O'Malley, Cardin Hope To Link Rivals to Bush

The campaigns are for high political office in Maryland, but the Democratic candidates' toughest attacks are focused on a man from Texas: George W. Bush.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, who is challenging incumbent Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., calls his opponent "the George Bush Mini-Me of Maryland," and he has plastered the same photo on three recent campaign mailers. It shows Ehrlich and the president arm in arm.

Benjamin L. Cardin (D), the 10-term congressman from Baltimore who is taking on Republican Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in the race for an open U.S. Senate seat, mentions his opponent on the stump. But he saves a battery of attacks for Bush and urges voters to elect Cardin because "George Bush is leading this nation in the wrong direction."

The Democratic effort to nationalize the two high-profile Maryland campaigns is unmistakable, the latest sign that party leaders believe anger at the president might be the decisive emotion that drives voters to the polls in November.

Republicans, however, say it won't sell.

"They don't seem to realize that George Bush isn't running for Senate or governor in Maryland," said state GOP Chairman John Kane. "I think they're so lost for something to grab onto to move this state forward that this is all they can talk about."

Republicans aren't countering by embracing Bush, though -- Steele and Ehrlich skipped the president's recent Labor Day visit to Maryland. Instead, they have been running campaigns that never mention their party affiliation, casting themselves as party-neutral moderates.

In his ubiquitous first campaign ad, Steele tells viewers he'll "talk straight about what's wrong in both parties."

Ehrlich's campaign is more issue-oriented, but he also has used advertising to try to convey a centrist, party-neutral image. In his first commercial, supporters tell viewers: "He doesn't govern from the right. Or the left. But the center, where most of us are."

Parris N. Glendening (D), a former two-term Maryland governor, said the Steele and Ehrlich campaigns offer the best evidence that the Democrats are onto something.

"To me, the strongest sign that this strategy is going to work is in the way the Republicans are responding," Glendening said. "Look at them. They're running as fast as they can from their party."

Glendening said Maryland Democrats are following a road map that is being used in contests throughout the country. It's a strategy that mirrors the 1994 Republican plan, in which GOP candidates across the country sought to tar opponents by linking them to a then-unpopular President Bill Clinton, said Jim Jordan, a national Democratic strategist.