Issue #304

GOP voters in Maryland face dilemma as theocrats win primaries

Something unusual is happening in the politics of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Michael Peroutka, one-time presidential candidate of the Constitution Party, won the Republican primary for a seat on the County Council and GOP Central Committee. His pastor, and partner in the Christian historical revisionist Institute on the Constitution, David Whitney, ran for the same County Council seat as a Democrat and for his party’s central committee (he lost both races). PRA has reported on these races since February, but we also now know that Joseph “Joe” Delimater III, an ideological ally and pupil of Peroutka and Whitney, won the uncontested GOP primary for county sheriff. This election season in Anne Arundel County (which includes the state capital of Annapolis) appears to be intended as a church-based electoral pilot project, from which like-minded theocratic factions can learn. It is also may signal a small, but significant, national trend in applied theocratic theory. Political Research Associates, 7-8-14.