Welcome to another week of The Runback. Have you been enjoying The Duckpin? Do you have comments or suggestions? Do you want to write for us? Let me know at theduckpin@gmail.com. And please be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Thanks in advance.
2022 Candidate Information
We have launched a one-stop shop for candidate information for the 2022 Election. Bookmark this page, as it will be updated through the 2022 Election. This includes our first round of candidate surveys, which include Julie Quick for Caroline County Central Committee, David Lashar for Governor, and more.
Chalk Session
On this week's show, we analyze a spot from James Tarantin, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland
News and Politics
Democratic Polling Firm Push Polls Maryland GOP Primary: Public Policy Polling Pushing Cox Endorsement in Poll
Five Dollar Gas? Biden's Raskin Fed Pick Stokes Inflation Fears: Even higher gas pump prices are coming if Raskin gets her way on the Fed
Herb McMillan's Campaign Finance Pedantry: McMillan makes an accurate, albeit somewhat misleading, claim about campaign funds.
Why Will Some Republicans Not Seek Good Scientific Medical Information? For some, ideology Trumps good Scientific Evidence
A Waste of Time: Why is Maryland GOP National Committeeman David Bossie pushing a silly resolution aimed at Congress? You know why...
Sports
The OCHO: Divisional Weekend: Be sure to look out for the latest edition of The OCHO later today!
NFL Mystery Box: Conference Championship Edition: Do you smell it? It’s the Super Bowl.
Shameless Plug
My latest for The Capital and the Carroll County Times: In the governor’s race, Democrats raise their money outside of Maryland.
Do you know who the Republican nominees for Governor have been since 1950? Try the quiz.
The Monday Thought
Have you taken a look at the Republican field for U.S. Senate right now?
There’s John Berman, who is running in multiple states.
There’s George Davis, who supports D.C. retrocession.
There’s Nnabu Eze, who has run before and was once a Green Party Candidate.
There’s Jon McGreevey, whose Twitter handle was suspended for being a QAnon follower.
There’s James Tarantin, who I’m not sure isn’t just running for influencer instead of the U.S. Senate.
Of course Tarantin is also running wild Facebook ads like this one that was actually taken down by Facebook for violating their ad policies:
And there’s John Thormann, about whom I know nothing other than that he is a “contractual consultant”
That’s it. That’s the field. There is nobody in the field that can post anything beyond a baseline Republican number of 33-35% against Chris Van Hollen.
More than most years, a good Republican candidate can overperform expectations due to the negative view that a lot of voters, even Democrats, have of Joe Biden’s performance to date. Plus, it isn’t like Chris Van Hollen is some sort of beloved statewide figure. He’s just a party apparatchik who happens to be a U.S. Senator right now.
National Republicans keep trying to convince Governor Larry Hogan into the race. Obviously, Hogan would be a very VERY credible candidate and can beat Van Hollen head-to-head. But I remain unconvinced that the Governor wants to be a U.S. Senator. I don’t think he wants to be one of a hundred. But I do think that running for Senate and beating Van Hollen would give him quite the national profile if he wants to pursue the Presidency in 2024. But I still don’t think he actually will run.
But what I do know is this; that a competent conservative who can quickly raise a few dollars and get some backers behind them would easily beat this field. And a competent conservative who can hold their own in a campaign against Van Hollen would certainly do well to help (or at least not hurt) the chances of Kelly Schulz, Barry Glassman and others in the general election.
Maryland can do better than the motley crew currently in that race.