(Been a while since I got back to my roots with some links...)
Last Tuesday, I decided to wear a purple shirt. I was pumped about the Ravens win and was in a "It's-my-birthday-so-I-can-wear-a-spiderman-shirt-if-I-want-to" mood. The only bad thing is that I wore a purple shirt on Friday. I have two purple shirts...that are now at the cleaners. Today, I have no purple shirts. It breaks my heart to have a "Less Than Purple" Friday, but I will think Purple Thoughts (which is also something my purple-loving "When-I-am-old-I-shall-wear-purple" Grandmother says).
The Brian Meshkin post seemed to have stirred the pot a little yesterday. I would say that he is a controversial character, but it looked like the feedback was overwhelmingly negative. Brian does have some real ideas (and smart ideas), but you don't get elected based on saying smart things (alone). Whether it is fair or not, a candidate's character is evaluated. My favorite quip when talking about candidates is "No one elected George Bush to deal with 9/11." Basically, the issues the candidate will face are going to be completely different from the issues that are presently on the table. That's why, as large as the Columbia Downtown bills are, I'm not interested in a candidate that makes that issue the centerpiece of their campaign. As Tom D'Asto said yesterday, it's done.
So while my post about Brian Meshkin and the comments below have supposedly been taken by Brian to be "negative campaigning" (who am I campaigning for?), I honestly believe such issues are open for discussion. If you are a chameleon, come back to me and say you are a "Coalition-builder." Either way, the concern is legitimate. If I made an attack based on the way you look or your field goal percentage (we all know Brian was captain of his high school basketball team), that's irrelevant and nasty. We are talking about how you will govern. And that's all fair.
LINKS
Speaking of candidates, this post by David Gertler just made me all the more sad that he is out of the race. I was also appreciative that our system of "politics" (not government), is not so "messed up" as to deter a great person like David from running. "Learn learn learn," brother.
As Bernstein begins to lock it down, Pat Jessamy checks her legal fund. This was one of those races that was dictated by a low turnout. I like Bernstein and, despite a very unusual personal life, I think he will do a great job in office. However, if there had been a larger turnout of your average Baltimore voter, I don't think he would have won. This race was a poli sci professor's dream study, so I imagine we will get a lot of statistics out of it.
It looks like things were a little hitchy on Tuesday. There was an article over at ExploreHoward that recounted an episode where a woman who was registered Republican was confused with her mother-in-law, who is unaffiliated, and when she asked why she was only able to voter for Board of Ed candidates, they told her of the mix up and that since her vote had been counted, she couldn't go back and vote again. I am only surprised that a certain segment of our community isn't presuming that these errors constituted 40% of the electorate that wished to vote for a certain candidate, but were unable to due to the strategic planting of developer lackeys at the polling places.
Call me a skeptic, but wouldn't it behoove incumbents to make artificially low projected revenues so that they could say revenues were coming in "much higher" in mid September? Also, despite being buried, let's not ignore this "The state is collecting less money then expected from wealthy taxpayers, who saw a hike in their rates after the 2007 special session." You mean, you can't just tax 'em and then have more money? Darn. Also buried -- the State still has a projected deficit next year. But don't worry, the headline is chipper.
Greg Fox has proposed legislation to start a commission for military veterans. When I saw this yesterday, I sent Greg a message asking whether this commission (and attendant programs) will cost the County money. I hope to talk to him about it sometime today.
HowChow inquires whether anyone has heard the rumor of a Sonic opening in Elkridge? By the way, if you ever wonder why you see so many Sonic commercials, despite the fact that (to my knowledge) there is only one in Maryland, it is because their marketing plan is to flood the market with advertising at least two years prior to setting up shop. Take your tater tots and shove...ok, yes, I would like some tater tots. I'm sorry I was stern with you.
Tell Your Neighbors reports that Conexiones is having a meet and greet fundraiser.
WB posts about Obladi, with some great pictures. This is a Beatles themed B&B...because when people think Ellicott City, they think "Beatles." Either way, next time I have family coming into town, I will definitely be referring them to the coolest rented bed in town.
Sarah gets all "Public-transportation-geeky" with a cool website to play around with.
Frank Hecker reviews the Democrat Central Committee numbers. Bottom line: If you don't have a website and/or Facebook page, you aren't trying. A further comment on Frank's post: I don't think any of the GOP Central Committee candidates had a website, although many had Facebook pages. (Correction: One of the slates did have a website, as noted below.)
That's all for now. My week has come down to a simmer to send me into the weekend. I would like to close by wishing my brother a very happy birthday! G was my first reader and one of the reasons there is still a HoCo Rising blog today. Before the days of daily posts, I was a reticent blogger. When we would meet up he would say something like "I noticed you haven't posted in a while" and we would talk about things he was interested in hearing about. He knew I liked writing, and was a great encouragement for me when I was getting ready to close shop.
