Looks like my joke at the HCC candidate forum impressed Sun reporter John Fritze.
From the Sun politcal blog:
No matter how you feel about the candidates, you have to hand it to Republican City Council candidate Mark Newgent for his sense of humilty and humor and to one of his opponents, City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, for her class. Newgent, who is running in the 14th District, got a good laugh at his speech at a community forum in Hampden the other day by opening with a little dig at his own party: "I know we're a little like the sasquatch. Often talked about but rarely seen." When MPC got up to the lecturn, she told Newgent not to worry about it: "My father was a Republican. He never voted for me once in my life."
Its not an endorsement, but I'll take it.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
RINO Alert
RINO Alert
As a candidate for city council, I routinely get email blasts from other campaigns. I assume their staffs plucked my name and email from the list of declared candidates from the state board of elections. One of the routine email blasts I get is from A. Robert Kaufmann a socialist candidate for mayor running for the Democratic nomination. Kaufmann, teaches a Johns Hopkins/Baltimore Free University course The Class Struggle and the Road to Socialism, where he "teaches" that "socialism is the only answer to the myriad of crises wrought by capitalism in its imperialist stage." At Kaufmann's campaign site , which is a myspace site, he has a Brian Davis for Baltimore City Council listed as one of his friends.
Naturally curious about the other candidates in the race I checked out Brian Davis' site. Turns out Davis is a fellow Republican, or so I thought. Davis is a Republican in Name Only or RINO. Apparently Davis is running as a Republican to avoid a Democratic primary fight. Davis says:
Davis lists Dwight Eisenhower as "the last great Republican politician I can think of," and links to and Oliver Stone type Youtube video of Ike's famous farewell address. Very similar to the opening sequence of Stone's fantasy film JFK.
Davis lists Fahrenheit 9/11 and WalMart: The High Cost of Low Prices as his favorite movies. His heroes: John F. Kennedy, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann.
His favorite books: Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter and John Dean's Conservatives without Conscience.
Let's start with the oxymoron that Davis is a declared candidate with no partisan feelings. The very act of running for office is partisan and it is quite clear where Davis' partisan leanings lie. No man who counts Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann as his heroes is non-partisan. Those two are poster boys for left-wing Democratic partisanship.
Ike is the last great Republican president he can think of? Davis must have forgotten about Ronald Reagan, even liberal historians have begrudgingly ranked Reagan in the top tier of presidents.
Brian Davis is not a conservative, he is not a Republican. If he wants to make it to the general election fine, but he should not run as a Republican because his politics clearly reside on the left. He should at least show the courage of his convictions to run as either a Democrat, a Green or an independent.
As a candidate for city council, I routinely get email blasts from other campaigns. I assume their staffs plucked my name and email from the list of declared candidates from the state board of elections. One of the routine email blasts I get is from A. Robert Kaufmann a socialist candidate for mayor running for the Democratic nomination. Kaufmann, teaches a Johns Hopkins/Baltimore Free University course The Class Struggle and the Road to Socialism, where he "teaches" that "socialism is the only answer to the myriad of crises wrought by capitalism in its imperialist stage." At Kaufmann's campaign site , which is a myspace site, he has a Brian Davis for Baltimore City Council listed as one of his friends.
Naturally curious about the other candidates in the race I checked out Brian Davis' site. Turns out Davis is a fellow Republican, or so I thought. Davis is a Republican in Name Only or RINO. Apparently Davis is running as a Republican to avoid a Democratic primary fight. Davis says:
"I'm the Republican candidate for Baltimore City Council representing the second district. I'm running as a Republican only because it's the best way to get to the general election in November... not because of any particular partisan feelings."
Davis lists Dwight Eisenhower as "the last great Republican politician I can think of," and links to and Oliver Stone type Youtube video of Ike's famous farewell address. Very similar to the opening sequence of Stone's fantasy film JFK.
Davis lists Fahrenheit 9/11 and WalMart: The High Cost of Low Prices as his favorite movies. His heroes: John F. Kennedy, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann.
His favorite books: Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter and John Dean's Conservatives without Conscience.
Let's start with the oxymoron that Davis is a declared candidate with no partisan feelings. The very act of running for office is partisan and it is quite clear where Davis' partisan leanings lie. No man who counts Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann as his heroes is non-partisan. Those two are poster boys for left-wing Democratic partisanship.
Ike is the last great Republican president he can think of? Davis must have forgotten about Ronald Reagan, even liberal historians have begrudgingly ranked Reagan in the top tier of presidents.
