Annapolis Capital Punishment

Readers by now can surmise that I am too impressed with this fellow Greg Bartosz who ran for Congress in the First. Well, this is what he wrote to his supporters on his website after coming in a distant third to Jim Wilhelm, the man he kept saying would be dropping out of the race--but could never explain why

 

"Well, I guess you know the results by now – looks like we came up a little short.



Janis, Adam and I want to Very Sincerely Thank Every Single Person who helped and supported us in this endeavor!! There are too many of you to list here individually, but please understand that each of you played a Very Important role in this competition!! From those of you who stuffed envelopes and made phone calls to those of you who donated money and marched in parades – we CANNOT Thank you ALL enough!!


For our Family, this race has been unlike anything we have ever experienced. We have been blessed to meet and become friends with so MANY kind and caring Patriotic Americans that they cannot be counted. Unfortunately, we have come in contact with people from the opposite side of the spectrum as well. Needless to say, this experience has been an incredible education in the true nature and motivation of people.


In closing, Thank You ALL again for the kindness you have shown our Family. We will NEVER be able to fully express our gratitude to you, but we hope that this note is a start.

Yup. He came up a little short. Bartosz could not manage to mention Wilhelm, the man who soundly beat him--and who you think he might be supporting, but no, not a word.  Unlike James King who now supports Ed Reilly. I liked the part about him meeting so many "kind and caring Patriotic Americans" but also those "from the opposite side of the spectrum as well." When you are as far to one side of that spectrum as is Bartosz, I guess you're bound to meet those unkind, uncaring and unpatriotic types from the other end as well. If only Sarah Palin had endorsed him! Sometimes, he who laughs last, laughs best.

Regarding the Circuit Court Judges Race...Am I the only one who is confused?  Don't answer that. Even beyond the whole concern about actually voting for judges, we get these judges to run in partisan elections as members of parties, but then in the primaries, which by their very definition are partisan, we get to vote for candidates of either party--unlike any other candidates and then votes are tallied in a partisan fashion and then...even the third place finisher gets to go on to the general because he got second place among Democratic voters because he is a Democrat.  Quite frankly, I am amazed that challenger Alison Asti pulled ahead of sitting Judge Ron Jarashow who campaigned along with his colleague Judge Laura Kiessling--and she pulled out a very strong victory despite Jarashow's long-standing involvement in Annapolis, decades of work as a lawyer, the respect he gets from Democrats and Republicans and his incumbency as a judge. The way I figure it is that the sitting judges go through a serious vetting process. Asti did not have to do that. You would have thought the selection process stood for something, but Asti claims it's very partisan and that O'Malley overwhelmingly appoints Democratic judges--which he does. Despite campaigning seriously for months with Kiessling, despite being a sitting judge and depsite his decades of legal experience, including much of it in trials, he was beaten by an opponent who only recently began campaigning and apparently has no trial experience.  Maybe voters thought she was Astle as in Senator John Astle--or his wife? Many readers speculated to me that she got votes because her name was first on the ballot. However, if that were the case, how come Kiessling who obviously comes after Jarashow came in first?

I remember what happpened when Paul Goetzke ran for and ousted sitting judges who had been appointed after he campaigned saying he'd be tough on criminals. Elect me, I'll be tough on criminals....yep. Should we even be voting for judges?  Go figure.....

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