Ehrlich Comes Home To Launch Campaign

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. at his childhood home in Arbutus, Md. (Nikki Kahn - The Washington Post)

Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. returned to his boyhood home yesterday to launch his bid for reelection, and he plans to name his running mate this morning, a 36-year-old female Cabinet secretary who is blind.

Ehrlich made the formal reelection announcement standing on the front steps of his parents' modest brick rowhouse in the Baltimore suburb of Arbutus, telling a sun-drenched crowd that he wants to be Maryland's first Republican governor in 50 years elected to a second term. Today he is expected to embark on that effort with Kristen Cox, his secretary of disabilities, sources close to the governor said.

Cox, who has never sought political office, did not attend the campaign kickoff. But in recent weeks, she has appeared more frequently at Ehrlich's side, at state and political events. His advisers believe the selection could help bolster Ehrlich's standing with female voters -- whose support, as indicated in polls, has been declining since he took office.

The governor is more than halfway to his target of raising $20 million and has had a campaign operation that has been moving at full tilt for months. Yesterday, he vowed not only to keep his hold on the governor's mansion but also to realign a state that has been dominated by Democrats for most of the past 100 years.

"So here we go," Ehrlich said. "We're going to compete hard. We're going to engage. We're going to debate. We're going to take on the monopoly. And this time, we're going to bring the monopoly down."

Ehrlich, 49, will spend the next five months locked in combat with Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, the Democrat who had expected an extended primary fight until his opponent, Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, withdrew from the race last week.

Ehrlich and O'Malley have been trading barbs for months in anticipation of the campaign. Yesterday, O'Malley surfaced in Arbutus two hours before Ehrlich's speech to try and showcase his support in Baltimore's blue-collar suburbs.

But the governor's focus was not on O'Malley. Instead, he ticked off a list of accomplishments he has been touting in speeches, on his Web site and in the first of what is likely to be a summer-long barrage of television commercials.

In a 15-minute speech, Ehrlich boasted of turning a $4 billion budget deficit into a $2 billion surplus and fending off what he said were $7 billion in proposed taxes from Democrats. All are numbers that Democrats have disputed.

He also reached out to farmers, environmentalists, moderate Democrats and, most notably, given his choice of running mates, the disabled. "People with disabilities in Maryland are empowered more than in any other state in the country," he said.

Ehrlich created a Cabinet-level position two years ago aimed at addressing the community's needs. Cox became that department's first secretary.

Cox, who was born in Bellevue, Wash., has said she lost her vision to a degenerative genetic disease at 11 while growing up in Utah. She walks with the aid of a white cane. She told the Examiner newspaper in a recent interview that she had to "memorize everything" when she attended Brigham Young University because she had not yet learned Braille.