything to contradict this.

Two comments put to my post of yesterday favor Rutledge and Wargotz. But I find neither very convincing.

Primary choice

In a couple of weeks, Maryland will have its primary. While I will support former Governor Bob Ehrlich with ease, despite his position on transportation as I mentioned in my post on Aug. 11, for the Governorship, I have a dilemma in trying to pick a Senate candidate. There are eleven running in the Republican primary, none of whom I've heard of except for John B. Kimble, a perpetual candidate who ran four quixotic races against Albert Wynn for the House of Representatives. (He has also run for something just about every two years more recently. But in a Senate primary against Michael Steele 4 years ago, he won 3% of the vote! I must admit that in the more recent elections since he quit trying for the Wynn, now Edwards, seat, I was not aware of his candidacy for these offices.)



The other candidates, insofar as I can find out anything about them, are none of them very attractive to me. There is Jim Rutledge, who has been advertising some online, and so I looked him up. His website talks a lot about "freedom," which looks appealing. But one of those freedoms he's put in bold on his site is the right to bear arms, hardly something that would lead me to support him. And another, which looked a bit more reasonable, was "freedom of speech"; but it seems by his site he means the freedom to make homophobic pronouncements! What a terrible choice!



I have seen some immense campaign posters for another candidate, Eric Wargotz. And he and Rutledge seem to be the most serious candidates, according to the information I can find on the Web. But Wargotz is hardly a better choice than Rutledge. His site talks up his life membership in the NRA and his social conservatism. It doesn't seem to be as much socially conservative, though; no outright homophobia and he does talk a lot about limited government.



Of course, I've ignored 8 other candidates. Nobody takes anyone but Wargotz and Rutledge seriously, though. However, one of the others, a dentist named Neil H. Cohen, describes himself as "the only moderate in the race." And his positions on the issues are more reasonable. Though he probably has little chance, if I were voting today, he'd probably get my vote.



Still, I suppose that in November, Barbara Mikulski will beat anyone the Republicans will nominate. And that is too bad; even the worst of the Republicans would be an improvement over her.