Gov. Martin O?Malley is often given to soaring rhetoric about his proposals, but he went to a place where no governor had gone before: a classic “Star Trek” episode.
“We have any ?Star Trek? fans in the house?” he asked the several hundred people at a League of Conservation Voters fundraiser Tuesday in the new Annapolis Westin hotel.
“You remember that episode with the two guys, and one of them, the right side of his face was black and the left side of his face was white? Remember that one? And he was always babbling and chasing through a burning planet, the last reaches of hell. Another guy had the opposite side of his face black and the other side of his face was white.
“And to look at them, you think, you guys have so much in common, why are you guys chasing each other to hell and back, when you have so much to agree on? I felt like I was trapped in that episode all week.”
O?Malley had spent much of Monday and Tuesday trying to persuade legislators to support his deficit-cutting tax increases and slots proposal, along with a special session to pass them.
Fiscally conservative Democrats don?t like some of the taxes, Montgomery County delegates are not thrilled with raising income tax rates, liberals don?t want to see more gambling and Republicans hate most of it.
The governor was clearly frustrated.
“By God, consensus sure is elusive,” O?Malley said at the event in honor of former Gov. Harry Hughes. “We all have a responsibility to find consensus, and I really, really need your help.”
