HOLLYWOOD, Md.—Former Republican candidate for Maryland’s 5th Congressional District, Charles Lollar told audience members at the St. Mary’s County Lincoln/Reagan Dinner that he will decide whether to seek political office by Oct. 23.
Lollar, of Newburg, told GOP insiders that the strain of campaigning last year against incumbent Democrat Congressman Steny Hoyer, as well as multiple deployments to the Middle East as a senior Marine Corps officer, took a toll on his family.
He said that his political future rests in the hands of his wife, Rosha, but the talk he gave this weekend sounded much like a man who can still energize Republicans.
“Oct. 23, I’ll know what I’ll be doing,” Lollar said Oct. 8 at Lenny’s Restaurant in California, who added that Republicans must come together in coming elections to ensure their candidates get elected to Congress and the State House.
He said political change is necessary to foster business and economic growth in the private sector, which he claimed is critical to forestall rising unemployment he said would hit Maryland if deep cuts at the federal level occurred.
“Maryland is headed for an economic disaster,” Lollar said, warning of its dependence on federal spending. “If they make cuts of 22 percent we’re going to lose 150,000 jobs.”
Lollar’s figures match those of a study posted by the Sage Policy Group in Baltimore, which estimated that a 22 percent cut in federal spending as advocated by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform appointed by President Obama would result in deep withering of the state’s job field.
This would have the affect of raising unemployment to 11.8 percent, both Lollar and the study said.
Lollar, the keynote speaker, called on Republican voters to stay united and look to God and the Founding Fathers as the guideposts to victory; he said that capitalism cannot survive without philanthropy and a “belief in something bigger than us.”
Todd Eberly, political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, said that Lollar’s prospects may be used up in the 5th District, since it has been drawn to ensure that a Democrat remains in power.
The recent redrawing of the districts proposed by Gov. Martin O’Malley’s commission on the issue has left it virtually unchanged except for removing portions of Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties.
For Lollar to win, Eberly said, it would take African American Democrats in Prince George’s or Charles counties, as well as conservative voters in Southern Maryland to cast ballots for him.
“That would take the mother of all coalitions,” Eberly said. “I don’t see a future for him running against Hoyer.”
Lollar’s better chances might be to run for a statewide office, like the U.S. Senate, because he would receive broad support from conservatives around the state and be able to rely less on African American Democrats.
“But he would have to raise his profile for that,” Eberly said.
Still GOP operatives in St. Mary’s County have been pushing for Lollar to run against Hoyer again, and have even begun a campaign to show their declared support for him to encourage him to enter the race in 2014.