No Tea Party Here

Here in Maryland, there is no sign of a populist revolt. All of the Tea Party-linked challengers to established Republicans were defeated in the primary; Brian Murphy took on former governor Bob Ehrlich with a platform of radical tax cuts, but despite an endorsement from Sarah Palin he got only 24% of the vote. The only interesting race was for the right to take on Senator Barbara Mikulski; since she is all but guaranteed to win re-election no establishment Republicans bothered to run. Even there, the modestly kooky Eric Wargotz, who mainly wants to lock up more criminals for longer, defeated a slate of anti-evolution, anti-government, pro-gold standard guys.

Now the Washington Post has the first polling of the fall on the general election match-ups, and it looks like a sweep for incumbents. In the governor's race, we have a rematch of last time, with Ehrlich returning to take on the man who ousted him in the last race, Democrat Martin O'Malley. O'Malley has opened a comfortable lead; Ehrlich has the support of almost all Republicans and a majority of Independents, but O'Malley is getting more than 80% of Democrats and in Maryland, that is enough.

It is no mystery why politics in Maryland are so boring: we have no recession. Our biggest industry is the federal government, and the more money they spend to pull the country out of the slump, and the more they pump into the military-industrial complex, the better things go for us. Since we have no real problems, but can turn on the news and see how bad things are in some other states, we have no reason to turn against the established leadership.

People are so predictable sometimes.