As if crowning a nominee and whooping it up for a week weren’t enough, Republican delegates from deep-blue Maryland will get something extra out of their trip to Tampa: therapy.
“Coming from Montgomery County, Maryland, it’s almost like going to a support group: ‘Hi, I’m Lee and I’m a Republican,’ and I’m welcomed,” said Lee Cowen, 48, a Montgomery County lobbyist attending his fourth national convention.
At the GOP’s national convention every four years, Maryland Republicans get to do things many of their red-state counterparts take for granted. Like holding forth on cherished conservative ideals. Spouting off about liberals they loathe. And, even in a sea of strangers, hearing nothing in response but “amen.”
For one blissful, quadrennial blink of an eye, it’s easy being red.
“Everybody pretty much agrees with everybody else,” said Gloria Murphy, 51, a former preschool teacher from Catonsville in Baltimore County.
Which is hardly the case back home, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans statewide by more than 2 to 1.
Even in Baltimore County, the swing territory that helped native son Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. grab the governor’s mansion from Democrats in 2002, being a Republican is “not the easiest thing to be,” said Murphy, who in 2006 ran unsuccessfully for Orphans’ Court judge.
It’s even worse in die-hard Democratic bastions such as Montgomery.
“There’s a real stigma socially in Montgomery County to being known as a Republican and or being conservative,” Cowen said. “Any time I go to some party or charity fundraiser, people will see me and say, ‘Hey, Lee, there’s another Republican here. Come meet him.’ .
“Coming from Montgomery County, Maryland, it’s almost like going to a support group: ‘Hi, I’m Lee and I’m a Republican,’ and I’m welcomed,” said Lee Cowen, 48, a Montgomery County lobbyist attending his fourth national convention.
At the GOP’s national convention every four years, Maryland Republicans get to do things many of their red-state counterparts take for granted. Like holding forth on cherished conservative ideals. Spouting off about liberals they loathe. And, even in a sea of strangers, hearing nothing in response but “amen.”
For one blissful, quadrennial blink of an eye, it’s easy being red.
“Everybody pretty much agrees with everybody else,” said Gloria Murphy, 51, a former preschool teacher from Catonsville in Baltimore County.
Which is hardly the case back home, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans statewide by more than 2 to 1.
Even in Baltimore County, the swing territory that helped native son Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. grab the governor’s mansion from Democrats in 2002, being a Republican is “not the easiest thing to be,” said Murphy, who in 2006 ran unsuccessfully for Orphans’ Court judge.
It’s even worse in die-hard Democratic bastions such as Montgomery.
“There’s a real stigma socially in Montgomery County to being known as a Republican and or being conservative,” Cowen said. “Any time I go to some party or charity fundraiser, people will see me and say, ‘Hey, Lee, there’s another Republican here. Come meet him.’ .