Tag Archives: Allen Kittleman

2018 Elections, Howard County

Kittleman’s Class Act

Allen Kittleman and Calvin Ball

In today’s America, too many politicians are teaching the lesson that when you lose an election, the proper response is cry fraud and accuse nefarious dark forces of stealing the election.

On election night, Howard County Executive Allen Kittleman (R) showed the content of his character when he not only conceded but came to Councilmember Calvin Ball’s (D) victory party to concede in person and give him a hug.

Way beyond what is required but Kittleman has always been a class act and respectful man. What a wonderful service for the outgoing county executive to provide his constituents. What a powerful image of how politics can be.

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2018 Elections

Your Election Night County Executive Scorecard

Eight Maryland counties elect county executives. These powerful offices are the equivalent of being mayor of a city. Incumbents are seeking reelection in five counties.

State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks is sure to win in Prince George’s where the Democratic nomination is tantamount to election.

Baltimore County has quite the race between John Olszewski, Jr. and Al Redmer. Republicans think they have this one, partly due to the enormous margins Hogan is expected to rack up. But Olszewski has unified Democrats and is pulling out all the stops. Democrats think he’ll win this one.

In Anne Arundel and Howard, Democrats are running unexpectedly lively challenges to two favored Republican incumbents. In Anne Arundel, development is a major issue, as are incumbent Steve Schuh’s occasional wanderings into more right-wing rhetoric on non-county issues.

Allen Kittleman in Howard has a more moderate profile but faces a more Democratic electorate. Additionally, Howard has exactly the highly educated profile of places that are swinging hard to the Democrats this year.

Despite challenges, both Anne Arundel and Howard lean Republican and it will an upset if Democrats win either. Based on past election statistics and the political leanings of each county, Schuh ought to be harder to defeat. But Kittleman has carefully tailored his profile to his county.

Montgomery has more of a race than usual. Councilmember Floreen has abandoned the Democrats to run as an independent. Though she often voted with Elrich on the Council, Floreen argues that Marc Elrich is too hostile to business. Republicans are left with perennial candidate Robin Ficker.

Elrich should win easily notwithstanding ongoing hostility from the Washington Post and their support for Floreen. Despite an influx of cash into Floreen’s campaign coffers, her campaign has just not been visible enough to make the case against Elrich needed in order to persuade the overwhelmingly Democratic electorate to defect to her in sufficient numbers.

In contrast, Elrich has attacked Floreen as a tool of developer interests and maintained good pre-election contact with Democrats. As a former council president, Floreen represents the status quo in a year when voters seem ready for change.

Even if Floreen does well in the less Democratic upcounty, she will still have to contend with the heavily Democratic crescent that contains far more voters. There are just too many loyal Democrats and not enough has been done to peel them off.

Finally, portions of Floreen’s campaign seem designed to alienate Republicans and she needs their support. Floreen has repeatedly identified herself as lifelong Democrat and publicized photos with Hillary Clinton. Neither seem likely to woo Republicans. Since Republicans have shown themselves willing to reject Ficker, I’m not sure it was the best approach.

I can’t say I know enough about the remaining races to make any strong predictions. In Frederick, Del. Kathy Afzali is challenging incumbent County Exec. Jan Gardner in what I imagine is a hard fought race in this purple county. Harford and Wicomico are the sorts of places that tend to elect Republicans countywide.

Now, I’m heading out to go vote. If you haven’t done the same, I encourage you to join me at the polls!

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Republicans

Bankrupt, Homophobic Wayne DuPree Speaking at GOP Convention

Dupreetweete

Apparently, his appearance with the Maryland College Republicans was a hit and is now being followed up with a speech at the Maryland Republican Convention in Ocean City.

Literally and Morally Bankrupt

This anti-government pick-yourself-up-by your-bootstraps-guy filed for bankruptcy in 2014. So this hypocrite took advantage of the same laws that Republicans regularly deride. DuPree is also no stranger to foreclosure proceedings on property that he owns (see here, here, here, and here). Ironically, this debtor has no compunction about attacking people on welfare as “takers” and thinks unemployed people are lazy who don’t want to work.

Gays are “Sick” and “Perverts”

This (divorced) ardent homophobe defended Dr. Ben Carson’s lumping together of” bestiality with gay marriage” and then upped the ante by lumping gays with pedophiles and necrophiles:

Anyways the Dr. is right… Marriage is for ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ people… and in no way should it be degenerated into a ‘contract’ between ‘whatever’ and ‘whatever’ be they GBLT or pedophiles, zoophiles, necrophiles, etc. The obsession of the GBLTs is that in their minds everyone has to agree with their delusion of reality. You don’t see religious people wanting EVERYONE to believe in their version of reality. Live and let live. Stick to civil unions and fight for all the rights you may want… the desire to change the meaning of a word is a SICK desire to pervert a word defined/designed to PROTECT children and women and convert it into a word that is a selfish right… not caring at all for the rights of the children nor the women.

A past CPAC blogger of the year, DuPree believes that gays and lesbians can be “healed” after speaking in tongues at a church service, as stated in the title of his blog post with this video:

Similarly, he advertised the story of a “Former Lesbian Christian Rapper says Gays Can Change Like She Did.”

Debate I’d Like to See

I’d love to see a debate between Howard County Executive Allen Kittleman and Wayne DuPree. It would be interesting to see if young Republicans think which one of these two holds the views that are the past or the future of their party.

Regardless, it certainly places people like the Montgomery County Young Republicans, who would liked to be perceived as tolerant, in an awkward position. The MoCo YRs recently tweeted this at me regarding LGBT rights:

MoCoYrsTolerance

You can’t tout tolerance and have Wayne Dupree speak at your convention.