Brian Davis is not a conservative, he is not a Republican. If he wants to make it to the general election fine, but he should not run as a Republican because his politics clearly reside on the left. He should at least show the courage of his convictions to run as either a Democrat, a Green or an independent.
Next Campaign Event
I will attend the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello Community Corp. candidate forum
on Thursday Aug 6 at 6:30pm.
Last week I spoke at the Hampden Community Council candidate forum. I was the only Republican candidate present. However, I was not the only Republican present. David of David's Restaurant and Deli and the Hampden Republican Club introduced himself. David catered the event and it the food was delicious.
It was a pleasure to meet with my neighbors from Hampden and to listen to their concerns.
This was my first public campaign appearance and I was nervous speaking in front of seasoned Baltimore politicians. I told a joke that Republicans in Baltimore are like Big Foot or the Loch Ness monster: talked about but rarely seen. The crowd laughed and that put me at ease.
I spoke about school choice and vouchers. I posed three questions to the audience.
Raise your hand if you believe that government should regulate the safety of our food?
Do you believe in sell-by dates, printed nutritional information on packages, public health codes for restaurants?
Nearly all the audience raised their hands.
Now, would you eat at a government run restaurant or buy food at a government grocery store?
The audience all replied no. If you would not eat at a government restaurant, then why should we send our kids to failing government schools?
I then launched into the arguments for school choice.
The teacher unions and the school bureaucracy are major political players in city politics and the school system is always a political football. However, the "solutions" offered are trading one new bureaucrat for another and implementing the same bad polices dressed up in deceptive language that inevitably leads to more government and more failure.
No Child Left Behind, has its flaws, but the best way to ensure more children are left behind is to leave them to the government.
I'm not sure if my remarks translated into any votes, but I could see that it did spur on some in the audience to start thinking about the idea.
The Democratic candidates, even though we are ideological opposites, were all nice and personable when I spoke with them. There is hope that our politics can accommodate disagreement with civility.
Mary Pat Clarke, most likely my general election opponent, spoke as well. Mary Pat is the Ted Kennedy of the City Council, and I mean that in a good way. She has over 20 years of service on the council, and she serves the 14th district well.
Her first remarks were to tell me that her father was a Republican and never once voted for her. More laughs from the crowd. I hope her father can vote for me!
on Thursday Aug 6 at 6:30pm.
Last week I spoke at the Hampden Community Council candidate forum. I was the only Republican candidate present. However, I was not the only Republican present. David of David's Restaurant and Deli and the Hampden Republican Club introduced himself. David catered the event and it the food was delicious.
It was a pleasure to meet with my neighbors from Hampden and to listen to their concerns.
This was my first public campaign appearance and I was nervous speaking in front of seasoned Baltimore politicians. I told a joke that Republicans in Baltimore are like Big Foot or the Loch Ness monster: talked about but rarely seen. The crowd laughed and that put me at ease.
I spoke about school choice and vouchers. I posed three questions to the audience.
Raise your hand if you believe that government should regulate the safety of our food?
Do you believe in sell-by dates, printed nutritional information on packages, public health codes for restaurants?
Nearly all the audience raised their hands.
Now, would you eat at a government run restaurant or buy food at a government grocery store?
The audience all replied no. If you would not eat at a government restaurant, then why should we send our kids to failing government schools?
I then launched into the arguments for school choice.
The teacher unions and the school bureaucracy are major political players in city politics and the school system is always a political football. However, the "solutions" offered are trading one new bureaucrat for another and implementing the same bad polices dressed up in deceptive language that inevitably leads to more government and more failure.
No Child Left Behind, has its flaws, but the best way to ensure more children are left behind is to leave them to the government.
I'm not sure if my remarks translated into any votes, but I could see that it did spur on some in the audience to start thinking about the idea.
The Democratic candidates, even though we are ideological opposites, were all nice and personable when I spoke with them. There is hope that our politics can accommodate disagreement with civility.
Mary Pat Clarke, most likely my general election opponent, spoke as well. Mary Pat is the Ted Kennedy of the City Council, and I mean that in a good way. She has over 20 years of service on the council, and she serves the 14th district well.
Her first remarks were to tell me that her father was a Republican and never once voted for her. More laughs from the crowd. I hope her father can vote for me!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Welcome
My name is Mark Newgent I am running for the 14th District seat on Baltimore City Council. I I hope you will take a moment to look over my campaign themes and decide to contribute. Your support will help me spread my ideas and help to give a voice to new ideas for Baltimore.
