How did Arundel Mills voters vote on the 2008 slots referendum?

This is a map of Anne Arundel County voting precinct 1-22-32, which contains Arundel Mills Mall and the areas around it.  The boundaries are Ridge Road and Arundel Mills Blvd on the east, MD-175 on the south, the train tracks on the western county border, and MD-100 on the north.

The people that live in this precinct (and to some extend, the neighboring precincts to the east which we'll get to later) are said to be those who are most opposed to a slots casino adjacent to the Arundel Mills Mall.  So it would be interesting to know: how did these people vote in 2008 on the statewide ballot question that authorized slots?  As a reminder, here is the text that was on the ballot:

Authorizing Video Lottery Terminals (Slot Machines) to Fund Education

Authorizes the State to issue up to five video lottery licenses for the primary purpose of raising revenue for education of children in public schools, prekindergarten through grade 12, public school construction and improvements, and construction of capital projects at community colleges and higher education institutions. No more than a total number of 15,000 video lottery terminals may be authorized in the State, and only one license may be issued for each specified location in Anne Arundel, Cecil, Worcester, and Allegany Counties, and Baltimore City. Any additional forms or expansion of commercial gaming in Maryland is prohibited, unless approved by a voter referendum.

While this ballot question did not list specific locations, some voters in Anne Arundel County believed that Laurel Park would be the most logical choice, and apparently voted accordingly.  Let's take a look at the final certified votes for Anne Arundel County voting precinct 1-22-32 in 2008 on the statewide ballot question:

1-22-32: 1393-904 (60.64%-39.36%)

Now let's also include the results of the three precincts directly east of this one:

1-06-32: 806-453 (64.02%-35.98%)
1-05-32: 570-403 (58.58%-41.42%)
1-20-32: 984-641 (60.55%-39.45%

For the sake of this post, we'll call these four precincts "Arundel Mills voters."  Now let's take a look at the aggregate totals:

Arundel Mills voters: 3753-2401 (61.0%-39.0%)
Anne Arundel County: 149,604-103,814 (59.0%-41.0%)
Maryland 1,482,295-1,043,129 (58.7%-41.3%)

In other words, Arundel Mills voters voted for slots in a greater proportion as Anne Arundel County as a whole, and even more so than compared to voters statewide.  These are the same voters who are supposedly outraged at the Cordish proposal set to be built adjacent to Arundel Mills Mall.  There is a name for these sorts of people who claim to support things, but then turn around and oppose them when they realize that it's being built close to them: NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).

Regardless of the outcome next month, it will be interesting to see what the true level of support and opposition is in these precincts.

More change you can believe in!

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will break a campaign pledge and sign a budget bill laden with millions in lawmakers' pet projects, administration officials said.

"Change is coming"

130 tons of trash was left on the Mall in DC following Obama's inauguration.

"Oh say can you..." what?!

Is this what we can expect when the Democrats meet in Denver for the Democratic National Convention?

No shortage of money

While I do not watch TV very much, I came across a Barrack Obama ad last night. Living in Maryland, a state that will undoubtedly go for Obama in November, I guess I should admit I was a little bit surprised. Running general election ads in a safe state in July seems like a waste of money. Then again, Obama appears to be rolling in it, so why not spend it?

Straight Talk Express in PA

No photograph, but I caught a view of John McCain's "Straight Talk Express" heading east on Interstate 81 just outside of Harrisburg (PA) on Sunday. No other vehicles apparently traveling with it. However, John McCain himself was in Pennsylvania on Monday (yesterday).

Obama's uncle liberated Auschwitz?!

Trivia

An interesting trivia question: When was the last time a Democratic candidate for President got more than 50% of the popular vote?

The more things change, the more things stay the same

Back on November 9, 2006, I reported on one of the earliest potential R vs. D matchups:

McCain 48%
Clinton 43%

The most recent numbers from Rasmussen Reports:

McCain 50%
Clinton 42%

Is it not just a little surprising that after nearly a year and a half, countless numbers of debates, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on advertising, the rise and fall and rise of John McCain...the numbers are almost the same!

"Barack the Baby"

If you haven't heard of Senator Barrack Obama yet, where have you been?

The media has been focused on the Illinois Senator as the biggest possible challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008. His books are both bestsellers. But before you think Obama is the answer in 2008 take a look at this interesting article by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann:

In reading Senator Barack Obama’s #1 bestseller, The Audacity of Hope, one begins to wonder whether he is another cynical politician or just a helplessly naïve neophyte.

After a few chapters, one actually has the audacity to hope that it is his inexperience — and nothing sinister — that accounts for his sometimes silly and often misleading narrative. Anyone who is that naive should not be a U.S. Senator, much less the president.

