A Big Ad Buy From Back in the Senate-Race Pack

Montgomery County businessman Josh Rales has two ads on the air in Baltimore and Washington and pledges more to come. (Susan Biddle - The Washington Post)

The Rales campaign would not say yesterday how much it planned to spend on the ads, which were produced by veteran media strategist David Doak . A Federal Election Commission report filed June 30 showed that Rales had spent $1.4 million of his own money, including an $893,000 expenditure on June 29.

Anita Dunn , a media strategist who is not affiliated with a Senate candidate, said it's hard to predict how the ads will affect the contest, but she added, "It's a very different primary today than it was a week ago."

Ehrlich Ad Cites Schaefer

---

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) started running the second television ad of his reelection campaign yesterday, asserting that he is "changing Maryland for the better" and deserves another term.

The 30-second spot, airing only in the Baltimore media market, tells of progress in areas including cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay, public school funding and state support for stem cell research. The ad's visuals include snippets from newspaper stories, including praise from Democratic Comptroller William Donald Schaefer . Though Ehrlich and Schaefer have been allies on many issues in recent years, Schaefer recently released a statement saying he would support the Democratic nominee for governor.

The statement did not mention the presumptive Democratic nominee, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley , with whom Schaefer has had a frosty relationship.

Schaefer on the Border

---

Comptroller William Donald Schaefer teed off on immigrants again yesterday, complaining at a Board of Public Works meeting about the cost of educating their children.

"I get so irritated that we just open the borders, let everybody in, put everybody in the schools, educate them, all that sort of stuff, and that's the way it is," Schaefer, 84, said in comments reported by the Associated Press. "And Americans [are] going to have to bear the cost."

Schaefer's remarks came as the three-member board, on which he sits, was approving a contract for English language proficiency tests for the state's 30,000 students taking such classes.

Schaefer, who faces two Democratic primary challengers, sparked controversy in 2004 when he recounted an encounter with a McDonald's clerk who he said had difficulty speaking English.

Yesterday's outburst brought a sharp rebuke from one of his opponents, Del. Peter Franchot (D-Montgomery).

"This is the latest in a long line of inexcusable events that has cast serious doubts on William Donald Schaefer's mental and emotional fitness for the office of comptroller," Franchot said in a statement.

Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens is also seeking the Democratic nomination.

Staff writer Claudia Deane and the Associated Press contributed to this report.