Republican Bob Ehrlich was elected governor of Maryland in 2002. Democrat Martin O’Malley defeated him in his re-election bid in 2006. Now O’Malley’s running for re-election, and Ehrlich’s the GOP nominee.
Seems that it would be easy to compare their records. Ehrlich governed the state for 4 years, and O’Malley’s been running the place for 3 and a half years now.
The weird thing is, despite being the political junkie I am, and having lived in MD the whole time, I’m having a hard time making this comparison. Ehrlich spent his four years as governor trying to legalize slots, partly to provide more funding for education, and partly to subsidize Maryland’s dying racing industry. Since he didn’t get the slots, he didn’t really do much, as far as I can tell.
O’Malley, OTOH, was able to get a slots bill passed, but local approval was also required, and it’s been hung up at that level for some time. And I can’t think of much of anything he’s accomplished, either. So there doesn’t seem to be much here to use to convince a wavering independent, should I come across one, to vote one way or the other in this election.
Any fellow Marylanders got anything to add to this?
I once went on blind date with the future Mrs. O’Malley.
Perhaps you can say that O’Malley has kept the power base of the state from moving Montgomery-county-ways?
I have heard that the general state of living in the Free State is holding up, especially compared to the rest of the country. Given the broader economic environment that O’Malley has had to operate in, perhaps that is as good as it is going to get for now.
I have to say that from here, I sense a couple of things that are going to bubble to the surface in Baltimore and O’Malley’s benefit.
There seems to be an environment of innovation, particularly in the arts that are driving people back to Baltimore with a purpose, if not a vengeance yet. This is particularly intriguing to me, because one very real reason I left was I thought this would never happen, or if it did, I don’t want to wait for it. But now maybe it is happening, and that can only be good for the State if it picks up steam.
Also, there seems to be a bubbling under of technical innovation, of course in the medical field around JHU and JH Hospital, but also in internet related technologies.
In both cases, people I used to hang with as very young pups are now showing up in positions of increasing leadership.
All of this can be attributed to O’Malley, both during his term as Mayor, and as Governor, if it can be attributed at all.
Is the Maryland Republican Party really in such dire straits that they’re forced to put up a candidate who already lost an election as the incumbent? Or has Ehrlich had some good pub recently or something?
Technically MO’M got the slots initiative on the ballot so we could amend our constitution to have them in the state. Several years later, not a single slot parlor has opened, any many people didn’t even bother to bid on the licenses.
Republican wise, the only legitimate horses in the race are Ehrlich and a newcomer Brian Murphy, so they really don’t have much to offer. Republicans are a true minority in Maryland. (With the exception of the western and eastern parts of the state).
Allegedly Ehrlich’s poll numbers are pretty high at the moment though.
Lived in MoCo most of my life and everything around here is dominated by the county gov’t, so I’ve never had much cause to follow the State races. I didn’t even know Ehrlich wasn’t the governer anymore; if not for catching the local news once every couple of years or so, I would still think Schaefer was the governer. I can’t really see how it makes any real difference to me personally.
Seems like O’Malley raised taxes to close the budget deficit and applied the CitiStat program he adapted during his time as mayor to tracking state funding. That seems notable.
I was only a resident for a few years (and in Baltimore), so I don’t know too much about this stuff anymore.