Maryland GOP policy differences a good thing

While The Baltimore Sun’s front page headline screams hateful Republican Party division, in reality the article suggests that Maryland Republicans are having a healthy debate within the party about the direction they want the party to go after current term-limited Republican Gov. Larry Hogan leaves office (“GOP schism on the ballot,” May 8).

Quick: Name me a major policy difference among the 10 candidates running in the Maryland Democratic gubernatorial primary. Go ahead, I’ll wait. There are none, obviously, or any differences are so minimal as to be barely noticeable to voters. Other then Wes Moore’s misrepresentations about his youthful Baltimore connections — but not his love for the city — these Democrats all present the same ideas and policies. They are truly interchangeable. It’s Maryland Democrats that could use a “schism.”

The Republican “schism” you write about concerns a Donald Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate, Dan Cox, running against Kelly Schulz who is more centrist and has the favor of Governor Hogan. That’s not a schism. It’s a reasoned debate within the Maryland Republican Party as to where it wants to go and who it wants to present to Maryland voters as its candidate and the ideas and policies that candidate brings with him or her.

Isn’t that the point of campaigns and elections?