When politicians and their parties take campaign cash from corporations, PACs and special interests they are stealing our government from us.  That money buys access and legislation.  You know it and I know it.  And they know it too.  This corrupt system continues because we tolerate it. We can live in a different state, one in which we all work together to solve our problems and meet our collective needs.  But whether that comes to pass is ultimately up to you.

It is past time for you the voters of Maryland to stop voting for the lesser of two evils and vote for what you really want.

It is past time for the voters the Democratic party takes for granted year after year after year to leave that party in the dust where it belongs.   That party lost its soul when it began taking campaign cash to compete with the Republicans.  For those of you still clinging to the Republican Party because you think it’s the party of “fiscal responsibility” – think again because those days are long gone.  George W. Bush and Robert Ehrlich were big spenders extraordinaire. Any party that screams about entitlements (you know, Medicare and Social Security that people over a certain age need to live) but hands out our tax dollars by the trillions to fund wars without end doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

Martin O’Malley and Robert Ehrlich ask for our votes and lie to us about Moving Maryland Forward and More Jobs, Less Taxes as if slogans will improve our lives and the lives of our children and take the place of real leaders of substance who know what it means to serve people and our communities.

The deregulation of our utilities was not a move forward, it was a colossal step backward.  Many states which were considering deregulation decided to keep their utilities regulated, protecting their ratepayers – which is exactly what government is supposed to do.  Why not Maryland?  Martin O’Malley promised to stop the rate hikes and he did no such thing. Why does Constellation Energy and its well-paid CEO, Mayo Shattuck ($20 million compensation package) continue to shaft BGE ratepayers with nary a peep from either O’Malley or Ehrlich?

And how exactly will Robert Ehrlich create jobs and cut taxes?  Whose taxes will he cut?  Why do I get the feeling it will be the taxes of the hyper-wealthy and corporations?  The propaganda that cutting taxes on corporations creates jobs is just that – propaganda that too many politicians are afraid to counter.  And Ehrlich’s statements about cutting education should alarm everyone who cares about our children and the future of public education:  if you’re cutting taxes, you’re cutting services.  Oops, I mean education.

Your vote is wasted only when you vote out of fear for someone you neither respect as a person nor believe in as a leader.  Voting is the one thing still left to us and it gives us more power than we realize.  If everyone votes for what they want, we will have the government, the communities and the lives we want.

It’s not that we need no government or less government, but that we need to make our government work for us as our country’s founders originally intended it to do.  And that takes your votes for the kind of leadership I offer you which owes everything to we the people and gives everything to our collective future, a future built on serving the common good and the least as well as all the rest of us together.  I ask for your vote on November 2.