State: Maryland

Type of election: Primary

How it works: 37 delegates are at stake, 13 are awarded on a winner-take all basis to the statewide winner. The remaining 24 are awarded on a winner-take-all basis at the congressional district level. The election is a closed primary.

Official election results: Maryland State Board of Elections

Republican candidates: Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum (all others have dropped out or are polling at less than 1 percent)

Democratic candidates: There is no competitive Democratic primary.

Previous performance: In 2008, Romney withdrew before the Maryland primary. Paul finished fourth, with just under six percent, behind Romney. Obama won the Democratic primary with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Newspapers: Baltimore Sun, full list

Television stations: Full list

Progressive blogs: Maryland Juice, Progressive Maryland

Latest polling: New York Times:

Washington DC - I arrived at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, around 9:30 a.m. People snaked around turnstiles waiting to get their badges certifying they had paid the $195 adult entrance fee.

Upstairs, the student line was much longer. They only had to pay $35. It's important to get young blood into the Grand Old Party.

They had paid to see the stars of the conservative movement. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt, Marco Rubio, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, even Sarah Palin has come out of hibernation and is scheduled to speak on Saturday.

There was talk of an Occupy infiltration and the finely dressed attendants were on the lookout. One man, wearing a cowboy hat and wielding a digital camera approached a police officer outside, "have you seen any occupiers?" he asked. "No," the officer responded.

Around noon I was sitting in a chair near the VIP room. Rick Perry was scheduled to speak at 1:20 p.m. in the Marriott ballroom. Three tall white men wearing suits and earbuds were seated across from me. One was standing. They briefly discussed security.

"I asked him if he wanted a walkthrough... and he said, 'I'm drunk, I don't care,'" said the older looking gentleman, who had apparently talked to the person he was securing.

Another one said, "Thanks for taking one for the team Rick."

After Perry gave his speech I attempted to ask him if he preferred bourbon or scotch, but he ignored me.

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At the beginning of the day, I started off at an event called "How to raise money... the easy way" put on by the Leadership Institute, a Republican training organization.

The speaker, Joel Mowbray, told the audience of mostly young men that "You make up a lot of ground with one $10,000 donation."

He said that there's no such thing as altruism and when a big donor cuts a big check the donor is looking for access.

"Asking for money bestows a level of credibility onto the campaign," said Mowbry, "It says I believe in my campaign." He told the audience the only two things a candidate should be doing is asking for money or asking for votes. Noted.

From there, I went to the massive Marriott Ballroom, which has been adorned with giant television screens, a huge stage and thousands of chairs, all filled, for Marco Rubio's speech.

The Florida Senator took the stage to loud applause. He made a speech about American Exceptionalism, how important it is that the U.S. remains the most powerful country in the world, a point Republicans often make.

"What happens if we diminish because we can no longer be the greatest country in the world?" asked Rubio.

"The greatest thing we can do for the world is be America," said Rubio. He added that we have to be an example for other countries, "the shining city on the Hill" he said, quoting Reagan, who took the line "city on a hill" from the Bible and made it shiny.

Reagan symbolism is all over CPAC. Pictures of him hang in the main lobby, stickers of his face are handed out and many speakers tied their speeches back to him.

Male CPAC attendees almost universally wore suits and females wore dresses. There were booths for ALEC, Tea Party.net, Hot Air, the NRA, Citizens United Productions, the Washington Examiner and Newt 2012, among others. One booth was selling Santorum sweaters. Surprisingly, I didn't see any Ron Paul supporters, despite the fact that his fans rushed the event last year to give him a strong victory in the 2011 CPAC straw poll.

I saw a number of people sporting Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum stickers, but I didn't see one person outwardly supporting Mitt Romney. In fact, during one speech in the Marriott Ballroom a speaker mentioned Mitt Romney and a female in the audience yelled out, "Mexican!"

In another room, much smaller than the Marriott Ballroom, I attended a panel discussion on labor unions. At this one, four men discussed the repeal of SB5 in Ohio, Scott Walker's actions in Wisconsin and heaped praise on Chris Christie. I arrived a little late, but I caught the gist of the conversation.

"I don't think revolution is too big of a word to use to describe what Chris Christie is doing," said Kevin Mooney, a reporter for the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, 'the leading voice for free markets in Louisiana.'

F. Vincent Vernuccio, a speaker from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said that after the repeal of SB5, an-anti collective bargaining bill, Ohio would have to build a Berlin-style wall to keep people in. He said they'd flock to Indiana and Wisconsin, two states that have fought unions.

