Alex Mooney, A Movement Conservative, Becomes Chairman of MD GOP

Over the weekend, Maryland GOP Central Committee members met in Annapolis to elect a new leadership.  With the state party is disarray, the most important thing was to elect a leader who is one of us.  That is to say, somebody who views themselves as a movement conservative, and not a big government political hack with an R next to their name.  The two front-runners were former state Senator Alex Mooney and Ehrlich running mate Mary Kane.  Thankfully, Alex Mooney is the new chairman.

According to the Washington Post, Mooney lead on the first ballot but failed to garner a majority.  He defeated Rino Mary Kane by 362-219.  John Kane, husband of Mary Kane and former state party chairman himself expressed his dismay over the election of a conservative.  "I believe it's clearly a step back to an uncompromising and uninviting environment that clearly didn't work in the past and won't work in the future, said Kane".  This tells us everything we need to know about the results.  I wasn't quite sure how much animosity Kane held towards conservatives, but now it is abundantly clear that we made the right decision.



It is amazing to watch how RINOs operate.  They run uninspiring campaigns and sound little different than their Democrat opponents.  Then, when they inevitably lose the election, they blame their failure on conservatives and stress the need to move even farther to the left.  One of Bob Ehrlich's legal aides wrote an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun advocating that the Republicans can win only by....becoming Democrats.  It appears that Mary Kane attempted to do the same thing with her bid as party chairman.

The bottom line is that winning with the Republican label is hard in blue states, irrespective of political ideology.  Ehrlich ran an uninspiring campaign with no conservative philosophy and still got crushed.  How much further to the left do they want us to campaign?  They don't realize that the blacks will not vote for any R, period.  In fact, in theory, if a Democrat who is slightly less liberal than a Republican would run for the same office, the blacks and other hard core Democrats would still vote for the Democrat.  Liberal Republicans will not pick up any one of those votes.

The only way for Republicans to win is by converting independents.  You never accomplish that by blurring the distinction between the parties.  You win their vote by inspiring them with something new and different from what the Democrats have to offer.  We ran such moderate Republicans in California, who spent fortunes on their moderate platform.  They got crushed.  Ehrlich aid, Chrysovalantis P. Kefalas, wrote in his commentary, "Reviving the Republicans", "Mr. Ehrlich lost the way he did because Republicans cannot gain any traction in Baltimore City and Montgomery and Prince George's counties".  What he fails to mention is that Ehrlich also lost his own jurisdiction of Baltimore County.  This is the first time a Republican has lost that county in 20 years!  Ehrlich also turned in a dismal performance in some other traditionally red counties.  The reality is that Ehrlich ran an uninspiring campaign and failed to nationalize the election.  Candidates who run such campaigns will lose irrespective of their ideology.

We need more people like Alex Mooney to represent us in Maryland.  Alex Mooney represented Fredrick in the state Senate for 12 years and has amassed a stalwart conservative voting record.  He has also shown himself to be a solid fundraiser, a skill that is imperative for any party state chairman.