GOP barely hangs on in Maryland

[struggle4progress]

Republicans all but extinct in the Northeast
By Paul West | [e-mail]
May 4, 2009

... With the loss of Gilchrest's seat, the state's lone Republican at the national level is 82-year-old Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Frederick ...

Gilchrest, in an interview, said he had given consideration to switching parties but decided that it wouldn't have been worth the effort unless he planned to remain in office for another decade.

"I knew that I wasn't going to be around that much longer anyway," said Gilchrest, praising Specter for putting the "integrity the country needs for good public policy" above "loyalty or disloyalty to political mythology" ...

According to state Board of Elections figures, the number of registered Republicans had fallen to 26.9 percent, compared with 56.8 percent for the Democrats, by the start of this year. the past seven years, the number of Democratic voters in the state has expanded more than two-and-a-half times faster than the Republicans ...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.gop04may04,0,234508.story

[Selatius]

1. I think it's becoming truer and truer each day that the Republicans are literally dying out.

The current generation that is growing up now--having lived through a shattered economy, a disasterous war that claimed their friends, the sheer stupidity surrounding Katrina, and crippling debt loads they will be forced to pay off--are less impressed with the Republican brand than their parents or grandparents were.

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. "GOP hangs in Maryland" would have been ok, too.

[madmom]

3. But there is still a problem with local repugs. My son just moved

from Maryland mainly because of problems with the local repug reps and the way they where dealing with a child support/custody case.My son wife has an ex with friends/relatives on the court and in law enforcement, so they were not able to get anything close to fair verdicts.