Tuesday?s election sent the Maryland Republican Party back into the dark ages of 20 years ago, when a 28-year-old Bob Ehrlich was just starting his political career as one of the lonely GOP delegates.
Gov. Ehrlich saw this year?s election as a chance for a major “realignment” of the state, especially if voters would give him 5 and 14 ? five new Republican senators and 14 additional delegates. Instead he got realigned right out of his mansion. No more chefs, drivers and bodyguardscome Jan. 17.
More Clout for 2 Mikes
There was big talk of taking on “the two Mikes” ? Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch. As late as Sunday night, chief Ehrlich fundraiser Dick Hug was still talking about knocking off Busch.
Instead, the speaker was once again the top vote getter in his three-member Annapolis-area district. The Democrats added a third member there, one of seven and possibly eight new Democrats in the House, adding to Busch?s clout.
None of the five Democratic senators targeted by the GOP lost, but moderate Republican Sen. Sandy Schrader, a Democratic target, lost her seat to Howard County Executive Jim Robey, giving Miller one more vote. The Senate president himself won easy re-election, getting 71 percent of the vote in his Calvert-Prince district against a guy named Ron Miller.
In Howard County, only one Republican remains on the council. In Montgomery County, the last remaining Republicans on the council and in the legislature went down to defeat, leaving no elected Republicans at all in Maryland?s largest jurisdiction.
Anne Arundel County may have elected Republican Del. John Leopold as county executive by a thin margin, but three delegate seats were lost there.
The Franchot Surprise
The biggest surprise of the entire campaign statewide was the election of Del. Peter Franchot as comptroller. Virtually no one in either party expected that ? not even his own mother, Franchot says. Many people saw William Donald Schaefer as vulnerable ? visibly aging and increasingly out-of-touch ? but no one took the gamble Franchot did a year ago.
Attorney General-elect Doug Gansler threw the dice as well, raising gobs of money while others waited for outgoing AG Joe Curran to make up mind about retirement. They waited and waited, and when Curran did finally decide to pack it in, only Gansler had the dough and the organization.
It?s All Over
The election is all over, and so is this column. Contrary to the fears of pols and pundits, we are not going into “overtime” as the governor called it early Wednesday morning. Only a few close races hang on the whopping number of absentee and provisional ballots to be counted in the next week.
The political junkies and the chattering class already are mulling the next election cycle, but all of us really deserve a vacation from politics for a while.
Len Lazarick is the state house bureau chief of The Examiner, he can be reached at [email protected]
