20061202 Feedback on a previous Liberty Republican Club post

Feedback on a previous post 20061130 Doug Howard's Liberty Republican Club,

and who was positive or negative and when.

December 2nd, 2006

I’ve received some feedback on the post titled: “20061130 Doug Howard's Liberty Republican Club,” in which I said “The other conservative candidate who went over well was Dennis Beard and many hope that he will stay involved in the county also. He also stayed positive.”

No one who has called or e-mailed disagreed that Mr. Beard was not conservative, but many called to my attention that it was not their perception that Mr. Beard stayed positive.

Some worried as to whether or not Mr. Beard was conservative enough – especially in light of the support he received in the general election from some of the more liberal and moderate members of the Republican Party.

After some peeling away the layers of this onion, it has been represented that much of the negative campaigning was done by the Democratic Central Committee of Carroll County or third party proxies, and that Mr. Beard followed-up on that negative campaigning in his campaign at the debates and in person.

One person called to my attention an ad in which a candidate’s children were even drug into the fray. Ay caramba.

I did not personally witness Mr. Beard going negative

I also had it reinforced that some folks who were initially inclined to vote for him, did not vote for him after they witnessed him going negative and/or they discovered that the leadership of the Freedom Area Citizens Council and the liberal Republican Mount Airy Mayor were supporting him.

Whatever. To be certain, I have certainly had my differences with the current Mount Airy mayor, but I’m not too sure he’s that liberal.

I will agree with many who wish the leadership Freedom Area Citizens Council would be less polarizing and divisive. It is about as close to “local government” as it seems that we are going to get in Eldersburg for the foreseeable future. (I have always supported municipal incorporation for Eldersburg. It would be a win-win for everyone.)

Ultimately, in the last election, looking at it from a political science perspective, the main mistake the coalition of Carroll County Dems and liberal Republicans made was running three commissioner candidates; which split the vote among folks who wanted to vote for another moderate conservative to work with incumbent commissioners Julia Gouge and Dean Minnich.

As the past election campaign wore on, anecdotally it appears that many folks tuned the campaign out. I certainly did.

However, just like many folks, with whom I consulted, many did not want to get involved as folks who practice the politics of “outrage” are not comfortable with just saying that they agreed with this or that, but felt it necessary to personally attack the person, the individual’s family, church and profession when expressing disagreement.

Ultimately, many of us have rejoiced that the election is over and want so desperately to begin anew and rekindle a pleasant and positive broad sweeping discussion on the issues with as many ideas brought forth as possible so that we may weigh and measure what is the best approach for most Carroll Countians.

We can always hope.

Kevin

For more discussion, click on: "Civility."