Gov. Martin O’Malley’s campaign has accused former governor Bob Ehrlich of paying a former news reporter to lie about his record in elected office.
“Bob Ehrlich has hired Andy Barth, a former Baltimore news reporter, to create fake news reports about his campaign and his special interest agenda,” reads a statement released Tuesday by O’Malley’s campaign manager, Rick Abbruzzese.
The statement links to two articles — one by the Washington Post and another by the Baltimore Sun — as evidence of the O’Malley campaign’s point.
The campaign says Ehrlich “can come unhinged when he is challenged by voters,” and says the former governor has “found a way to avoid all those messy facts and issue debates by paying his staff to create false ‘news’ reports about his fantasyland record.”
The O’Malley campaign also bashed Ehrlich’s weekly WBAL radio show, calling him a “faux candidate” that “just wants to keep getting paid” for his show.
Last week, O’Malley released a radio ad accusing Ehrlich of lobbying for Big Oil. The ad aired a clip of Ehrlich saying, “Drill, baby drill”-—which Ehrlich uttered in 2008 on his WBAL radio show when quoting GOP chairman and former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele. The ad also accuses Ehrlich of voting in favor of Big Oil — but the votes the ad refers to were supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and were not protested by environmental activists.
