If Hogan ran for president would you vote for him? (Baltimore: 2013, fingerprinting)

[LoveToRow]

Originally Posted by bufflove

Yeah, we're definitely from different parts of the state if you didn't hear calls for equal rights and gun control over the last decade.

I would guess that you are from Montgomery County and the rest of us are from planet earth.

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by bufflove

Eh. That's quite a reach to say "didn't eff up the purple line, activated the national guard during an emergency, continued increasing funding for schools and bay, and continued to roll back financial acrobatics done to balance budgets during the great recession" are feats of the administration. All that would have happened no matter who was in the gov mansion. The only somewhat meaningful difference between a Hogan admin and a Brown admin I've noticed, at this point, are transportation (mainly the Red Line, though also $$ for rural highway expansion) and +/- a couple percent in school expenditure growth. That's why Hogan's perfectly acceptable to many dems (myself included); he's not rocking the boat and isn't a wacko or obstructionist, like what's become all too common at the national level. Plus, the GA just overrides his vetoes pretty much at will, so there's that, too....

Actually none of those "acrobatics" would have been rolled back under Brown. Did you miss the "opposed by the Legislature" part.

The payback of "borrowed" money to the Retirement System was/is especially critical (and not just because I draw my pension from it) because in eight years Gov. O'Malley took so much money from it that it went from being considered the best run and soundest government pension system in the country, able to meet obligations as far into the future as could be calculated, to one on the verge of collapse and mentioned in the same breath as the California and Illinois systems.

O'Malley had eight years to move the Purple Line. He didn't. He also was cutting school funding below MOE and dumped retirement costs back to the Counties. The State had been picking those up since the inception of the State Retirement System 80 years ago.

As far as gun control goes, do the new laws make you feel good? That's all they're good for because all they did was impose increased costs and procedures on law abiding people. But I guess when the end game for you and others like you is total banning and confiscation they're a good 3rd step (you may have to research why I said 3rd step). As a note I own exactly 0 firearms impacted by the legislation so I don't have that particular dog in the fight.

Yeah having a Legislature that can override vetoes at will especially when those vetoes are imposed on bad laws (allowing felons' to vote before serving out their sentence being one such. Macauliffe didn't even try to do that) is a "good" thing.

As I said earlier, a lot of my list was inside baseball that a typical resident of the State wouldn't know about unless they pay attention which most don't.

[bus man]

Would I vote for Hogan in this election? Nope. And that's because he hasn't been running. He hasn't gone through the sausage grinder that is the American primary process. He hasn't gone into the arena and fought the fight. Say what you will about Trump, but he bested 16 other candidates to secure the Republican nomination. He has earned his place as the party's nominee. Hogan has not.

That said, I like Hogan very much and am very pleased that he is our governor and that he has been accomplishing what he has (as outlined by North Beach Person), in the face of much opposition from the General Assembly. If he can manage to change the nakedly partisan way that our congressional districts are drawn, he would go from Good to Great in my book.

If Hogan chooses to run for president in the future, I would look very favorably upon his candidacy, pending more information about his positions on issues of national importance. But it's far too late for him to be considered this go-around.

[seanlax]

Some of you are making some gross assumptions about the unstated positions of other posters. Just because they are partial to conservative or liberal policies doesn't mean they are little Hitlers or Stalins and want to ban gays/take guns. Remember that the world is painted shades of grays.

That said, I'm not surprised Hogan has broad support. Those that critique him for cherry-picking favorable laws and policies: isn't that a good thing? Would you rather have complex, bloated bills with a ton of circuit riders attached? Not me.

He is a centrist for sure, but a relatively positive one; a stark contrast to the negativity surrounding Trump's centrist platform.

If Hogan wanted to be president, he would take up his democratic opponents and elevate this gerrymandering issue to the national level, and get rid of it in all states. Not only is that ultimately the right thing to do, but it would absolutely embarrass the Democratic Party. Just sayin.

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by seanlax

Some of you are making some gross assumptions about the unstated positions of other posters. Just because they are partial to conservative or liberal policies doesn't mean they are little Hitlers or Stalins and want to ban gays/take guns. Remember that the world is painted shades of grays.

That said, I'm not surprised Hogan has broad support. Those that critique him for cherry-picking favorable laws and policies: isn't that a good thing? Would you rather have complex, bloated bills with a ton of circuit riders attached? Not me.

He is a centrist for sure, but a relatively positive one; a stark contrast to the negativity surrounding Trump's centrist platform.

If Hogan wanted to be president, he would take up his democratic opponents and elevate this gerrymandering issue to the national level, and get rid of it in all states. Not only is that ultimately the right thing to do, but it would absolutely embarrass the Democratic Party. Just sayin.

The thing about your first paragraph and assumptions, the wish to ban/confiscate firearms had been stated in the past in another context. So I was making no assumptions about that.

You're involved in local issues, zoning I believe, so you know what I mean by many of the initiatives being inside baseball.

[dkf747]

I'd vote for Hogan over O'Malley any day.

[bufflove]

Originally Posted by LoveToRow

I would guess that you are from Montgomery County and the rest of us are from planet earth.

Except both the gun control measures taken and gay marriage were widely supported in the state, overall.

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by bufflove

Except both the gun control measures taken and gay marriage were widely supported in the state, overall.

Not really.

[SilverJD]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

Not really.

Maryland is a pretty liberal state, I'm not sure what you're getting at? Montgomery county PG county and Baltimore county are the three most populated counties in Maryland. They are all very liberal, not to mention Baltimore city.

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by SilverJD

Maryland is a pretty liberal state, I'm not sure what you're getting at? Montgomery county PG county and Baltimore county are the three most populated counties in Maryland. They are all very liberal, not to mention Baltimore city.

Even with overwhelming majorities in those three jurisdictions the referenda on gay marriage and gun control passed on the order or 52% to 48%. That's not "overwhelming".

And again, the question I asked about the gun control laws has not been answered. That is, what did it do except impose more restrictions and expense on law abiding gun owners?

As it is, the very next legislative session resurrected then Senator now Attorney General Frosch's proposed $1/round ammunition tax and proposed legislation from Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) to ban the next "most dangerous firearms in the state", pump and semiautomatic hunting shotguns. Because "no one should need more than one or two bullets to hunt an animal".

As I've said before, one small step.

What would be informative would be to look at where the most crimes, both absolute numbers and per capita, involving firearms occur. It's not in the rural and semirural Counties where there are, presumably, more firearms.

In fact, just two jurisdictions are the location for the vast majority of all crimes committed in the State and are responsible for Maryland being rated in the Top 10 for murder rate in the US.