Web pundit pulls a one-step-ahead hat trick

Brian Griffiths

Conservative blogger Brian Griffiths has been on a roll lately. In the past three weeks, he has broken the stories of E.J. Pipkin's candidacy Jennifer Dougherty's candidacy and GOP complaints over adjournment votes in the Special Session - all ahead of major media outlets that went on to write about them later.

Griffiths is a Republican insider, a former on his website and as a diarist for Red Maryland. Last August, he found himself in the limelight when he aired a behind-the-scenes dispute within the Anne Arundel Republican Central Committee.

Griffiths had discovered that some members of the relatively new committee (for which Griffiths unsuccessfully stood for in 2006) didn't get along with their fellow publicly elected chairman Michael Collins, and were trying to remove him in quite an un-public manner.

So what did Griffiths do? He started posting key players' letters and statements on his blog. Before he knew it, everyone was checking in to get the latest.

Not that it happened over night (he's been blogging for years), but the incident helped Griffiths develop his reputation among Maryland Republicans as someone with his finger on the pulse. He's often getting tips - some good, some bad.

Griffiths told Politicker MD, "I'm just glad that people believe in my credibility to be an honest broker, and the credibility of both my blog and Red Maryland as a source of information, to allow stories to be told and for news to get out that otherwise may not be available to the public in a timely way. And that's not just good for conservatives or for Republicans, but for all Marylanders."

Currently, Griffith's blog is floating some rumors about potential leadership battles at this weekend's state Republican Convention in Westminster. We're waiting to see how it plays out. Chances are he's onto something.

But wait - Griffiths is a Republican insider. So, who was his source on Democrat Dougherty?

"I just took it off the State Board of Elections website," Griffiths said.

Ah, but he did get it first.