Camapaign Contributions can be sent to
Citizens for Mark Newgent
3750 Beech Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21211
Contact me at MarkNewgent@comcast.net
Why I Am Running
A liberal Democratic monopoly has ruled Baltimore for more than four decades and despite the lofty rhetoric of its policy agendas, those policies have failed miserably. The Great Society programs destroyed the very foundation of a great society, the family. When you create economic incentives for mothers to have children out of wedlock and fathers to abandon their children, what do you expect the outcome to be? When the family unit dissolves, there is a ripple effect to the schools, the churches, and every other societal institution. Forty years of bad social policy has led us to this state. Yet, despite this record of accomplishment, we elect the same people with the same bad policies time and again. It is time for a change. It is time different views had a voice on the city council.
What My Campaign Is About
I am waging a campaign of ideas, conservative ideas about governance, taxes, crime, and schools. George Washington said, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible actions.” We have failed to remember this lesson. We have succumbed to the false notion that more and expansive government is the solution to all our problems, when in fact it has exacerbated them.
Since the New Deal era liberals have claimed to champion the "forgotten man" or those on the bottom rung of society. However, the true "forgotten man" is someone quite different. It is the ordinary citizen, the taxpayer. New Dealers stole the term "forgotten man" from Yale philosopher William Graham Sumner. Sumner's definition of the forgotten man was quite different from FDR.
Sumner essentially said A wants to help X, so he gets together with B to find ways to help X. However, for Sumner it is C who mattered in the equation. "I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who is never thought of...He works, he votes, generally he prays--but he always PAYS."
We are the "forgotten man." The taxes we pay to help the poor and disadvantged, only hurt us and never help the poor.
Everyone rightly believes that government should regulate the quality of our food supply. There is a need for food safety standards, sell by dates, nutritional information, and health codes for restaurants. But would you go to dinner at a government restaurant or by groceries from a government grocery store? Obviously not. Then why should we send our kids to failing government schools? No Child Left Behind has its problems, but the surest way to ensure a child is left behind is to leave them to the government.
Let government provide the subsidies and set standards and curriculum and then get out of the way of parents so they can make their own decisions about their children’s education. Charter schools and voucher programs have a proven record of producing higher achievement with less per-pupil expenditure. Its time we expanded those programs.
Crime
The crime problem in Baltimore is a direct result of the erosion of the family over the last 40 years. When social policies create incentives for out of wedlock child bearing, and abdication of fathers to provide for their families and participate in the rearing of children, you create a disastrous ripple effect that reaches out into the larger community and society. Parents instill values in their children in both active and passive ways. Value systems can be both good and bad, and children who receive bad value systems from their parents will take those value systems out into the community and vice versa. If you want to reduce crime, it starts at the family level, the police, the criminal justice system, neighborhood watch programs etc… are just a band-aid for cancer.
Overturning a generation of bad social policies will take just as long and we need to have law and order now. I believe in the zero-tolerance/broken windows approach to law enforcement.
However, that approach is not enough. We need to re-establish mutual trust and faith between the citizens and the police. This is a two way street and it requires the Police communicate and engage with the communities. We need to stop meaningless arrests for petty offenses in the name of statistics. Arresting someone sitting on their stoop enjoying a cold beer, while the local drug lord conducts his business unfettered, is unproductive. This practice only engenders community enmity toward the police and allows the true criminals to get away. Communities need to realize that the Police are on their side and that they themselves need to take a stand against the criminal element that cares not at all for human life. The good people of Baltimore need to defeat the “Stop Snitching” element within their communities.
The city and the police department need to stand with those courageous enough to take stand against the criminals. We need to provide effective witness protection. The city and the police department need to stand with those courageous enough to to bear witness against violent criminals, by providing effective witness protection.
Too many criminals receive light sentences. Prosecutors and judges need throw the book at the most dangerous criminals and put them behind bars for long sentences so they will not be free to prey on citizens after minimal or no jail time.
Baltimore is home to too many convicted sex offenders and pedophiles. Over 50 child sex-offenders reside within a one-mile radius of my daughter’s day care center and in my neighborhood a convicted sex-offender lives across the street from an elementary school. This is unacceptable. We need to do more to protect our children. We need to work for residential restrictions for convicted child sex-offenders so they cannot set up shop near schools, day care centers or parks. We need to ensure that the states attorney is prosecuting child sex offenders and using Jessica's Law to keep them behind bars and off the street.
Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)
Professionally, I am the managing editor of a new journal called Progress in Community Health Partnerships. The journal is dedicated to furthering the mission of community-academic partnerships to improve health in communities using the principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR). CBPR is a type of research that directly benefits the people studied. It actively involves the community being studied in the research. With CBPR, community-based organizations or groups not only help researchers recruit subjects they play a direct role in the design and conduct of the research study. Community members are also involved in getting the word out about the research and promoting the use of the research findings. The results of CBPR projects allow people and communities the power to address problems themselves, utilizing the knowledge of the local academic-research centers to improve their own quality of life. With The Johns Hopkins University and The University Maryland right here in Baltimore, there is a great opportunity for the city to help academic-community partnerships flourish and bring the results of their research to those who need it. CBPR works not only for health issues, but for other socio-economic issues as well such as crime prevention and literacy.
By facilitating the formation of community-academic partnerships that operate on federal or private entity funds, the city can unleash the power of individuals, communities, and the knowledge of our local universities to solve local health and socio-economic issues instead of costly and unsuccessful city funded operations.
Camapaign Contributions can be sent to
Citizens for Mark Newgent
3750 Beech Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21211
Contact me at MarkNewgent@comcast.net
Why I Am Running
A liberal Democratic monopoly has ruled Baltimore for more than four decades and despite the lofty rhetoric of its policy agendas, those policies have failed miserably. The Great Society programs destroyed the very foundation of a great society, the family. When you create economic incentives for mothers to have children out of wedlock and fathers to abandon their children, what do you expect the outcome to be? When the family unit dissolves, there is a ripple effect to the schools, the churches, and every other societal institution. Forty years of bad social policy has led us to this state. Yet, despite this record of accomplishment, we elect the same people with the same bad policies time and again. It is time for a change. It is time different views had a voice on the city council.
What My Campaign Is About
I am waging a campaign of ideas, conservative ideas about governance, taxes, crime, and schools. George Washington said, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible actions.” We have failed to remember this lesson. We have succumbed to the false notion that more and expansive government is the solution to all our problems, when in fact it has exacerbated them.
Since the New Deal era liberals have claimed to champion the "forgotten man" or those on the bottom rung of society. However, the true "forgotten man" is someone quite different. It is the ordinary citizen, the taxpayer. New Dealers stole the term "forgotten man" from Yale philosopher William Graham Sumner. Sumner's definition of the forgotten man was quite different from FDR.
Sumner essentially said A wants to help X, so he gets together with B to find ways to help X. However, for Sumner it is C who mattered in the equation. "I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who is never thought of...He works, he votes, generally he prays--but he always PAYS."
We are the "forgotten man." The taxes we pay to help the poor and disadvantged, only hurt us and never help the poor.
We need to rethink our view of government and our relationship to it. At the founding of National Review, William F. Buckley defined its mission, “to stand athwart history yelling stop!” That is my aim as well. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over, and, over again and expecting different results. That has been the recent history of Baltimore and its time to for us to yell stop.
Campaign Themes
Education
Our public school system is broken. The Baltimore City Public School System no longer functions adequately to fulfill its stated mission and vision. Bureaucrats control the system and they have abandoned the children we pay them to educate. BCPSS spends nearly $10,000 per student of taxpayer money, which is among the highest per-pupil expenditures in the country. For that amount of money, we should be seeing a good return on our investment. What do we get in return? A 35% graduation rate, a dropout rate of over 11% compared with 3% for the rest of Maryland, a bloated bureaucracy that consistently hemorrhages money and cannot even publish an accurate budget.
The parents and children of Baltimore deserve better. Parents deserve a choice in how their children are educated. My goal as a council member is to return choice and authority to parents to make decisions about their children’s education. The late Nobel winning economist Milton Friedman noted that government is bad at providing services but good at writing checks. Let us take his advice.
· Work to set up voucher programs through state and private entities to allow parents the choice to send their children to private or charter schools that actually educate our kids.
· Increase the number of charter schools so that more of our students can escape failing government schools.
Campaign Themes
Education
Our public school system is broken. The Baltimore City Public School System no longer functions adequately to fulfill its stated mission and vision. Bureaucrats control the system and they have abandoned the children we pay them to educate. BCPSS spends nearly $10,000 per student of taxpayer money, which is among the highest per-pupil expenditures in the country. For that amount of money, we should be seeing a good return on our investment. What do we get in return? A 35% graduation rate, a dropout rate of over 11% compared with 3% for the rest of Maryland, a bloated bureaucracy that consistently hemorrhages money and cannot even publish an accurate budget.
