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Ehrlich, O’Malley and the voters

Friday, July 21, 2006

The most recent Baltimore Sun poll doesn’t make any sense. For instance, most voters find Gov. Bob Ehrlich very likeable and think he’s doing a good job, yet they intend to vote for his opponent, Martin O’Malley.

Also, the voters believe O’Malley will do better than Ehrlich at ‘‘keeping electricity prices under control,” yet they roundly approve Ehrlich’s veto of the electricity rate relief plan O’Malley supports.

And, although O’Malley presides over a city with the state’s worst schools and highest murder rate, the voters believe he’d be better at ‘‘improving our schools” and at ‘‘controlling crime.” Huh?

And just when you thought O’Malley would get a bounce with Doug Duncan dropping out of the Democratic primary, Ehrlich cuts O’Malley’s lead in half, from 15 points to 8 points, since last November.

Don’t get me wrong, the Sun poll isn’t flawed. Keith Haller is a very reliable pollster. It’s the voters who are flawed. Their responses are so ambivalent and so contradictory that the poll probably teaches us little except that, in July, the voters are more focused on the beach than on politics.

However, despite the voters’ inattention, Ehrlich and O’Malley are both campaigning full tilt and spending a lot of money on TV ads. So let’s look at how these two young warriors match up.

Ehrlich’s strengths

He’s the incumbent governor with broad name recognition and the built-in ability to make policy, news and friends. Ehrlich’s nemeses, Democratic legislators, have worked hard to neutralize these powers now that the incumbent is a Republican.

They’ve passed laws banning the governor from appearing in state tourism and economic ads, prohibited Maryland university regents from political fund raising (but only at College Park where Ehrlich’s campaign finance chairman, Dick Hug, is a regent) and placed in their own hands the governor’s right to appoint the state elections supervisor.

Still, no incumbent Maryland governor has lost re-election since 1950 when the voters punished Gov. William Preston Lane for introducing Maryland’s first sales tax. The hapless Lane was a Democrat. The last Republican to lose re-election was Gov. Harry Nice who was defeated by Herb O’Conor in 1938.

Ehrlich faces no primary, has a formidable war chest, has a young, photogenic family and has never lost an election. He’s also a political rarity — a blue collar Republican. Martin O’Malley is trying to understand ‘‘working families” by conducting ‘‘kitchen table” talks around the state. Bob Ehrlich doesn’t need a primer on working families — he was raised in one!

Finally, Ehrlich has good political instincts. He sensed Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s weakness when the others (including O’Malley) did not. He saw the magic of teaming up with Mike Steele. He took on the Baltimore Sun and won and, against all advice, he vetoed the legislature’s BGE rate bill and was vindicated by the recent Sun poll.

Ehrlich’s weaknesses

He’s a Republican in one of the nation’s six most liberal states. He starts with a disadvantage because he can’t win without Democratic votes in a state with acute ‘‘Bush fatigue.”

But his greatest liability, by far, is a hostile media intent on denying him a second term. The Sun, in particular, will stop at nothing so Ehrlich must rely on paid media to get his message across.

O’Malley’s strengths

Duncan’s disappearance not only spares O’Malley a divisive primary, he’s freed from pandering to his party’s ultra-liberals.

Duncan, whose only concern was the primary, was killing O’Malley on slots, tax hikes for health care and other left-wing stances that would hurt O’Malley against Ehrlich. For instance, O’Malley lost Progressive Maryland’s endorsement because he was afraid to answer their ultra-liberal policy questionnaire. Now the liberals have no place else to go.

O’Malley is handsome, charming, articulate and blessed with an attractive family (check out his newest TV ad). Ehrlich and O’Malley are running even among male voters but O’Malley’s ahead by 12 to 15 points with women. And O’Malley is connected by birth to Montgomery County and by marriage to Baltimore’s influential Curran family.

O’Malley’s weaknesses

When Baltimore Mayor Don Schaefer ran for governor he pointed to the Inner Harbor. What can O’Malley point to, the murder rate? So, instead, he is overselling the city’s so-called turn-around, which endangers his credibility.

O’Malley has less campaign money than Ehrlich, is somewhat of a political loner and risks overexposure in an extended, four-month campaign.

Bottom line: In the words of Sun pollster Haller, ‘‘This election is up for grabs ... it’s going to be a very, very close election.” That’s assuming the voters ever get back from the beach.

Blair Lee is CEO of the Lee Development Group in Silver Spring and a regular commentator for WBAL radio. His column appears Fridays in The Gazette. His e-mail address is blair@leedg.com.