Comptroller William Donald Schaefer is fighting what may be the final battle of his half-century in politics, and in Tuesday?s primary, the unpredictable ex-governor and ex-mayor may do something he hasn?t done in 50 years ? lose an election.
Don?t bet on it, said Stephen Abrams, a Montgomery County Republican who admits he filed for the job on the off chance Schaefer might lose.
“What may save the comptroller is the inadvertent action of the two large newspapers,” Abrams said. Both the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun endorsed Del. Peter Franchot. He is the most liberal of the three Democrats in the contest but runs a distant third in the polls, despite the backing of the major teachers union and other labor groups.
A strong run by Franchot splits the sizable anti-Schaefer vote with Anne Arundel County Executive Janet Owens.
If anyone needed reminding how unrepentantly insulting Schaefer has been throughout his career, last week he followed an apologetic radio ad with fresh jibes at Owens? looks and record.
He then accused her of age discrimination for suggesting that a man about to turn 85 might not be up to another four years in a powerful statewide office.
Owens has stressed her own management record as county executive for two terms as qualifications for comptroller, whose major job is collecting taxes, estimating revenue and managing pension funds.
Franchot has stressed the comptroller?s policy-making role on the Board of Public Works, which approves billions in state spending each year, and Schaefer?s support there for Gov. Robert Ehrlich?s budget cuts.
But Schaefer?s “vote is fairly solid,” Abrams said.
“He could still very easily pull it off,” he added.
In a three-way race, “it will be very, very hard for him to lose,” said Paul Schurick, Ehrlich?s communications director who held the same post for Gov. Schaefer, despite what he sees as a poorly managed reelection campaign.
Last week?s outbursts were “just Gov. Schaefer being Gov. Schaefer,” Schurick said.
Democratic primary voters, more liberal than the electorate as a whole, will decide Tuesday whether they?ve had enough of Schaefer being Schaefer or want four more years of the curmudgeonly comptroller.
