It’s not at all accurate to say that the Republican wave missed Maryland or that the MDGOP failed.
Yes, we didn’t win back the governor’s seat, we didn’t win the U.S. Senate race, and Andy Harris was the only Congressional seat to flip to our favor. But that ignores many wins farther down the ticket by Republican candidates.
At the local level, many jurisdictions flipped to Republican control. In Queen Anne’s County, where I live, local government not only flipped from from having 1 Republican out of 5 County Commissioners to an all Republican board, but only 3 Democrats won (Doug Gansler, Lance Richardson, and Winsie Cannon), and the first two were unopposed while the Republican candidate didn’t really campaign much against Winsie.
Besides Queen Anne’s Allegany, Anne Arundel, Calvert, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, St. Mary’s, Talbot, Washington, Wicomico and Worcester Counties all also came out of the 2010 elections with Republican controlled governments. Several of those, such as Talbot haven’t had Republican controlled county government in years. And that’s only looking at the top of local government races. Besides County Commissioners/Council Members/etc. there were also numerous other races for positions like Sherriff, Register of Wills, State’s Attorney, and so on that were won by Republican candidates across the state.
And that is fantastic news. A strongly charismatic figure and/or someone with a well-oiled campaign machine can win at the top of the ticket, even in a state counter to their views. But they’re only going to be around for a couple of terms and after that things will go back to being the way they are.
On the other hand, by picking up lots of local government seats we laid the groundwork for a stable and long-term conservative resurgence in Maryland. It is only by having a strong and widespread realization of governance according to the principles of limited government and individual liberty that we will help turn around Maryland at the state level. This is a long-term project and it would be foolish to expect such a thing to occur overnight.
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[...] Overdue Election Piece, Part 3 18 11 2010 In Part 2 of my 2010 MD Election Response I explained why it’s not accurate to say the conservative [...]
Kevin: You are spot on about a win at the top of the ticket only changing things for a couple of terms… A GOP Governor can only delay the inevitable and generally not for a term or two, but until the General Assembly overrides his veto. I think it is more important to have local control. Afterall, that is where the really important decissions are made.