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• jeanne (View Email) on January 8, 2003
  hey noar, perhaps change the sentence "A couple of current Blair students and former ones were in attendance. " to "Several Blair students and alumni were in attendance"?
  and
  "The people invited to the party included volunteers and contributors and therefore there was a range in age from young volunteers to a large number of senior citizens. " to perhaps "The party included both volunteers and contributors [btw, what contributors....??] and so ranged in age from young [perhaps comment what age, high school, middle school, etc] students to a large number of senior citizens."
  
  "The party was in a large room at the Rayburn building and was packed. "
  this might be better if you get rid of the "and was packed," becuse you later say that they were spilling into the hallways...
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• lily on January 10, 2003
  go chris vc! woohoooo
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• someoneelse on January 12, 2003
  he couldn't of won without the redistricting either
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• anotherperson on January 13, 2003
  that's the truth, Connie was gipped.
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• Smarte Won on January 16, 2003
  Stupid Van Hollen. Ira Shapiro should have been elected instead of that overgrown money-stealing blue-collar. I mean, he stole State Funds to finance HIS million-dollar campaign. He even went so far as to put his face on an imitation-Times magazine without even asking for permission beforehand. America's going to have a tough time with him as our representative...
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• Concerned Conservative on January 22, 2003
  Its so obvious that redistricting was for the sole purpose of kicking Connie out. Check this site out.
  
  http://www.mdp.state.md.us/redistrict/2002congressional_dist_sb805_may602.pdf
  
  It shows the redistricting. They put Damascus, the conservative part of Montgomery County, with Garrett County!
  
  Hey Nora, how about an article about Ehrlich being sworn in? Oh wait, he's a Republican, and probably evil too, right?
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• Proud Liberal on January 26, 2003
  In response to other comments, Connie Morella lost because the public was able to perceive that Chris Van Hollen is a superior legislator who was visible and vocal on the major public issues of the day, unlike Morella, and had natural allies in his own party to work with to achieve results, again unlike Morella, who always had to worry about giving offense to her own party and was a pariah among Republicans even as she voted to keep them in power; former Democratic Rep. Mike Barnes had established the mold for the type of activist Democrat the congressional district wanted; Republican winners like Morella and the late Rep. Newton Steers slipped into office only after bitter Democratic congressional primaries; the heavily Republican areas of northern Montgomery County which Morella complained so much about losing in redistricting, like Damascus, had been in the western Maryland 6th district (indeed, with places like Garrett County)until 1992 and had more in common with neighboring Frederick County than with the rest of Montgomery County; areas of Silver Spring and Takoma Park which had long been in the 8th district until 1992 were restored in 2002; Morella lost even her own political base in Bethesda to Van Hollen; she had been in office too long and relied on a cult of personality ("Connie!") to sustain her career; her behavior in the general election campaign unmasked an apparent belief that she had an entitlement to the congressional seat and that the campaign should be about her and her personal popularity, rather than the concerns of the voters, and unfortunately she sank to mudslinging on television and in campaign brochures in a negative campaign rejected by the electorate
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• Bill Yates (View Email) on January 30, 2003
  Van Hollen won because of redistricing. His win was not overwhelming at that. From his most recent unterrances he too thinks he is a United Nations Congressmen and not a United States Congressmen. lame America First democrats like Van Hollen are setting themselves up for defeat in 2004. Morella at least was fair and balanced in her terms of office and not partisan or brain dead like Van Hollen who now must think as he is instructed by the losers who put up the money for his campaign. Protect Americans first by supporting our President.
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