The parents and children of Baltimore deserve better. Parents deserve a choice in how their children are educated. My goal as a council member is to return choice and authority to parents to make decisions about their children’s education. The late Nobel winning economist Milton Friedman noted that government is bad at providing services but good at writing checks. Let us take his advice.
· Work to set up voucher programs through state and private entities to allow parents the choice to send their children to private or charter schools that actually educate our kids.
· Increase the number of charter schools so that more of our students can escape failing government schools.
Everyone rightly believes that government should regulate the quality of our food supply. There is a need for food safety standards, sell by dates, nutritional information, and health codes for restaurants. But would you go to dinner at a government restaurant or by groceries from a government grocery store? Obviously not. Then why should we send our kids to failing government schools? No Child Left Behind has its problems, but the surest way to ensure a child is left behind is to leave them to the government.
Let government provide the subsidies and set standards and curriculum and then get out of the way of parents so they can make their own decisions about their children’s education. Charter schools and voucher programs have a proven record of producing higher achievement with less per-pupil expenditure. Its time we expanded those programs.
Crime
The crime problem in Baltimore is a direct result of the erosion of the family over the last 40 years. When social policies create incentives for out of wedlock child bearing, and abdication of fathers to provide for their families and participate in the rearing of children, you create a disastrous ripple effect that reaches out into the larger community and society. Parents instill values in their children in both active and passive ways. Value systems can be both good and bad, and children who receive bad value systems from their parents will take those value systems out into the community and vice versa. If you want to reduce crime, it starts at the family level, the police, the criminal justice system, neighborhood watch programs etc… are just a band-aid for cancer.
Overturning a generation of bad social policies will take just as long and we need to have law and order now. I believe in the zero-tolerance/broken windows approach to law enforcement.
However, that approach is not enough. We need to re-establish mutual trust and faith between the citizens and the police. This is a two way street and it requires the Police communicate and engage with the communities. We need to stop meaningless arrests for petty offenses in the name of statistics. Arresting someone sitting on their stoop enjoying a cold beer, while the local drug lord conducts his business unfettered, is unproductive. This practice only engenders community enmity toward the police and allows the true criminals to get away. Communities need to realize that the Police are on their side and that they themselves need to take a stand against the criminal element that cares not at all for human life. The good people of Baltimore need to defeat the “Stop Snitching” element within their communities.
The city and the police department need to stand with those courageous enough to take stand against the criminals. We need to provide effective witness protection. The city and the police department need to stand with those courageous enough to to bear witness against violent criminals, by providing effective witness protection.
Too many criminals receive light sentences. Prosecutors and judges need throw the book at the most dangerous criminals and put them behind bars for long sentences so they will not be free to prey on citizens after minimal or no jail time.
Baltimore is home to too many convicted sex offenders and pedophiles. Over 50 child sex-offenders reside within a one-mile radius of my daughter’s day care center and in my neighborhood a convicted sex-offender lives across the street from an elementary school. This is unacceptable. We need to do more to protect our children. We need to work for residential restrictions for convicted child sex-offenders so they cannot set up shop near schools, day care centers or parks. We need to ensure that the states attorney is prosecuting child sex offenders and using Jessica's Law to keep them behind bars and off the street.
Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR)
Professionally, I am the managing editor of a new journal called Progress in Community Health Partnerships. The journal is dedicated to furthering the mission of community-academic partnerships to improve health in communities using the principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR). CBPR is a type of research that directly benefits the people studied. It actively involves the community being studied in the research. With CBPR, community-based organizations or groups not only help researchers recruit subjects they play a direct role in the design and conduct of the research study. Community members are also involved in getting the word out about the research and promoting the use of the research findings. The results of CBPR projects allow people and communities the power to address problems themselves, utilizing the knowledge of the local academic-research centers to improve their own quality of life. With The Johns Hopkins University and The University Maryland right here in Baltimore, there is a great opportunity for the city to help academic-community partnerships flourish and bring the results of their research to those who need it. CBPR works not only for health issues, but for other socio-economic issues as well such as crime prevention and literacy.
By facilitating the formation of community-academic partnerships that operate on federal or private entity funds, the city can unleash the power of individuals, communities, and the knowledge of our local universities to solve local health and socio-economic issues instead of costly and unsuccessful city funded operations.
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