He said the failure in Ohio was the messaging, "We have to get our messaging together, we have to get our funding together and we have to break up the bills."

I walked out and went up the escalator to get a late afternoon lunch. As I rode the escalator up, Hot Air was interviewing Michelle Bachmann. She was in an all white dress.

As I was leaving I caught this guy talking about the tea party:

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[Washington D.C. – Members of Congress became involved in the Occupy discussion Tuesday as Republican leaders of the House Oversight Committee held a hearing to discover why camping has been allowed at Occupy D.C., McPherson Square.

The hearing room was filled to capacity with a mix of occupiers, media, curious staff members and police officers. The two-hour hearing ranged from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) calling the whole thing “baffling” to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a self-proclaimed “old country prosecutor” saying “the battle for this republic is going to unravel if the law… is not enforced.”

The law he was referring to is the ban on camping in some national parks. Gowdy grilled Jonathan Jarvis, the director of the National Park Service on the definition of camping.

Jarvis said it was the act of sleeping or preparing to sleep. Given that definition, Gowdy pressed on by asking why the Park Service hadn’t enforced that law.

Jarvis, who has been NPS director since 2009 and was participating in his first Congressional hearing, said they were using discretion with the unique protest. He told the Republican that the protest was a 24-hour-vigil and that absent an emergency or threat to public health or safety “they must be able to continue their vigil.” He did say that the Park Service would begin enforcing camping regulations there “very soon,” meaning that protesters may be given citations or arrested for sleeping in the park.

Timothy Zick, a law professor from William and Mary, agreed with Jarvis. He told the committee that this protest is different in that it seeks to occupy as part of its First Amendment message.

“No permit is required for a demonstration of this size, and no time requirement,” said Zick, “The agency is in compliance with regulations.”

Lurking in the background of the hearing was Rep. Darrell Issa, the Oversight Committee chairman, who fired the first shots in this debate. In December, he ordered a full investigation into Occupy D.C. McPherson after a group of three hunger strikers affiliated with the movement came to his office asking that D.C. representatives be given the right to vote in the federal government.

He was in top form at the hearing, with his hair slicked and his arrogance on full display. At one point, Congressman Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) said “normally I would like to thank the chair for holding this investigation…” but that the tone was on the wrong track and Issa interrupted to say “you’re welcome." Later, he interrupted D.C.’s non-voting representative Eleanor Holmes-Norton as she lamented the fact that no one from Occupy D.C. was invited to speak on their behalf.

“This is not a country where we talk about people and don’t invite them to defend themselves…” said Norton just before Issa cut in to tell her this hearing was intended to be what would happen with the next set of protesters.

Sam Jewler, an Occupy D.C. protester, said the group had tried to contact every member of the Subcommittee on Health and D.C. in order to put forth a witness for the hearing, but no one responded. Instead him and other supporters had to watch silently as they were talked about at one of the highest levels of government.

“We were not allowed to practice our right to free speech at this hearing,” said Jewler.

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Washington D.C. was treated as just another pawn in the recent budget deal, and the whole thing is treated like a political game. Real people are affected in very real ways while politicians posture. It's sickening:

The compromise reached last week by President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner to reinstate a ban on D.C.'s ability to fund abortions for low-income women has, so far, been enveloped inside a bubble of political rhetoric.

But the very real effects of the ban have started to take hold: 28 women who were scheduled for abortion procedures in the District today were informed by a local clinic last night that, as of midnight, they would be unable to rely on D.C. Medicaid to pay for those procedures.

The DC Abortion Fund, an all-volunteer operated organization which has provided guidance to D.C. area women regarding abortions since 1995, sent out an emergency call late last night to raise funds for the 28 women. DC Abortion Fund's Tiffany Reed says that the emergency campaign has been relatively successful to date.

"We've raised over $3,965 so far in the last 12 hours," Reed told DCist via email. "We're still working to fundraise for the women who are scheduled today and then we have women scheduled Friday and Saturday who are just now being notified they can't use their Medicaid."

The fundraising effort -- which has included a $250 donation made by Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham -- will continue through the weekend.

Glenn Beck expects 300,000 people in Washington, D.C., tomorrow for BeckStock. Really. Those are his own words. Calling it both the "Woodstock of the next generation" and "the anti-Woodstock," Beck expects "a miracle." It would take a miracle to get half so many people to ride a bus to D.C. and watch a three-hour Goldline ad.

Did you know that Goldline sponsored both the Wright Brothers and the moon landing? I didn't. Much more -- including an original video -- after the jump.

