Its hard to believe that conservative pundit Calvin Thomas is serious when he claims that "Republicans and conservatives have a great opportunity to move into Baltimore and other inner cities with a message of hope and success" ("Baltimore's problems not rooted in racist police," May 15).
His disjunctive use of "Republicans and conservatives" implies they might not be the same thing. But one thing they are both agree on is an anti-tax message epitomized by Grover Norquist's pledge against raising taxes for any purpose.
Does Mr. Thomas know what the property taxes rates are in Baltimore? Why would Republicans and conservatives move into Baltimore only to see their property taxes go sky high?
A case can be made that the reason registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by an 8-to-1 margin in the city is because, as the party of the landed gentry, Republicans have largely moved out, if only to protect their assets. And they won't be coming back any time soon, no matter what Mr. Thomas says.
As for the message of hope and success, it rings false as well. Occupy America published a study showing that 95 of the 100 poorest counties in the U.S. are red counties, defined as those that voted for Romney in 2012.
Republicans like Mr. Thomas and Jonah Goldberg have great schadenfreude attributing Baltimore's tragedies to liberal politicians when the same could be said of rural counties in Texas, Georgia and Kentucky, which are all Republican strongholds.
I can't be the only Baltimorean who is tired of hearing conservative pundits use Baltimore as their punching bag.
Paul R. Schlitz Jr., Baltimore