Staff photo by KATIE FITZPATRICK
Del. Anthony J. O’Donnell speaks at the opening of his campaign headquarters in Prince Frederick on Saturday.
More than 100 supporters joined Del. Anthony J. O’Donnell (R-Calvert, St. Mary’s) Saturday morning during the opening of his campaign headquarters in Prince Frederick.
National Committeewoman Joyce Terhes introduced O’Donnell, who she said was the “kind of person we need in Washington to replace the guy that’s there from the 5th Congressional District.”
Terhes said the United States is in “grave trouble” and she is “worried sick” that the country is becoming socialist. She said the way to change the direction the country is headed in now is to elect new congressmen.
“If you want to change the way Congress acts, you’re going to have to change the people. [O’Donnell] is the right person for the job,” Terhes said.
On Dec. 17, O’Donnell announced his candidacy, which he said was done in a “nontraditional” way by releasing a video. He said opening the headquarters Saturday was another step in the process of announcing his campaign.
“We’re here today to talk about why Steny Hoyer needs to move on,” O’Donnell said at the beginning of his speech. “Thirty-one years in the Congress, 14 years in the state Senate what has he done for us?”
O’Donnell said he started questioning what Hoyer (D-Md., 5th) has done for the national defense because “our Congressman likes to claim he saved [Patuxent River Naval Air Station] and he saved our defense establishment.” He said he concluded that Hoyer was threatening the national defense by continuing to increase the national debt.
“He is running up the debt, and the debt is becoming so unsustainable that our defense posture in this country is under threat,” O’Donnell said.
Potential cuts in defense contracts and weapons programs would not allow the United States to maintain a “world-class military,” which would cause a lack of national security, O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell said Hoyer is not helping to improve the education system at the local and state levels, supported President Barack Obama’s decision to stop the Keystone XL pipeline “which would have brought immediate good-paying jobs to this country,” has not supported the construction of a third reactor at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant and has not helped secure national borders.
Hoyer recently signed an amicus brief supporting the federal government suing the state of Arizona, “who simply is trying to secure the borders because the federal government has fallen down on their job,” O’Donnell said.
“It’s a tall mountain,” O’Donnell said. “I’m under no illusions about how difficult it is but I’m not going to shrink from the task because I decided that I was not going to allow this country to be destroyed while standing idly by.
“If you guys help me, we can win this election and we can rock the political establishment in Maryland,” he said.
kfitzpatrick@somdnews.com