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2014 Elections, County Government

GOP Moves Forward in Six Counties

The Republicans had a good Tuesday night, capturing the governor’s mansion and making gains, albeit limited, in both houses of the General Assembly. The GOP also made gains in six counties. Summing up the night–they went from 25% to 44% of county executives and from 54% to 56% of council seats.

The most exciting pickups for the Republicans are the two county executives, including taking the top chair in red-leaning Wicomico, But the Republicans had a real coup with Alan Kittleman’s victory in Howard–an increasingly Democratic county that went for Hogan as well as Kittleman.

County Councils

Republicans also made gains in four county councils: Baltimore, Harford, St. Mary’s, and Talbot. In the latter three, the Republicans knocked all of the remaining Democrats by taking their last two seats in Harford and one seat in St. Mary’s and Talbot. In Baltimore, the Democratic majority shrank from 5-2 to 4-3 with the loss of retiring Councilmember John Olszewski Senior’s seat.

The one bright spot of the night was Frederick. Though the two Democratic Youngs won, the tea-party Republican son of Sen. Young lost the battle to become Frederick’s first county executive. The Democrats also picked up two seats on the new expanded Council. One Republican seat is sufficiently close that there is an outside chance that absentees could flip it to the Democrats.

The same four jurisdictions completely dominated by the Democrats before the election–Baltimore City, Charles, Montgomery, and Prince George’s–remain so afterwards.  Republicans wholly controlled eight counties before the election: Allegany, Calvert, Caroline, Carrol, Cecil, Garrett, Queen Anne’s, and Washington. They have now added three more with Harford, St. Mary’s, and Talbot for a total of 12–a majority of all of the 23 jurisdictions, though certainly not the most populous ones.

The partisan state of play remains unchanged in purple Anne Arundel, Dorchester, Kent, Somerset, and Worcester. Anne Arundel will have the interesting challenge of dealing with secessionist theocrat Michael Peroutka on the Council. And just when they hoped things were finally settling down after the rather eventful departure of disgraced County Executive John Leopold.

No Councils flipped control. However, Howard’s Democratic majority will face a Republican executive, while Wicomico now has unified government with a Republican executive and council.

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Marijuana

Marijuana Friday Vote

The bill to decriminalize marijuana use passed the Maryland Senate today by a vote of 36-8. The bill was sponsored by Sens. Zirkin and Kittleman.

Voting YEA: Miller (D), Astle (D), Brinkley (R), Brochin (D), Conway (D), Currie (D), DeGrange (D), Feldman (D), Frosh (D), Glassman (R), Jacobs (R), Jennings (R), Jones-Rodwell (D), Kasemeyer (D), Kelley (D), King (D), Kittleman (R), Klausmeier (D), Madaleno (D), Manno (D), McFadden (D), Middleton (D), Montgomery (D), Muse (D), Peters (D), Pinsky (D), Pugh (D), Ramirez (D), Raskin (D), Reilly (R), Rosapepe (D), Shank (R), Stone (D), Young (D), and Zirkin (D).

Voting NAY: Colburn (R), Dyson (D), Getty (R), Gladden (D), Hershey (R), Mathias (D), Robey (D), and Simonaire (R)

Not Voting: Benson (D), Edwards (R), and Forehand (D).

The bill now goes to the House of Delegates for consideration. The major challenge in the House is getting the bill past Judiciary Chairman Joe Vallario (D), who is not keen.

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LGBT, transgender rights

Fairness for All Marylanders Act Passes Senate

The Fairness for All Marylanders Act (FAMA) easily passed the Senate on a 32-15. Sponsored by Sen. Rich Madaleno (D 18) and strongly supported by floor leader Sen. Jamie Raskin (D 20), the bill protects the rights of transgender Marylanders.

The bill was earlier amended by the Senate to strengthen it after it had been weakened, though passed, by the Judicial Proceedings Committee. The bill now heads over to the House of Delegates, which has passed versions of this legislation in previous sessions.

The passage of marriage equality and then the referendum vote by the people of Maryland in favor of it seems to have taken the sting out of LGBT legislation. There is a lot lest angst about voting for this relatively straightforward anti-discrimination bill now that the tide has turned on the LGBT issue which attracts the most press.

Sen. Kittleman (R 9, Howard) was the only Republican to vote yes. Four Democrats voted no: Sens. Astle (D 30, Anne Arundel), De Grange (D 32, Anne Arundel), Dyson (D 29, Calvert, Charles, St. Mary’s), and Mathias (D 38, Somerset, Wicomico, Worcester).

Kittleman voted for the marriage bill and is probably the Republican who represents the most pro-marriage Republican district, as Howard voted strongly for marriage equality. More surprising are the no votes by two Anne Arundel Democrats. Anne Arundel also voted for marriage equality, and presumably more strongly in areas prone to elect Democrats.

The no votes by two Democrats hailing from southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore shock less. Marriage equality lost in both of their districts, though with more support than one might expect. Here is how the Senate voted:

YEA: Miller, Benson, Brochin, Conway, Currie, Feldman, Ferguson, Forehand, Frosh, Gladden, Jones-Rodwell, Kasemeyer, Kelley, King, Kittleman (R), Klausmeier, Madaleno, Manno, McFadden, Middleton, Montgomery, Muse, Peters, Pinsky, Pugh, Ramirez, Raskin, Robey, Rosapepe, Stone, Young, Zirkin.

NAY: Astle (D), Brinkley, Colburn, De Grange (D), Dyson (D), Edwards, Getty, Glassman, Hershey, Jacobs, Jennings, Mathias (D), Reilly, Shank, Simonaire.

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