It?s showtime for Martin O?Malley. When the governor comes to the podium tonight to address the 188 members of the General Assembly, his soliloquy raises the curtain on the second act of the make-or-break performance of his first term.

He will have lost a huge gamble if he fails to bring a majority of the audience to its feet by the end of the special session for most of his proposed tax hikes, tax breaks, slots and new programs he laid out in the first act over the last month. If bad reviews greet his performance, he will have learned that there are limits to the authority of even one of the most constitutionally powerful chief executives in the nation. The General Assembly is routinely all too happy to establish those limits for a new governor.