Maryland primary – genuine articles

Tuesday was Primary Day in Maryland, after a four-month court-ordered delay. Maryland Republican voters took the first steps toward reclaiming their State. They rejected Republicans In Name Only and selected at least two “genuine articles” for the upcoming general election.

Maryland governor’ race

Reportage on the Maryland Republican and Democratic primaries comes from:

• WJLA-TV (Channel 7, Annapolis, ABC),
• Channel 4, Washington, D.C. (NBC),
• WBAL-TV (Channel 11, Baltimore, NBC) (two reports, the other reporting on mail-in ballot counting delays),
• Vice.com, and
• NPR, from three affiliate radio stations in Baltimore, Frederick, and Ocean City.

The governor’s race in Maryland is arguably the most important race. Republican Larry Hogan is the only Republican State-wide officeholder in Maryland today. At the same time only one Democratic State-wide officeholder is seeking re-election: Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

Governor Hogan picked Kelly Schulz to succeed him. In contrast, President Donald J. Trump endorsed State Delegate Dan Cox. At last report, Mr. Cox clearly leads with 56 percent of the vote. The Democratic governor’s race is too close to call. Why the difference? Mail-in ballots, that’s why. Modern Democrats vote by mail in numbers out of proportion to their registrations. CNAV has also shown that mail-in ballots skew Democrat in general elections. Governor Hogan vetoed an “emergency” bill that would have let election officials start counting mail-in ballots earlier than now. Counting of those ballots may not begin until 10:00 this morning, and ballots can still come in through Friday of next week.

Who is Dan Cox?

Tellingly, Delegate Cox made election integrity one of his major campaign themes. He wants to make Maryland a voter ID State and eliminate “unverified” mail-in ballots.

He also sounded a pro-life theme, and a program to:

Protect our God-given individual rights of life, liberty and property, including Bill of Rights protected freedoms such as First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth amendments.

All these themes take on even greater importance given relevant Supreme Court rulings in the 2021 Term. In blunt fact, the Supreme Court has reverted to the States many questions that relate directly to Mr. Cox’ themes. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization arguably tops the list. But Carson v. Makin should tell him to start now to campaign to repeal Maryland’s Blaine Amendment. By any reasonable read of the Carson case, Maryland’s Blaine Amendment is unconstitutional.

Furthermore, Maryland is a “may-issue” gun State. For that reason, one of retiring Attorney General Frosh’s permit denials is back in the Fourth Judicial Circuit on a grant-vacate-remand order. People should ask Candidate Cox whether he will work to repeal Maryland’s discretionary permit system and install a shall-issue system.

The Maryland Attorney General race

This, of course, brings us to Maryland’s Attorney General’s race. Brian Frosh, the incumbent, decided not to seek re-election. The Democrats seem to have nominated Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.-4th), with nearly sixty percent of the vote.

The Republicans nominated Michael Peroutka, with 58 percent of the vote. His campaign site lists the campaign issues most important to him. One can readily see that he will definitely not enforce Maryland’s may-issue gun law. He also embraces the pro-life ideology. Maryland has a 1992 law that allows endings of pregnancies to the time of “viability.” Michael Peroutka would not enforce that, either.

The most remarkable campaign theme is his plan for a wave of prosecutions of local officials who, he says, have exceeded their lawful authority. The context for these prosecutions will be pandemic-related quarantine and other measures.

Of what his detractors say about him, the less said the better. All but one thing: his enemies admit that he has not changed. The Republican base, they say, has changed, and grown bold enough to embrace him.

In fact, he comes from the Constitution Party, and ran for President on that ticket in 2004. But the Constitution Party split in 2006, after the Nevada chapter started supporting abortion. He’s been a Maryland Republican since 2014 and spent four years on the Anne Arundel City Council.

The U.S. Senate race

Maryland does have a United States Senate seat “up” this fall. Chris Van Hollen holds the seat today, and has easily won renomination.

Chris Chaffee seems to be a perennial Senate candidate, according to VoteSmart. He ran against Senator Hollen six years ago. Four years ago he ran against Ben Cardin, the other (and actually senior) Senator from Maryland.

Mr. Chaffee does not seem to have his own campaign Web site. VoteSmart shows his positions, including:

• Smaller government with less regulation,
• Respect for the Second Amendment,
• Eliminating anything that smacks of socialized medicine, and
• Ending government involvement in education.

Has the Maryland Republican Party changed?

Arguably it has, given especially the results in the Governor’s and Attorney General’s race. The Senate race is more difficult to evaluate, because we know so little about the apparent Republican nominee. Unlike Dan Cox and Michael Peroutka, Chris Chaffee did not win a runaway majority.

Why any Republican has held the governorship at all, is even more difficult to guess. No Republican has served as Attorney General of Maryland for sixty-eight years. Indeed, only four Republicans have held the post since the last “Whig” Attorney General, Andrew K. Syester, left the post in 1875.

Perhaps Maryland’s Republicans have never seriously contested the office of Attorney General. Perhaps they regarded it as a largely apolitical office. But if that were ever the case, it is not the case today. We have seen Attorneys General in many States simply refuse to fight certain kinds of crime. They do so on the explicitly socialistic theory that:

A thief is an irregular wealth-redistribution agent.

This election is different. For one thing, the Supreme Court has encouraged defenders of life and liberty to be bolder. Their striking-down of a 109-year-old may-issue gun law in New York sent shockwaves throughout the ranks of would-be gun confiscators. Moreover the Court has struck down centuries of anti-liberty and anti-religious precedent.

For another, the federal government has nastily politicized everything. When they did that they destroyed the notion of believing an expert because said expert is an expert.

Looking for boldness

So clearly Republicans are looking for bold candidates, who will not apologize for defending life, liberty and property. They seem to have selected two such candidates, in Dan Cox and Michael Peroutka. If so, perhaps they drew the moral from their Pennsylvania counterparts, who nominated Senator Doug Mastriano for Governor.

Legacy media commentators who fret (or maybe gloat) that Republicans have nominated “extreme” candidates, miss the point. The days when people took their politics from Broderick Crawford movies (like All the King’s Men, 1949) are over. Modern politics is personal. If Barack Obama didn’t make it personal, Joe Biden certainly did.

Furthermore, a movie you can turn off, or get up and walk out of. How do you walk out of a government that can decide that you don’t “need” to defend yourself? Or one that makes you pay double tuition because you believe in God?

Some will also make much of Michael Peroutka’s affiliation with a secessionist organization. I submit that secessionism is obsolete. The 2021 Supreme Court Term shows we need not cede one square inch of territory to the enemies of freedom. Maryland Republicans know this. Of if they didn’t, Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) could tell them.

For those reasons, CNAV salutes Dan Cox, Michael Peroutka, and Maryland Republican voters who went on a big RINO Hunt, bagged the limit, and nominated some genuine-article defenders of life, liberty and property.