Tom Scanlan declares he is a Republican, his record clearly shows otherwise

What is a Republican?

On Tuesday, Carroll County Board of Education candidate Tom Scanlan stated on a Republican Women’s Club of Carroll County Facebook thread, that he was a registered Republican — a revelation that came as a surprise to many considering a public record of his that leans demonstrably Democratic.

In a candidate profile published to establishment Republican blog The Duckpin in November of last year, Scanlan straightforwardly names his “Political Party” as “Democrat”, before citing his “Political Experience” as “Carroll County Democratic Central Committee” (CC DEM).

Indeed, a scrape of the CC DEM website reveals 37 separate pages that reference “Tom Scanlan” in one capacity or another.

In a newsletter published as recently as December of last year, the CC DEM website names Scanlan as being the person to contact if one is interested in joining the committee’s mailing list.

And as early as 2015, Scanlan is noted as attending CC DEM meetings by then recording secretary Zach Hands, now a Democratic Commissioner candidate in Carroll’s District 3.

A scrape of Carroll’s Republican Central Committee website shows no mention of Scanlan whatsoever.

In the aforementioned Duckpin profile, Scanlan identified “Jimmy Carter” as being his political role model, though he clarified that this is because of what Carter achieved after his presidency.

And when asked what his favorite political book was, he named The Other Wes Moore, a book he considers educational not political, which was written by progressive Democrat gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore.

Nevermind the fact that many credibly argue Moore misrepresents his own upbringing in the text, making himself out to have come up through the street struggle when in fact his upbringing was one of relative privilege.

Besides all of that, Scanlan has gone on record in the Carroll County Times over and over again to espouse left leaning positions, decrying “right-wing talking points”, censuring Carroll’s Republican Central Committee for causing “acrimony” and “divisiveness”, and calling it “troubling” that so many were willing to “ignore public health experts” when it came to the virus.

Yup, sounds like a Republican.

And of course all that is to say nothing of his Board of Education candidate slate mates. There is Patricia Dorsey, who considers herself an “agent of the state”, and Amanda Jozkowski, who at the time of this writing is probably outdoors wearing an N95.

As for speculating on the “why” behind Scanlan’s sudden change of political party tune, perhaps the answer can be found in recent calls-to-action from a community action network called Carroll CAN, which after advising the public to turn its “anger” into “ACTION!”, openly called for Democrats to change their party affiliation to Republican so they could vote for more “desirable” Republican candidates in local elections that basically end in the primary — probably causing Dennis Frazier and Stephen Wantz to nod approvingly somewhere.

In a society full of so much identity fluidity, grappling with such existential questions as — what is a woman? — it appears we must also now consider: what is a Republican?

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.