By John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 29, 2008

Former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., Maryland's most prominent Republican, has decided to skip his party's national convention in St. Paul, Minn., next week, citing a busy schedule of things to do with his law firm and his son's football team.

"The schedule's just crazy right now, and I have no formal role to play," Ehrlich said in an interview yesterday.

Ehrlich, who was defeated by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) in 2006, is widely considered his party's best prospect for reclaiming the office in 2010. Ehrlich became the heavily Democratic state's first Republican governor in a generation with his 2002 election victory over then-Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D).

Ehrlich said yesterday that he has made no decisions about 2010 and that skipping St. Paul suggested nothing about his political future or his level of enthusiasm for the presidential bid of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Ehrlich, an early backer of former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R), is currently serving as chairman of McCain's Maryland campaign.

Ehrlich ticked off a full schedule of political events in coming weeks, in Maryland and elsewhere, for McCain and other GOP candidates. Ehrlich, a former member of Congress, said he has attended each of the last four Republican national conventions.

Michael S. Steele (R), who was Ehrlich's lieutenant governor, is scheduled to address the GOP convention Tuesday night. Steele has gained national attention as an African American member of the party. He is chairman of GOPAC, an organization that recruits Republican candidates nationally.

Steele is not serving as a Maryland delegate at the convention.

Most of Virginia's prominent Republicans are attending, including U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling. House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford), who originally supported former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee in the primaries, is not attending.

Several candidates for office in Maryland and Virginia have chosen to stay at home to campaign.

In Maryland, they include state Sen. Andrew P. Harris (R-Baltimore County), who is running for an open U.S. House seat in the 1st Congressional District, which includes part of Anne Arundel County. Chris Meekins, Harris's campaign manager, said the candidate has several events scheduled in the district in the coming week.

In Virginia, state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II (R-Fairfax), who is running for state attorney general in 2009, said he considered going but decided his money would be better spent on campaigning in the commonwealth than on attending the convention with the state's delegation, most of whose members he knows.

Staff writer Anita Kumar contributed to this story.