Image via WikipediaI hate my neighbors! No, this is not another rant about the group of single guys that live next door to me and their propensity for playing their music so loud that my walls vibrate and I can't hear my own TV. Instead this is about my fellow citizenry in Prince Georges County Maryland, or as I like to call it, DC East.The wave of common sense that swept through the country in yesterday's election that saw one of the greatest shifts in political power in the country's history didn't extend to my state of Maryland. Prince George's County is largely to blame for that. The Democrats have such a stronghold in PG County that I don't even bother to vote in most of the county elections. The reason is that in the vast majority of those races, there is no race. There is usually a Democrat running unopposed.
There were two races that I was actively involved in some small way, shape or form; the Governor's race between Bob Ehrlich and Martin O'Malley, and the 5th Congressional race between Charles Lollar and Steny Hoyer. I was so impressed with Lollar that for the first time in my life, I had a campaign sign in my front yard. It will not be the last. There was also a Senate race between Eric Wargotz and Barbara Mikulski, but I heard practically nothing from Wargotz until just a couple weeks prior to the election.
The 5th Congressional District consists of Charles County, St. Mary's County, Calvert County, and parts of PG and Anne Arundel Counties. Last night, while watching the election returns coming in, Lollar was holding an early lead over Hoyer. At one point, with about 14% of the precincts in, Lollar still held 54% of the votes counted. Then they started counting PG County and all of a sudden Hoyer jumped out to a 65-34 lead over Lollar. In the end, Hoyer ended up with 64% of the vote and defeated Lollar by 64,000 votes. Coincidently, Hoyer received 82% of the vote in PG County, and defeated Lollar in the county by, yes, 64,000 votes.
The Governor's race wasn't much different. Out of 23 counties in the state of Maryland, Ehrlich won 19 of them. The only counties he lost were Montgomery County, Howard County, Charles County, and of course PG County. O'Malley's largest margin of victory in those counties, was in PG County where he received 88% of the vote. If it weren't for having a special needs child and needing to stay in the county to maintain his educational funding, I would be so out of here. Leaving the county for another would require starting the whole process over again in a new county.
On the other hand, news from around the country on election day was mostly positive. I was particularly pleased to see the loathsome Alan Grayson get his ass handed to him by Daniel Webster in Florida's 8th Congressional district. Also in the Sunshine state, up and coming GOP Superstar Marco Rubio clobbered the flip flopping turncoat Charlie Crist. Too bad Lisa Murkowski didn't suffer the same fate in Alaska, though that hasn't been fully decided yet.
Sure, there were some disappointments in other races around the country. Mealy mouthed Harry Reid managed to win re-election in Nevada. We still have to deal with him, but at least we can tell Nancy Pelosi what she can do with her gavel. I will close this post with a tweet that Charles Lollar sent to his followers on Twitter: "Marines don't retreat - they establish a rally point. Rest now, but prepare to regroup. This is not victory denied, but victory delayed." I am hoping that we will see and hear a lot more from Major Lollar in the years to come.
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