Kelly Shulz is ducking Dan Cox after hitting him with low blow
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Kelly Shulz is ducking Dan Cox after hitting him with low blow
Why her recent attack is illegitimate and misdirected
Moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Shulz recently declined an invitation from the Republican Women’s Club of Carroll County to participate in a candidate forum on April 21st in Westminster.
Shulz reportedly told a representative from the RWCC that she will not participate because she is unwilling to share a stage with her primary competitor Dan Cox, a Trump aligned conservative, who she sees as unfit to serve as Governor.
Shulz’s apparent contempt for Cox presumably stems from a recent article published by The Duckpin, which smears Cox for his legal defense of a man charged with the rape, assault, and sexual offense of a thirteen year old girl.
Indeed, the allegations brought against the man Cox defended in court as his lawyer were disturbing.
The case in question concluded with an Alford Plea on the sexual offense charge, where the accused acknowledged there is likely enough evidence for a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, but continued to assert their innocence regardless.
The resulting prison sentence for the accused was five years, of which only 349 days were served.
The Duckpin used this to draft an article accusing Cox of putting a “child sex offender back on the streets”, which Shulz later shared from her Facebook page, calling Cox’s actions “disgusting”.
But this seemingly coordinated attack against Cox is both illegitimate and misdirected. Shulz and The Duckpin would do well to recall their elementary level civics and American history.
Every American citizen, no matter how heinous the charges brought against them, has a right to an energetic and effective legal defense — which is precisely what Cox appears to have provided in his capacity as the accused’s attorney.
Consider the unflappably principled if often irascible John Adams, who famously defended a troop of British soldiers facing murder charges for firing on a mob of angry colonials hurling ice and glass at them, which left five Bostonians bloodied and dead in the snow.
Defending the accused when it’s unpopular is a foundational feature of the judicial system, not a bug.
Shulz and The Duckpin’s grievances ought not be directed at Cox, but rather the judge who presided over the case and determined the sentencing, and the state’s penal system which prematurely released the accused from prison.
This smear job is nothing more than lowly politics.
Shulz, like Governor Hogan, has failed to speak out against what many see as the political and sexual indoctrination of Maryland’s youths, through the state’s school curriculum which, for example, asks seventh graders to “compare sex assigned at birth and gender identity” and explain “how they may or may not differ”.
So perhaps this attack on Cox is meant to give the appearance of standing against sexual impropriety involving youths, without Shulz having to actually weigh in substantively on the real issue at hand.
As for Shulz ducking Cox by not participating in the candidate forum, frustrating though it may be, one has to acknowledge it is the strategically sound move for her campaign.
Shulz is Hogan reincarnate, and if his popularity and a recent Goucher poll are reliable indicators, she is the presumptive favorite in both the Republican primary and the general gubernatorial election come November.
She has little to gain and much to lose by engaging Cox directly.
As for the Cox campaign, consider these slings and arrows and avoidance validation that your campaign is both legitimate and threatening to the ingroup.
After all, with respect to perennial gubernatorial candidate and famed heckler Robin Ficker, it’s not like Shulz and The Duckpin are bothering to cast stones his way.
Maryland Muckraker is a completely independent and fearlessly conservative blog covering local issues by me, Ethan Reese. After spending nearly a decade in corporate Baltimore in marketing technology, figured I’d have a go at writing. Since then I’ve contributed articles to FOX’s OutKick, PJ Media, and Rare Politics, as well as being named a Writing Fellow with the America’s Future Foundation.