As Baltimore Mayor Martin O?Malley unveiled another policy proposal on Monday, his campaign for governor once again derided a lack of issue papers or plans for the future from incumbent Gov. Robert Ehrlich.
“You don?t need to,” Ehrlich Communications Director Paul Schurick saidin a recent interview.
“The focus has been on governing not campaigning.”
Throughout his tenure as the first Republican governor in 40 years, Democrats such as Senate President Thomas Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Bush, common targets of Ehrlich?s attacks, have insisted that Ehrlich has never stopped campaigning.
He has used the visibility of his office through tourism ads and public service announcements to boost his own image, they said.
“For the first time ever in their adult lives, they know what it?s like to run against an incumbent,” Schurick said. “Their only reaction is to criticize it.”
Schurick knows what it?s like to run for re-election as an incumbent. He held the same communications job with Gov. William Donald Schaefer in the 1990s.
As Ehrlich himself told a university class last week, “When you are an incumbent, the general election is about you.”
When Ehrlich unveils a new program on the environment, energy or schools ? often simply a repackaging of proposals in his own budget ? he does so as chief executive and not a candidate.
Even in rare joint forums with O?Malley, such as the AARP debate last month, he urges voters to compare the two as executives ? what they?ve done, not what they will do.
This largely explains why most of the TV commercials in the race have been about what the candidates have done as mayor or governor ? and what the opponent has done wrong.
O?Malley said the ads attacking him have been “fear and smear,” while his own TV spots “are counterattack ads.”
Being the incumbent governor seeking re-election is “a two-edged sword,” testifies former Gov. Parris Glendening.
“There are immense advantages and perks,” as the governor goes around the state announcing new parks and programs.
On the downside, “you live with the knowledge that anything that goes wrong has an impact on the campaign,” Glendening said. “A government incident now becomes a major political incident.”
Glendening said he believes that Ehrlich “should have shown far more restraint in using taxpayers dollars” to boost his image.