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This May 1st, immigrant communities and citizens alike will hit the streets to say no to Arizona's new "show me your papers law" and yes to real, federal action on immigration reform this year. Eighty cities across the country are gearing up for major rallies, marches, and protests tomorrow. Students who had come in from New York, Florida, and California to participate in the Washington protests led their own action in front of Governor Jan Brewer's DC office today. They chanted, "Arizona, Shame On You! Immigrants Are People, Too!"

Watch it:

Tomorrow's marches are a follow-up to the major March for America: Change Takes Courage, which drew over 200,000 people to the National Mall on March 21st. At that event, President Obama delivered a firm message promising he'd work on comprehensive immigration reform "this year." Now, with Arizona's new law driving already-desperate communities into action, we're likely to see events in Chicago, New York, and L.A. turn out tens of thousands of people.

At the DC event, 40 protesters will go so far as to risk arrest, practicing peaceful civil disobedience in the face of cynical Washington politics.

Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Community Change, writes today at Huffington Post:

Tomorrow, there will be over 80 demonstrations in favor of immigration reform across America. One of them will be in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. There, some 40 dignitaries including a member of Congress, clergy, heads of organizations and community leaders will likely be arrested in acts of civil disobedience against unjust immigration enforcement and the political cowardice in addressing our broken immigration system. I will be one of those getting arrested.

I am willing to get arrested tomorrow because the massive deportations being undertaken by the Obama Administration are tearing apart families, separating children from their parents, risking the lives of disabled immigrants and vulnerable refugees, and spreading terror into our communities. I will be arrested because America needs to understand immigration reform is not merely a political issue; our broken system is a moral disaster unfolding in our nation. Civil disobedience is important at this point because it signals to our leaders that the current situation is so unjust and unsustainable that people are no longer willing to comply or be complicit in the injustices committed by our government.

Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), who just announced that he intends to join in the civil disobedience, released this statement:

We have to keep the pressure on and let the President and Congress know we need immigration reform this year," the Congressman said Friday. "I am joining the rally in Washington because the effort to get immigration reform passed is escalating, the attacks on immigrants and immigration reform are escalating, and the Arizona law is a wake-up call that inaction at the federal level has huge consequences for communities, families, and individuals.

WHAT:   Rally for Immigration Reform

WHEN: Saturday May 1, at 2:00 p.m. ET (music program starts at 1:30 p.m.)

WHERE: Lafayette Square, (across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House)

In addition to civil disobedience, many May Day events will feature celebrities who are taking a stand against what happened in Arizona. Via Perez Hilton:

And if you're lucky enough to be in Los Angeles this weekend, go be a part of their march with guests like Gloria and Emilio Estefan also taking part!

It's not just a hispanic issue, it's one that affects everyone regardless of their background.

Last but not least, students who've walked 1,500 miles on what they are calling the "Trail of Dreams" will be a major part of the Washington, DC event. Watch their stories:

Find a protest near you.

Teabaggers are on the move, led by the usual suspects: Michael P. Leahy, Tom Whitmore, Judson Phillips, and social media maven Christina Botteri. They even have marching orders to chant while they pack their signs, their video cameras and their astroturf before coming to Washington DC to "defeat Obamacare".

Their Take the Town Halls to Washington website is full of rile-em-up, send-em-out rhetoric fit for bluedog and teabagger alike:

The idea is to bring a tea party town hall to the 66 members of the House of Representatives whose support of Obamacare is wavering. We want to let them know there is only one vote their constituents will support: No on Obamacare. We are asking local tea party activists to travel to Washington during this period, and make sure that each of these 66 members is reminded every day that if they fail to vote against Obamacare, they will be voted out of office in November.

Except for this: There aren't 66 undecided votes in the House right now. Not even close. (AOL News' full list of undecided Democrats)

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Ah, Maureen! You're always just a little bit behind the parade, aren't you?

Maureen Dowd is thrilled DC is "finally integrated." To celebrate, the Times columnist made an A-list nightclub of her home then dined like French aristocracy.

Dowd bragged to MSNBC that Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen couldn't get into her big inauguration party last night. She's a celebrity! A crowd gathered behind her during the MSNBC interview, because, the cable network dubiously claimed, members recognized the columnist and were fans, apparently enamored of Dowd's pointless pop-culture references and tired arch emasculation of various male liberals.

Anyway, Dowd said she's very happy about racial discord ending forever — she grew up with black people, you know — so she drank champagne and ate croissants at the Lincoln Memorial, in celebration of DC being integrated. What? Why would Dowd tell this story? Is she trying to parody herself? On peyote? Off of Ritalin?

