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!