New Top 10 List

I finally decided to update my Top 10 list on the side.

I had several comments about the previous Top 10 List - 10 Maryland politicians that needed to be voted out of office. My favorite one was the comment about how my blog is full of hate and the person was going to vote for each and every one of the people I had listed. Idiot. Not all of them are in the same district. No one can possibly vote for all of them. Unless of course, the Maryland General Assembly decides to allow early voting and the flexibility to vote anyway, which will allow people to vote early and vote often.

My new top 10 list is the 10 best Maryland Republicans of all time.

1) Helen Bentley - Congresswoman Bentley basically saved the Port of Baltimore and thousands of longshoreman jobs in the city in addition to related jobs around the state. Her activity with the port was so successful that it was eventually renamed the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore.

2) Theodore McKeldin - he was the last Republican Mayor of Baltimore (1963 - 1967). The city named the water fountains at the Inner Harbor named in his honor. This is the same water fountain where you can watch homeless people bathe during the day. McKeldin oversaw the construction of Friendship Airport, now called Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. McKeldin then defeated William Preston Lane Jr for Governor (who had the Bay Bridge named after him) and pushed for state highways such as the Baltimore Beltway, the Washington Beltway, and Route 50. He returned to being the Mayor of Baltimore and began the focus of urban renewal and a plan to create the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

3) Marjorie Holt - served in Congress from 1973 until 1987 and was the first Maryland Republican woman to serve in Congress. In 1975 she refused to sign a Congressional Declaration of Interdependence that would have given up national sovereignty and promoted a new world unity and subjected Americans to International law and redistributed American wealth around the world. She was eventually nominated by President Reagan to serve on the General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament.

4) Connie Morella - she was first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1978 and served until 1987 when she was elected to Congress to serve Maryland's 8th district, much of which covered heavily liberal Montgomery County. Another moderate, Morella opposed the party's stance on abortion, gun control, gay rights, and the environment. Mike Miller, Casper Taylor, and former adulterer Governor Parris Glendening redrew the Congressional map after the 2000 Census to undermine her reelection. Though illegal, their gerrymandering techniques worked and she was defeated by liberal and socialism supporter Democratic Chris Van Hollen.

5) Bob Ehrlich - the most recent Republican Governor of Maryland and the first since disgraced former Governor Spiro Agnew. Despite high approval ratings, rating higher than the current Governor, the moderate Ehrlich was defeated by an unpopular and highly hypocritical Mayor of Baltimore (who probably wants a bridge named after him) who befuddled the Governor with flowery rhetoric.

6) James Glenn Beall - a World War I veteran and one of the longest serving (if not the longest, I don't know), Beall was elected to serve in the Maryland Senate in 1930. Beall was then elected to serve in Congress from 1943 until 1953 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served until 1965. He was defeated by Democrat Joseph D. Tydings, who's adopted father had the I-95 bridge over the Susquehanna named after him.

7) John Marshall Butler - another World War I veteran and long-serving Republican politician, Butler was selected to serve the Baltimore City Public Service Commission from 1947 until 1949. He was then elected to the United States Senate and served from 1951 until retiring in 1963. He was preceded by Millard Tydings, the I-95 bridge guy.

8) Gilbert Gude - first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1953, he served until 1958. He was later elected to the Maryland Senate in 1962 and served until 1967 when he was elected to the Congress where he served for another 10 years.

9) Robert Kittleman - a World War II veteran, Kittleman served in the United States Navy from 1943 until 1946. He served as the chair of the Howard County Republican Central Committee and, as a white guy, was a member of the NAACP. He was active in the Civil Rights movement. In 1983 he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates and served until 2002 when he was elected to the Maryland Senate. Unfortunately, he passed away mid-term. He was replaced by his son, Allan Kittleman and Route 32 is named in his honor.

10) Allan Kittleman - current Maryland State Senator and one of the few sensible voices in the Maryland General Assembly. Neither a conservative nut job, nor a blind liberal, Kittleman is one of the lonely dissenting voices to the radical legislation that passes through our state government, but he stands tall doing what is right.

Honorable mention - Jeannie Haddaway - once named the sexist politician in Maryland. I have no disagreement with that.