In another bizarre, self-undermining statement, Dowd said she would go easier on Obama than on Bush, but implied this was only because she was terrified the diverse crowd behind her would tear the columnist limb from limb.

Not only is she the new voice of race relations, she's also doing her part to bring the Times back to fiscal stability. But if the New York Times were my paper and I was trying to stay afloat, I think the last person I'd want to keep on is the person who spends my money on half-assed trend stories:

I didn't see this piece, but my friend Cos (who worked as a reporter with me) pointed it out the other day. "The New York Times is going out of business, but they send Maureen Dowd and her buddy to a spa?" she said, pointedly.

To be honest, I forgot about it (I tend to put anything having to do with Maureen Dowd out of my usable memory) until Dr. S. (another recovering reporter) just sent me this:

Carlos Slim or no Carlos Slim, these are lean times at The New York Times. On Friday, the paper handed down new, tighter guidelines for employee expenses. Among the new strictures: a $50-per-head limit on meals and an end to reimbursement for entertaining fellow Times colleagues.

So there was predictable outrage after op-ed star Maureen Dowd published a travel piece yesterday about her weekend spent scoping the scene at a new high-end spa in Miami. Dowd and another Times writer, TV critic Alessandra Stanley, spent a few day getting massages and detoxifying -- taking time out to have dinner with the city's chief of police at a swanky private club -- ostensibly in the name of researching whether the down economy is causing "spa guilt" among the well-to-do.

Did Dowd really manage to get the paper to pay for several thousand dollars worth of pampering just as her coworkers were being told to cut back? (Times ethics policies strictly prohibit employees from accepting comped meals or lodgings, or from letting their guests pick up the tab, especially if they're government officials.) Dowd's assistant said the columnist had "paid her own way, totally."* But a Times spokeswoman, asked about the story, framed it differently:

When our restaurant reviewer goes to a high-end restaurant, The Times pays and the limits on expenses are not applicable. The same is true with the expenses associated with Ms. Dowd's story. The visit and the payments were properly handled within our policies.

Update, 1.20.09: Dowd's assistant clarifies: Dowd paid her her own way out of pocket initially but will have her expenses reimbursed by the paper.

The media, they are so very different from you and me! (And if I were one of Maureen's co-workers, I'd respond with that traditional newsroom inquiry: "Who'd she do to get that?") More reactions here and here.

TPM picks up on this revealing gem from the House Oversight Committee's report (.pdf) on Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman:

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

Although immediate requests for comment from Fournier, who is now the AP's acting Washington D.C. bureau chief, were not returned, a later AP article on the matter gets him on the record:

"I was an AP political reporter at the time of the 2004 e-mail exchange, and was interacting with a source, a top aide to the president, in the course of following an important and compelling story. I regret the breezy nature of the correspondence."

It would be interesting to go back to the time this email was written to see just how (un)critically Fournier's reporting of the Iraq War was. If anyone comes across something, by all means feel free to leave comments.

Cenk Uygur at TYT speaks to Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) about Congress's recent caving to the Bush administration on the budget spending bills.

I'm sure that Rep. Israel is a very well-intentioned congressperson, but it's clear that He. Just. Doesn't. Get. It. I can't think of a better recent example demonstrating how the Stockholm Syndrome has infected the majority party in Washington D.C.

Rep. Israel agreed with everything Cenk said--in principle. But he's lacking the spine to do anything more, as are the leadership "above his pay grade." That's where you MUST come in. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz told Ed Schultz weeks ago that she doesn't hear about these things from her constituents. I put in a call to my congresscritter and had much the same thing confirmed. They're asked about local interests like protecting local businesses and expediting government bureaucracy for their constituents, like passport facilitation. They get their share of angry calls, but what they don't get are calls of support for standing up against the Bush administration and their Republican counterparts. No one is telling them "if you play tough, we will have your back."

In a perfect world, they would not need us to do so. I have been guilty of making the angry calls--I told DiFi's office I would do everything I could to oppose any future re-election campaign she would choose to start. And I will. But I realized talking to my congressperson that I had to also say "I need you to represent us better. I will back you up if you do. I will write letters to the editor, whatever is needed to show that you have my support by acting like the majority party."

They are cowering after 25 years of Republican majority. They fear the Republican noise machine within their insulated Beltway Bubble. We have seen just this week how empowering we can be when we make our voices heard in a positive yet forceful way. So during this holiday break in Congress, please make a point of calling your representative's local office and let them know that we have their back, IF they represent us.

It's the only way we'll see any change.