Gilchrest shows true color
Rep. Wayne Gilchrest has done it again.
Yesterday Gilchrest endorsed Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama for president in an interview with WYPR, Baltimore’s National Public Radio station.
Earlier this summer, Gilchrest crossed party lines to endorse Democrat Frank Kratovil as his replacement after losing a hotly-contested primary campaign to challenger State Delegate Andy Harris. This loss forces the veteran Congressman into retirement at the end of this term.
Politico reports
Justifying his endorsement of Obama, Gilchrest said that “we can’t use four more years of the same kind of policy that’s somewhat haphazard, which leads to recklessness.”
After eighteen years of working in Congress, Gilchrest should be intimately familiar with Washington “haphazard” and “reckless” policies. He would not get off the fence to address the issues of his constituents. In short, he was part of the problem.
Maryland’s Republican voters wanted a solution, so they selected Andy Harris to replace Gilchrest in an effort to bring real change to Washington.
But according to Gilchrest
Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), “have the breadth of experience. I think they’re prudent. They’re knowledgeable.”
I thought we were trying to get away from the “same kind of policy.” I thought that CHANGE, not experience, was the operative word. I thought that Obama was bringing a “new kind of politics to Washington.”
A chameleon may be able to change its color, but it is still a chameleon. And a politician may change his words, but he is still a politician. Sometimes it just takes the constituents a while to figure out where there representatives really stand on the issues. Or if they really take a stand at all.
Gilchrest spent his career on the fence: sometimes red, sometimes blue, doing whatever was necessary to convince his constituents that he was the right man for the job. After all, in a conservative district, it is important to appear to be conservative…or at the very least moderate.
But appearances can be deceiving. And in this, perhaps, last public stand, Gilchrest has once again shown his true color. His constituents got it right in the primary. Let’s hope they get it right in November.
