Gregory Kane: Can Maryland elect a qualified governor? Probably not

Towson University professor Richard Vatz was having a hard time suppressing the dickens within him.

"Is there a compelling argument," Vatz asked the guest speaker addressing his persuasion class, "against your running for governor in 2010?"

Vatz put that question to a man who's already been governor of Maryland: Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who in 2002 was elected the state's first GOP chief executive in 36 years. And, as if to prove he's not a long-winded guy, Ehrlich made his answer exquisitely brief.

"Yes," he answered.

It was a typical Ehrlich visit to Vatz's persuasion class, a tradition that goes back about 17 years. In previous talks, Ehrlich has engaged Towson University students in lively discussions about abortion, record-label warnings, perjury, capital punishment, the war on terror and its effect on civil liberties, American multiculturalism, race relations, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

This past Tuesday, Ehrlich was at it again, only this time the topic was, appropriately, health care reform. Specifically, Ehrlich challenged Vatz's students to answer this question: "Should the government force you, the young and healthy, to buy health insurance?"

After two students answered with a resounding "Yes!" Ehrlich asked, "Are there any libertarians present outraged by these answers?"

Libertarians should be, and America's dwindling body of federalists most certainly are. They've already served notice on the former constitutional law professor sitting in the White House that the federal government forcing anyone to buy anything is an expansion of power expressly forbidden it by the Constitution.

It was while students were answering Ehrlich's question that Vatz interjected his. After Ehrlich gave his brief response, he turned it over once again to the students, asking them to give him the pros and cons of his running for governor against incumbent Martin O'Malley in 2010. When they were done, Ehrlich gave four reasons why he SHOULDN'T run in 2010, his experience as the state's chief executive notwithstanding.

First, Ehrlich said, he was the state's first Republican governor since the late Spiro Agnew won in 1966. And Agnew's election itself was an anomaly.

Second, Maryland, Ehrlich noted, has become even MORE Democratic since he lost to O'Malley in the 2006 election. On that point Ehrlich was simply being much too kind to Maryland's electorate. I would have said Maryland has become even more HOPELESSLY Democratic since 2006.

The third reason, Ehrlich said, was that President Obama won Maryland by a huge margin. And the fourth is that O'Malley will have a ton of money backing him.

My take -- and I mentioned this to him after his talk -- is that in 2006 Ehrlich won every subdivision but five: Baltimore City, Howard County, Charles County, Prince George's County and Montgomery County.

"Which of those five would you need to win in 2010 to put you back in the Governor's Mansion?" I asked him.

"Howard County," he answered.

"Can you?" I asked.

"Don't know," he answered.

I'm sorry, there's just no KIND way to say this. What can you say about a city like Baltimore, where O'Malley was mayor before he became governor, electing its current mayor, now facing a corruption trial stemming from her romantic involvement with a contractor who was married?

And not to her, I might add. But Mayor Sheila Dixon, who's on trial this week, has a slew of witnesses ready to testify about her high moral character.

Oh, she'll be acquitted, believe me. And no one will think there's a problem with her accepting gifts from a married contractor who was her boyfriend, which got her into her current mess.

And let's not forget O'Malley's campaign for governor, when he proudly boasted about the 60 percent graduation rate in Baltimore's public schools. A 60 percent graduation rate is a scandal, not a success. O'Malley ran, in essence, for governor on a record of FAILURE.

And won.

How can a reasoning, erudite, intelligent man like Ehrlich get through to the minds of people who would vote for a man who ran on a record of failure, or a Dixon, who had the stench of corruption wafting about her even before she became mayor of Baltimore?

Ehrlich can't, and I doubt that any Republican can.

Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.