State Roundup, September 7, 2012

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WORTH THE COST: Experienced Democratic politicos from Maryland who’ve been to as many as a dozen national political conventions say they’re worth the expense for the energy and enthusiasm they generate and the networking and information sharing they provide. They also are a legally necessary step in electing a president, writes Len Lazarick for MarylandReporter.com.

GOP’S TURN: Virginia’s Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell was dispatched to the Democratic National Convention Thursday to open fire on the Obama administration, a role much like that his neighbor Gov. Martin O’Malley played last week at the GOP convention, writes Capital News Service’s Matt Fleming in MarylandReporter.com.

FREDERICK DEMS WEIGH IN: Democrats from around Frederick gathered last night to watch President Barack Obama’s speech accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination and offered assessments, in this short piece by Cara Anthony for the Frederick News Post.

MARGIN FOR OBAMA: Delegates to the convention say they will come home energized and need to work to maintain President Obama’s margin in Maryland, and help win Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to Daniel Leaderman in the Gazette.

O’MALLEY’S FUTURE: Gov. O’Malley said yesterday that he and his wife will start to focus on his political future after the November election — but added that they are in no great hurry to figure out his plans, blogs John Wagner of the Post. There’s also video of a short interview by the Post’s Mary Jordan addressing the issue.

NIGHT OF THE MARYLANDERS: David Moon at Maryland Juice blogs about the various Marylanders who were spotlighted at the convention, including O’Malley, who grabbed headlines in both The Des Moines Register and Roll Call. Moon’s also posted video of other Marylanders’ speeches, including U.S. Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Steny Hoyer and U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski.

U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards cast her support of President Obama in very personal terms during a turn at the podium, blogs John Wagner in the Post. “He’s fighting for people like me,” said Edwards, who relayed her struggles after college as a single mom without health insurance.

SNARK ATTACK: “Martin Watcher” of the Dagger goes after O’Malley’s and his DNC speech for its … smile? Be sure to read the reader comments.

O’MALLEY ATTACKS: Gazette columnist Blair Lee says Gov. Martin O’Malley as become President Obama’s pit bull, potentially damaging the governor’s national ambitions.

In Barry Rascovar’s  Gazette column, he says O’Malley’s convention speech was a missed opportunity.

ATHEISTS LOBBY: Maryland atheists may soon have a lobbying group of their own. The Secular Coalition for America, a nonprofit that lobbies of behalf of atheists, agnostics, free thinkers and “other nontheistic Americans,” announced plans to organize a Maryland chapter to advocate in Annapolis for strong separation of church and state, reports Michael Dresser in the Sun.

REMAP BALLOT WORDING UPHELD: An Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge yesterday upheld the wording Secretary of State John McDonough approved for the congressional redistricting question to appear on the Nov. 6 ballot, reports Earl Kelly in the Capital-Gazette.

HUNGER FOR GAMBLING? The editorial board of the Sun writes that, as the campaigns for and against gambling expansion heat up, it doesn’t know whether adding a third mega-casino in the Baltimore-Washington corridor would over-saturate the market, but it has already seen signs that the appetite for gambling in Maryland is not infinite.

BARTLETT APOLOGIZES: U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett apologized for invoking the Holocaust to make a point about the role of government in education, acknowledging that he used an “extreme example” to explain his position, reports Ben Pershing in the Post.

VOTE ON ROADS: Transportation funding is likely to be a hot topic in next year’s General Assembly session, and a pair of lawmakers plan to reintroduce what could be a game-changing proposal for a constitutional amendment to allow specific projects to be put on the ballot for approval, Daniel Leaderman writes in the Gazette.

SAMPLE BALLOT: With a presidential election and seven statewide referendum questions on Maryland’s November ballot, officials are expecting voters to spend more time in the polling booth, Benjamin Ford writes in the Gazette. Election officials want to make sure the public studies sample ballots that soon will be mailed to registered voters.

 

About The Author

Cynthia Prairie

cynthiaprairie@gmail.com
https://www.chestertelegraph.org/

Contributing Editor Cynthia Prairie has been a newspaper editor since 1979, when she began working at The Raleigh Times. Since then, she has worked for The Baltimore News American, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Prince George’s Journal and Baltimore County newspapers in the Patuxent Publishing chain, including overseeing The Jeffersonian when it was a two-day a week business publication. Cynthia has won numerous state awards, including the Maryland State Bar Association’s Gavel Award. Besides compiling and editing the daily State Roundup, she runs her own online newspaper, The Chester Telegraph. If you have additional questions or comments contact Cynthia at: cynthiaprairie@gmail.com

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