Attack of the Drones

Democratic special interests have wasted no time attacking Bob Ehrlich. Citizens for Strength and Security a union front group aired radio ads attacking Bob Ehrlich as a lobbyist.

IRS data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that CSS has received over $900,000 from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Communications Workers of America for the 2010 election cycle. CSS spent nearly $3 million in the 2008 election cycle.

The ad closely mimics the same line of attack the Maryland Democratic Party deployed against Ehrlich.

The argument that Ehrlich is a lobbyist is dubious at best. Even Democrat operatives admit they have no proof. SEIU however is very much a lobbyist. In 2009, SEIU spent $2.6 million lobbying the federal government. That amount does not account for unregistered lobbyist and SEIU president Andy Stern lobbying the White House.

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Naturally, Maryland Democrats are the farm team for Annapolis lobbyists. The relationship also works the other way. Quincey Gamble, a former MDP executive director was an SEIU lobbyist before running the party. In 2006, the state ethics commission cited Gamble for failing properly report his activities.

SEIU is a major contributor to the Maryland Democratic Party or as Democratic state senator Mac Middleton calls them, “the hand that feeds you.”

Since 2009 alone SEIU has given Middleton $8,000. That investment in Middleton has paid dividends in the form SEIU’s family child care power grab. Middleton, chair of the Senate Finance Committee shepherded the bill out of his committee and through the Senate.

Democrats and their union masters are the entrenched special interests in Maryland, and no amount of Freudian projection will diminish the ferocious political headwinds they are sailing towards this November. After all, they charted the course.