Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown paced his Baltimore County campaign office on Saturday afternoon, thanking about two dozen campaign staffers and volunteers for calling voters on behalf of his gubernatorial bid.
“Campaigns are won or lost based on the effort of volunteers just like you,” Brown (D) said during a pep talk that was followed by a group photo.
Brief visits such as that one have become a campaign-trail staple for Brown, who has mostly limited his appearances to friendly audiences of dedicated Democrats since winning the primary in June. Later that day, Brown stopped at an African American culture festival and visited a Young Democrats fundraiser and an abortion-rights gala.
Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2-to-1 in Maryland, meaning that Brown is the presumptive front-runner in the absence of a major scandal or gaffe. And with greater name recognition and a deeper fundraising network than Republican nominee Larry Hogan, an Anne Arundel County businessman, Brown is taking few political risks in the run-up to the Nov. 4 election.
“If you have a potentially big lead, why do anything to affect that?” said Stella M. Rouse, the assistant director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland. Rouse described Brown’s strategy as “lying low and riding the wave.”
Larry Hogan, Republican candidate for governor, greets people at the 38th annual Tawes Crab and Clam Bake. (Barbara Haddock Taylor/Baltimore Sun) Although Brown is highly disciplined when speaking publicly, his campaign manager, Justin Schall, usually responds to media inquiries on his behalf. And although Brown’s face sometimes pops up in television ads paid for by his campaign, more often it’s Hogan’s face that appears, along with warnings that he has “a dangerous Republican agenda.”
When Brown does hit the campaign trail, he talks mostly about building on the accomplishments of his boss, outgoing Gov. Martin O’Malley (D). Rather than put forward a bold new agenda, he talks about how wonderful Maryland has become under O’Malley’s leadership, and he says he wants to build an even “better Maryland for more Marylanders.”
Brown wants to gradually expand half-day pre-kindergarten to include all 4-year-olds and make Maryland more attractive to business owners. For those who are not O’Malley fans, Brown says he will be a different sort of governor, but he doesn’t say exactly how.
“This campaign is not about the past and where we’ve been, not even the progress that we’ve made,” Brown said at a conference in Annapolis recently. “This campaign is about the future. It’s about what’s next for Maryland. It’s about the jobs and the opportunities and the conditions of success that we create in Maryland’s future.”
Compared with Hogan, who has logged thousands of miles on his campaign bus to shake hands at county fairs and football games, Brown has not dedicated much time to schmoozing with regular folks — although this month he has greeted early-morning commuters at suburban Metro stations at least twice.
Schall said the best use of Brown’s time right now is firing up the Democratic base. Brown has made hundreds of appearances since last year, when he launched his campaign for what turned out to be a bitter, three-way primary race.
“As much as every candidate would love to go to every living room of every voter and tell them why they would be a good governor, that’s just not possible,” Schall said.
Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown watches as a pre-kindergarten student at Hernwood Elementary School in Baltimore County names articles of clothing and glues pieces on a paper doll. (Jenna Johnson/The Washington Post) The Brown team is quick to point out that Hogan has also avoided risk, despite energetic efforts to reach beyond the Republican base to independents and disaffected Democrats. While Brown has put forward a 145-page plan of action, the plan posted on Hogan’s campaign Web site is 332 words.
Hogan says he would cut more than $1.75 billion from the state budget by eliminating waste and fraud already flagged by government auditors; roll back taxes, especially those affecting middle-class families and small businesses; and make Maryland more attractive to job creators.
But he does not offer specifics on which taxes he would cut or how the waste and fraud could be eliminated. And he does not detail how he would boost Maryland in the eyes of would-be employers.
Hogan’s platform avoids several hot-button social issues — abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control — on which he has taken conservative positions in the past. The Brown campaign has accused Hogan of a “methodical and deliberate strategy to hide his opinion” on those issues.
Hogan says he will not change settled Maryland law on contentious social topics. He scoffed at the criticism that he hasn’t been detailed, pointing to 300 routine audits of Maryland departments and agencies in recent years, some of which have flagged waste, fraud or mismanagement of money. Hogan said that state officials often do not correct those problems but that he would force them to do so, freeing up nearly $2 billion.
“We have binders filled with the information,” he said. “We provided it to anyone who wanted.” The state has to cut spending, he said, before it can decide which taxes to eliminate or promise new initiatives.
Donald F. Norris, chairman of the Public Policy Department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, said Hogan has much to gain by staying vague. “As soon as he gives specifics, that opens him to attack from his opponent,” Norris said.
Hogan loves to joke that he has only run into Brown on the campaign trail a few times. “He doesn’t get out much,” Hogan said. “He’s hiding in a communications bunker and lobbing out silly things.”
Brown said he has focused much of his time on meeting with key groups of constituents — the sort of thing that many candidates do after being elected. When asked to describe a memorable interaction with a voter, Brown picked a meeting with business leaders in Montgomery County.
How about an interaction with an average voter?
“Let me just clarify: That is an average voter,” Brown said of the business leaders. “We’re all average voters.”
