Year In Review

2015 Top Posts: #21-25

Jonathan Milestones ,

Over the course of the week, I’ll be counting down the top 25 posts of 2015 (as of today, there have been 1,453 posts on Maryland Scramble to date). Today we’ll start with 21 through 25. In reverse order, of course - it’s a countdown show, after all.

25. Pena-Melnyk Lit Piece Starting off our countdown, a July 4 post that highlighted the first lit piece in any of the campaigns. An early indication of the hard work and diligence that has seen Joseline Pena-Melnyk earn the lion’s share of the endorsements in the CD4 race.

24. Anti-Semitism In Prince George’s One of the blog’s first big stories, written May 5, about a mail piece that depicted Ike Leggett and Rushern Baker as dogs doing the bidding of Chris Van Hollen, Steny Hoyer and Ben Cardin to keep Donna Edwards from winning the Senate seat.

23. BREAKING: Van Hollen COH The critical July 20 post that established Chris Van Hollen’s complete dominance of the fundraising contest in the Senate race.

22. Is Donna Edwards #McConnelling? A lighthearted November 6 post that also highlighted the role that independent expenditure spending is going to have on the Senate race. If you didn’t know what “B-roll” was, you do now.

21. “MARTIN O’MALLEY IS SO HOT OH MY GOD” This October 14 post, which links to a Buzzfeed article that shows our former governor in a bathing suit, has been consistently viewed ever since. America discovered after the first Democratic debate what we’ve known in Maryland for a long time: the guy looks good with his shirt off.

More tomorrow.

2015 By The Numbers

Jonathan Milestones ,

Maryland Scramble was born on March 21, so as of midnight last night it’s 285 days old. In that just over nine month period, the squalling, colicky infant made an awful lot of noise:

  

And the month of December was by far the best month yet. Here’s the monthly trends in terms of page views.

  
December exceeded the best prior month (October) by almost 12%. It would have been much higher but for the holiday drop off the past 10 days or so.
But it was in unique visitors that we broke the bank in December. The prior high (again from October) was 5,160. In December, buoyed by the unusual letter writing stylings of Senate President Mike Miller and Comptroller Peter Franchot, Maryland Scramble saw 7,918 unique visitors, exceeding the old record by a whopping 53%.

  
 What’s next? Well, the sky’s the limit. Each month brings new readers and new stories and new sources. I want to expand the use of guest posts: if you have something to share with the class, let me know. If you agree (or even better, disagree) with something I wrote, write it up yourself. If you think I’m spending too little time on an issue, speak up.

I’ll have a top 25 posts of 2015 up later today, so you can reminisce on your favorite pieces or maybe catch up on ones you missed. In the meantime, thank you for being part of this half-accidental, always exciting, never boring, slightly out of control thrill ride. Here’s hoping that we can make 2016 even more fun than last year. 

Bringing Down The Curtain

Jonathan General Maryland Politics ,

2015 was quite a year, huh? A year ago everyone knew that Barbara Mikulski and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake were both running for reelection, Freddie Gray was still alive, Jeb Bush was going to win the Republican nomination, Donald Trump was an eccentric businessman, and Bernie Sanders was a not very well known senator from Vermont.

Not only that, but Maryland Scramble DIDN’T EVEN EXIST. Contemplate that, if you can.

Now comes 2016. Gonna be “yuuuuuuuuuge.” 117 days to the MD primary, 105 days to early voting. More blogging, more excitement, more fun than ever. Promise.

As always in politics, it’s the craziness that makes it so interesting. Like the sign says:  

I hope your 2015 ended well, and your 2016 is even better. Happy New Year. Stick around - the clowns and the jokers are just getting started.