Bob Ehrlich likes to remind Marylanders that he’s never lost an election. So why is the Republican governor facing what might be the first defeat of his political career?
The short answer is that four years ago Ehrlich beat a weak opponent during a strong Republican cycle, whereas this time around he’s running in a bad GOP year against a strong Democratic challenger, Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley.
Ehrlich’s problems run deeper, however.
O’Malley talks repeatedly of “the two Bob Ehrlichs” — a first Ehrlich who makes flowery promises during election years, and a second who breaks those promises once in office. But Ehrlich’s real schizophrenia has less to do with promises and policies than the internal tension between the savvy upstart from working-class Arbutus and the governor who sometimes ignores his South Baltimore instincts.
Three episodes in the past 15 months epitomize this disconnect.
In the summer of 2005, a golf club in Maryland — a state which boasts some of the nation’s most affluent African American communities — admitted it had no black members. Since Ehrlich chose Michael Steele to be his running mate in 2002, the governor has boasted repeatedly about tapping Steele to become the first statewide elected black official in Maryland.
Pressed to comment, Ehrlich dismissed the matter as the club’s private business. (Sadly, Steele initially agreed.) Legalities aside, it was absurd for Ehrlich to validate a situation in which his political sidekick is unwelcome at a club in the same state he’s worthy of serving as its second-ranking executive.
Ehrlich should have known better. If not for his athletic prowess, which earned him a prep scholarship and a ticket to Princeton University, the car salesman’s son would never have been invited to join that club even as a white man.
Another revealing moment occurred when the Bush administration announced it was turning over management of the Port of Baltimore to Dubai. Asked his opinion, the governor who grew up within earshot of the port’s rattle and hum offered muddled, conflicting answers. Helen Bentley — the state’s leading authority on the port and the Republican who represented the 2nd Congressional District prior to Ehrlich — was the more authoritative voice, expressing her unvarnished fury about the deal.
The final episode happened just weeks ago, when the Ehrlich campaign began running a television attack ad featuring a black Baltimore city school employee named Larry Gaines.
Ehrlich has criticized O’Malley, sometimes with warrant and often quite effectively, on the mayor’s handling of crime and education. The problem with using Gaines to make the case against O’Malley is that Gaines has a criminal record.
The choice backfired because it was obvious that Ehrlich’s campaign wanted to use a black face to criticize a white mayor for his mismanagement of education and crime policies in a majority-black city. Even regular listeners at WBAL, Ehrlich’s favorite conservative radio station, fumed about the ads.
Ehrlich has tried to govern well in a hostile partisan environment by adhering as much as possible to his centrist tendencies. His transportation policies and other investments deserve recognition even from his detractors, including me.
But in the three incidents chronicled above, the governor can blame only himself for ignoring the first Ehrlich’s South Baltimore instincts in favor of the tin-eared, moral diffidence that emanates from the second Ehrlich.
On the path from Arbutus to Annapolis via Washington, it is this duality which may cost the first Ehrlich the second term he covets.
Thomas F. Schaller is associate political science professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and author of “Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South.”
