Session's End Ignites Race For Governor
Md. Candidates Shift Themes Toward Election

By Matthew Mosk and John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Shortly before 6 a.m. yesterday, as the last of the partygoers were stumbling home from the celebrations that followed the end of the 2006 Maryland General Assembly session, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s campaign team let fly an e-mail requesting cash.

The 90-day ban on political fundraising had ended at midnight Monday, a session of partisan division was behind him and Ehrlich made clear in a video message sent via e-mail that his eyes are focused on the campaign trail that lies ahead.

"This is going to be a real contrast election," Ehrlich mused during a freewheeling, 40-minute press briefing yesterday. "The people of Maryland deserve this."

Ehrlich and the Democrats vying to unseat him said yesterday they believe that this year's rancorous session provided a strong backdrop for the political season ahead. To the governor, it provided evidence of a Democratic Party on a leftward philosophical slide. To his Democratic rivals, there was proof that the state's first Republican governor in a generation cannot work with others to find consensus.

Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan said: "Annapolis has become more dysfunctional every year he is in office. The governor has to set the tone, to lead, and he's brought gridlock."

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley said that "instead of bringing people together and offering compromise, Bob Ehrlich has sided with his special-interest friends and offered partisan politics."

With five months until the primary election, and, as Ehrlich noted in his e-mail, "only 211 days to the election," the three gubernatorial candidates are pivoting into a more aggressive campaign push.

At this stage, that still means a focus on raising money. As of the most recent report in January, Ehrlich had $8.4 million in the bank, compared with $4.2 million for O'Malley and $1.4 million for Duncan.

In an e-mail sent yesterday, O'Malley's running mate, Anthony G. Brown, announced a "massive online fundraising effort" launched to counter Ehrlich's.

Brown's solicitation said thousands of donations of as little as $25 were needed to counter Ehrlich's "$100,000 parties at the homes of special-interest leaders."

"This governor may not be good at leading, but he is one fantastic fundraiser," the solicitation said.

But money is far from the only focus. Ehrlich said yesterday that he has lawyers who are closely studying the law passed late Monday, over his veto, that spells out polling places that will open a week before Election Day. Democrats have said that early voting will drive up turnout, and the polling locations were selected to put voting booths within easy reach of mass transit and population centers.

Ehrlich has said that the sites are intended to give Democrats a partisan advantage and that early voting will enable those intent on cheating the system to cast several ballots. "We're not going to allow the transparent invitation to fraud that this legislature has blessed," he said, adding that he will consider either a legal challenge or a petition to overturn the law.

More broadly, he and the Democrats are working to turn the events of the past 90 days into campaign themes. Several seemed to be getting a test run yesterday.

The governor said the Democrats who control the legislature, led by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (Calvert) and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (Anne Arundel), made very clear choices. They passed a bill prohibiting his campaign finance director from serving on the board that oversees state universities. But they failed to pass one that would have enhanced restrictions on child sex offenders.

They were able to overturn his veto of a bill requiring Wal-Mart and other large businesses to expand their health coverage plans, but they were not able to broker a deal to scale back looming electricity rate increases, Ehrlich said.

"By any measure, these misplaced priorities are a function of partisanship," Ehrlich said. "Up and down the ballot, you're going to have candidates who support Mike Miller and Mike Busch and their view of the world. And you'll have candidates who support Bob Ehrlich's view of the world."

Democrats, meanwhile, found other messages that flowed from the legislative session. Miller said repeatedly that he saw the utility rate crisis as the best illustration of a governor who was unwilling to put in the "elbow grease" needed to get a deal done.

"The governor's approach to this was lackadaisical," Miller said. "He just isn't willing to work."

Busch zeroed in on a similar theme. Two days before the session concluded, Busch told reporters that if there were no resolution on electricity rates, "it's clearly at the feet of the governor. He's the one most responsible for resolving this issue. He's the chief executive. "

Barely 48 hours later, the campaigns had picked up the themes.

O'Malley sent out a campaign news release that blasted Ehrlich for "four years of failed leadership in Annapolis." In Ehrlich's mass e-mail, the governor fired back, branding "Maryland's liberal-led legislature as the most partisan and petty in the country."