Call it a once or twice in a lifetime election.
More than 50 years have passed since Maryland had a standing Republican governor run for re-election. In the past 100 years, only one other Mayor of Baltimore has gone directly from leading the state’s largest city to the top office in theStatehouse.
In the race to become the state’s 61st governor, both Republican incumbent Gov. Robert Ehrlich and his Democratic challenger Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley want the public to know why the other shouldn’t get such an honor.
“What we need is a governor in Annapolis who is better at taking responsibility than he is at taking cheap shots,” O’Malley said Saturday during the first of two debates with Ehrlich in Baltimore.
Ehrlich said O’Malley hardly fits that bill.
“I don’t have any problem with him criticizing my record, that’s what a challenger is supposed to do,” Ehrlich said after the first debate. “But he appears to have this huge issue with anybody criticizing his record, which is really weird when you think about it.”
The two have clashed on their respective records on crime, development, education, energy policy, the justice system, leadership, taxes and transportation.
Their messages and their strategies have resulted in a reasonably close race for Maryland, where 55 percent of the state’s 3.1 million registered voters are Democrats. With less than a month to go before the Nov. 7 general election, most polls show O’Malley in the lead by about 7 percentage points.
“We know it’s going to be close,” Ehrlich said last week during a lunch meeting with The Examiner in Annapolis, “very close.”
The past six months have shown the distinct differences between O’Malley’s and Ehrlich’s races.
O’Malley and his running mate, state Del. Anthony Brown, D-Prince George’s, have spent untold hours listening and learning about issues statewide.
O’Malley’s visits often take about twice their allotted time as he walks communities, chatting with passers-by and asking questions. He has learned about urban renewal plans in Suitland Manor, a corner of Prince George’s besieged by crime and drugs for decades, and read a speech in halting Spanish to a crowd of Hispanic immigrants in Silver Spring.
Ehrlich has made few dedicated campaign stops but has brought communities improvements from his administration.
In recent weeks, he has delivered a stoplight wanted for 40 years at an intersection in Seat Pleasant and broke ground south of Olney for the Intercounty Connector.
Slim margins in the race have forced the candidates to look beyond standard bases of support.
Ehrlich has had to court Democratic voters in a state where they outnumber Republican voters 2 to 1. He has formed relationships with such Democratic leaders as Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson and even escorted the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Bruce S. Gordon, on a tour of National Harbor.
O’Malley’s choice of running mate in Brown was a page out of Ehrlich’s 2002 campaign strategy. Where Ehrlich picked Michael Steele, a black Republican and Prince George’s native, O’Malley chose Brown, a black Democrat and county resident. Ehrlich’s decision didn’t pan out in 2002. He and Steele and got only 22 percent of the vote in the heavily Democratic county. There’s hushed talk amongst Prince George’s Democrats of crossing party lines to back Steele’s run for Senate, but it remains unclear whether Democratic voters will defect in the governor’s race.
Ultimately, O’Malley has told voters the state has two governors depending on the election cycle.
“We have the story of two Bob Ehrlichs,” O’Malley said most recently during a live debate Saturday in Owings Mills. “The Bob Ehrlich in an election year and the Bob Ehrlich when he has the power.”
And Ehrlich has expressed concerns about which job O’Malley really wants.
“I think he’s either running for president,” Ehrlich said an hour after the end of a first debate Saturday in Baltimore, “or channeling John F.Kennedy too much.”