Obama is a uniquely charismatic candidate who has catapulted into second place among democratic primary voters, forcing Hillary Clinton to hastily abandon her coy pretense that she hasn’t made a decision about whether to run. He inspires people by his story, his demeanor and his message.

But if his book offers a window into the real Barack Obama, one thing is certain: He has a long way to go before he is ready for the presidency. He’s only been in the U.S. Senate for two years and before that, he was a state senator and a professor of constitutional law. He’s never been an administrator, met a payroll, developed a budget, or solved a crisis. It’s not only his greenness that sends out warnings; at times, he doesn’t seem to grasp the implications of all that he writes. At other times, his words have a distinct disconnect with his actions and legislative record.

Sometimes he sounds downright juvenile. Consider this missive, which opens chapter five: “One thing about being a U.S. Senator - you fly a lot.” Brilliant! It gets worse: “Most of the time I fly … in coach, hoping for an aisle or window seat” (But not always.) “ … there are times when … I fly on a private jet.” Then, “the flying experience is a good deal different.” Wow. Obama then describes the experience: “lounges that feature big soft couches and big screen TVs.” Hog heaven. “Restrooms are generally empty and spotless, and have those mechanical shoe-shine machines and mouthwash and mints in a bowl.” The planes? “Well, they’re nice.” The purpose of the trip was “fund raising” but the senator was thrilled when his staff “explained to him” that he could travel on “someone else’s jet” and only have to pay the comparatively minor cost of first class airfare.

There’s no mention of the special interests that pay for those corporate jets for senators or about the lobbyists that usually accompany them, using the down time to fill their heads with information and arguments for their client’s legislative priorities. All we learn from Obama is how la dolce vita prevails at private airports.

Obama actually took 23 separate trips on corporate jets during his first year in the Senate, until he was appointed as the democratic point man on ethics legislation last year, following the Jack Abramoff scandal involving lobbyists paying for Congressional travel. Given the political atmosphere and the intense probe of Congressional travel, it would not have been good politics for him to continue to avail himself of the lobbyist largesse. So, that’s when he stopped taking the free rides. Cushy sofas or not.

Obama is a political infant, a babe in the woods. He’s a Jimmy Carter, running for president based on his personal moral outlook, his background and history, and making a virtue out of his limited knowledge of how American government works. One thing is sure - in the age of terrorism, we don’t need a president who can’t find the men’s room.

Obama’s book is replete with paeans to non-partisanship and rising above the bitterness of the blue/red divide. He sees the virtues in his political opponents. “I find it possible,” he declares, “to understand their motives, and to recognize in them the values I share.”

But, in reality, Obama is no "third way” politician. He is a party line Democrat, according to the National Journal, the 18th most liberal member of the Senate, which puts him ahead of (or behind) 60% of his fellow Democrats in the Senate. The gospel according to Planned Parenthood? He gets 100%. Right to life? Zero. The AFL-CIO celebrates his vote with them on nine out of ten issues and the ACLU agrees.

He talks like a moderate, but he votes like a liberal.

This deception, which he shares in common with Hillary, would be par for the Washington course. But it is the sound bites that festoon his book that lead one to suspect that he really doesn’t understand the facts or the issues.

For example, he writes, “we say we value the legacy we leave the next generation and then saddle that generation with mountains of debt.” Really? Has the senator noticed that the deficit is now down to only a bit more than 2% of our GDP, or is that sound bite too precious to lose in the face of the facts?

Or - he accuses us of tolerating “schools that don’t teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and underinspired.” We hate to get in the way of his speechwriter’s momentum, but how about the central issues: teacher incompetence, the need for merit pay and the importance of waiving tenure to get rid of bad instructors?

He speaks of an increasingly wealthy “knowledge class” of Americans able to purchase “whatever they want on the marketplace — private schools, private health care, private security and private jets.” But then he opposes the voucher system designed to give the poor parity in purchasing power for private education.

And then he says that voters are tired of “sound bite solutions to complicated problems.” So are his readers.

Senator Barack Obama could indeed represent something new in our politics instead of something old and simply repackaged. He could step up and truly develop a third way, carrying on where Bill Clinton left off on issues of poverty, race, standards, education and global competitiveness. But Bill Clinton worked hard at grappling with our problems and designing real solutions. He immersed himself in the data and worked hard to learn how to be president.

But Obama is taking the easy way out - skimming the surface, sloganeering and hiding behind Democratic orthodoxy while pretending to be something else.

The saving grace is that he is young and just starting out. If he pays the same attention to substance that he appears to have spent acquiring a profound understanding of constitutional law — which he used to teach — then he has the potential to be a great figure.

But he’s not there yet.

