Wayne Gilchrest was one of the 2 Publicans to come forward and oppose Dubya's preemptive war in Iraq (albeit a few years too late). His prize for not being a Bush puppet was a somewhat unexpected primary loss to far-right wing state senator Andy Harris in MD-01.
Here's the fun part though, it turns out that due in no small part to the viciousness in the Publican primary to take out the incumbent Gilchrest, an opening may just have been created for the Dem candidate, State's attorney and well known (and liked) prosecutor Frank Kratovil, to actually challenge yet another usually ironclad safe Publican seat.
More on the flip about our latest pick-up opportunity...
First of all, due to the Dem candidate being a solid candidate with political acumen, CQ Politics has shifted its rating on this seat from Safe Publican to Publican Favored
Second of all, as we have seen in Brownsox's many excellent diaries on the special elections in LA-06 and MS-01 and in the wonderful analysis going on (as always) over at Swing State there is no longer such thing as a safe Publican seat.
Oh, and it doesn't hurt that the Dem outraised the Publican in a district that voted for Dubya with 62% in '04, and for GIlchrest with 69% in '06:
The $431,000 that Kratovil reported is a tidy sum for a first-time congressional candidate running a longshot race. And his 40 percent to 31 percent primary victory over runner-up Christopher Robert Robinson came at much less expense than Harris’ win in his battle royal with Gilchrest. As a result, the nominees were virtually tied in cash on hand as April began, with Harris holding $204,000 in reserves to roughly $190,000 for Kratovil.
Dean's 50 state plan is coming to fruition. Seats like MD-01 only stay in Publican hands as long as the Publican isnt Dubya-style certifiable. When the seat gets primaried by a lunatic fringe right-winger, that seat is in play. If Gilchrest had not been primaried, this seat would be safe safe safe.
And of course, there is the matter of Barack's coattails in the district:
Harry Basehart, a political science professor at Salisbury University on the Eastern Shore, noted that the region has many socially and fiscally conservative Democrats and independents with whom Kratovil might be able to associate. Harris is from the Baltimore area on the western shore. Basehart added that Kratovil might get a turnout boost from the district’s black constituency, which makes up 11 percent of the total population, if Illinois Sen. Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination in his bid to become the nation’s first African-American president. Ronald Walters, political science professor at the University of Maryland, suggested that Kratovil could be a serious contender because "this is a coattail election where people want change."
That's why Shays (CT-04) is the only Publican left in New England (and he is going down to Jim Himes in a matter of months), and that's why New York will soon have but 1 or 2 Publicans left (and that's only if Fossella survives and McHugh doesnt retire).
It's gametime people.
What will be interesting in the years to come will be watching as the Publican party decides if it wants to be the permanent minority party of the insane rightwingers (like Inhofe, Cornyn, Santorum, etc.), or if they will again try to include some "moderates". We saw what happened to Gilchrist, we saw what happened to Chafee.
America is finally waking up to what all of us have known for quite some time now: Democrats represent America, both who we are and who we want to be.