brittain33, GOP talent of a first tier just doesn't grow on trees you know. Pubbie smarts tend to prefer just to get rich.
In the case of MD-01 I don't know if Harris deserved to lose or not.
Harris was from the uber-partisan Republican bit of the district only added in 2002 to defeat Bob Ehrlich (by removing it from his district - Ehrlich chose to run for Governor instead of going down to likely defeat, if not in 02 then in 04, and if not in 04 than in 06. Dems took over that district as planned). He did badly in the primary on the Eastern Shore, and almost certainly wouldn't have won it if there hadn't been a third come-up-the-middle-in-a-negative-campaign kind of candidate, who was neither a Rino nor an uber-partisan carpetbagger.* Then he got a moderate-ish opponent who
was from the Eastern Shore, and the rest is sort of obvious.
*Not actually a carpetbagger of course, but I think you can forgive the Eastern Shore for thinking it owns the First District of Maryland and deserves its own Congressman, wrong as that line of emoting arguably is.