Mitt Romney profile

The Christian Broadcasting Network show 700 Club profiled Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, probable Republican presidential candidate in 2008:

New York, New York

With Rudy Giuliani now in the race, and Hillary expected to do so soon, the question comes to mind: when was the last time two major candidates for President were from the same state?

I'll have to do some research on this one.

Giuliani takes step toward '08 bid

The field is already starting to fill:

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a moderate Republican best known for his stewardship of the city after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has taken the first step in a 2008 presidential bid.

The former mayor filed papers to create the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee, Inc., establishing a New York-based panel that would allow him to raise money to explore a White House run and travel the country.

Read the full story here.

Senator to President? Not so fast!

When was the last time a sitting Senator was elected President?

1960. Senator John F. Kennedy was elected President.

How many candidates for President have been elected directly from the Senate?

Only two. Warren G. Harding (1920) and JFK (1960).

How many Senators have tried since then?

40!

More 2008 polls

R vs. D 2008

McCain 47%
Obama 39%

Giuliani 48%
Obama 39%

Romney 33%
Obama 48%

Huckabee 31%
Obama 50%

Did you know...

...that 2008 will be the first presidential election in 80 years in which neither a President or Vice President is a candidate.

I read this fact in the ABC News article about John McCain that I cited here. It surprised me a little bit, mostly because I thought it was very interesting and I hadn't really thought about it all that much. So I decided to make a list. Here is the list of Presidents and Vice Presidents and the year in which they were a candidate (although obviously not the winner in all cases).

2008: None
2004: Bush 43
2000: Gore
1996: Clinton
1992: Bush 41
1988: Bush 41
1984: Reagan
1980: Carter
1976: Ford
1972: Nixon
1968: Johnson (withdrew after NH primary)
1964: Johnson
1960: Nixon
1956: Eisenhower
1952: Barkley (Truman's VP; lost in primaries)
1948: Truman
1944: Roosevelt
1940: Roosevelt
1936: Roosevelt
1932: Hoover
1928: None. Incumbent President Calvin Coolidge decided against a third term, and his Vice President Charles Dawes did not run.

80 years, a very interesting bit of Presidential election trivia.

McCain Begins Preliminary White House Run

From ABC News:

His party may have taken "a thumpin'," in the words of President Bush, but ABC News has learned that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his political team have decided it's full steam ahead for his 2008 presidential campaign though he has yet to make the final, official decision.

Sources close to McCain say on Wednesday in Phoenix, he and a half dozen of his top aides huddled and decided to proceed more formally with his quest for the White House.

McCain joins Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack (D-IA) among candidates who have either announced or formed exploratory committees.

2008 here we come!

As if you aren't already sick of political campaigns, 2008 polling has begun:

Republican Presidential Primaries 2008

Giuliani 24%
Rice 18%
McCain 17%
Romney 9%

Democratic Presidential Primaries 2008

Clinton 29%
Obama 22%
Gore 13%
Edwards 10%
Kerry 4%

R vs. D 2008

McCain 48%
Clinton 43%

Giuliani 46%
Clinton 46%

Democrat Vilsack launches run for White House

From CNN.com:

Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa took the initial step in his long-shot bid for the White House Thursday, establishing a presidential campaign committee and seeking an early jump on 2008.

"Americans sent a clear message on Tuesday. They want leaders who will take this country in a new direction," Vilsack, Iowa's two-term governor, said in a statement. "They want leaders who share their values, understand their needs, and respect their intelligence. That's what I've done as governor of Iowa, and that's what I intend to do as president."

Will Vilsack make the Iowa caucuses a non-event for Democrats?

Bullseye on 2008

In this post I talked about the seats Republicans lost due to scandal or other self-inflicted reasons. All but one of those seats are generally Republican territory. So they immediately go to the target list for 2008.

This from Stephen Spruiell at NRO:

At a luncheon on the Hill today sponsored by FreedomWorks (audio from speech here), Republican pollster Ed Goeas said that the losses we saw last night are average for mid-term elections, particularly mid-term elections in a time of war. He also said, “One of the things that is different from 1994, is that in 1994 when Republicans won 56 House seats, all but a handful were won by a range of 10 or more percent. Last night if you look at the election, of those 28 House seats, 22 were won by 2 percent or less — 22 of the 28. And of those, 18 were won by less than 5,000 votes, and four of those by less than a thousand votes.” Later he went over the numbers again, and concluded, “In other words you can basically go back and say that we lost control of Congress by 11 seats. You’re talking about less than 50,000 votes.”

We can add those seats (although some of them fit in the same category as above) to the list as well. If we assume that the Republicans will need 14-15 seats to take back the House in 2008, these seats are where they will start.