Ehrlich targets Franchot

Vows to keep him out of comptroller’s office, predicts slots will pass next year

Friday, Sept. 22, 2006

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. pledged Thursday ‘‘to do everything I can” to prevent Del. Peter V.R. Franchot from becoming Maryland’s next comptroller.

Ehrlich (R), in an hour-long meeting with The Gazette editorial board, predicted that slots would be legalized next year, reiterated his opposition to building the so-called Purple Line through Columbia Country Club and identified managing growth as his biggest second-term challenge.

Ehrlich was intense in describing his opposition to Franchot, a veteran delegate from Takoma Park who defeated Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens and Comptroller William Donald Schaefer in last week’s Democratic primary.

Franchot has spent the past four years raining rhetorical bombs on Ehrlich and ran his campaign on the theme that Owens and Schaefer were too closely aligned with the governor.

‘‘I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Peter Franchot is not the next comptroller of the state of Maryland,” Ehrlich said. ‘‘Peter Franchot lives on an island that I don’t want to live on. He lives on an island that very few people want to live on.”

Franchot’s victory was directly attributed to the support he received from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. He won only four counties, but he ran up major margins in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, home to Maryland’s Democratic base. He used the past four years to build credibility with hard-core Democratic interest groups such as organized labor, environmentalists and women’s groups.

Ehrlich was not shy in laying out the GOP strategy of painting Franchot as an out-of-touch, Montgomery County liberal compared to his little-known GOP challenger, Anne M. McCarthy, former dean of the University of Baltimore Business School.

McCarthy, a Baltimore resident who has never held elected office and does not have a major campaign organization, is considered the underdog.

McCarthy ‘‘is a very sharp lady ... she is not a weak candidate,” said Ehrlich, who up until the primary was supporting Schaefer for comptroller. ‘‘We are spending a lot of time raising money for her as we speak.”

Franchot, whose vote totals last week were more than the combined totals of the four GOP comptroller candidates, dismissed Ehrlich’s comments. ‘‘With all due respect, Governor Ehrlich should be more concerned about his own race than about mine,” he said.

Ehrlich said accommodating the massive job influx in the Baltimore region following the recent Base Realignment and Closure decisions will be the focus of his second term. He is pleased with the job growth from BRAC, but with those jobs comes a need for more schools, roads and ‘‘balanced growth that protects the watershed.”

The governor said he did not foresee budget difficulties ahead, but he said the state needs an additional revenue source. He reiterated his pledge not to raise sales, income or gasoline taxes while touting legalizing slots as a viable revenue generator.

After failing for four straight years to convince the General Assembly to pass slots, Ehrlich predicted that that gambling would be approved if he is re-elected in November. Opposition from House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis was the reason the bill failed in the past, he said.

The governor said he is confident that slots will be legalized next year because he and his Republican allies will be successful in defeating Busch in November. The GOP has three strong candidates running in Busch’s district, he said, and the speaker ‘‘is in real danger.”

Busch has said in recent weeks that he welcomes the challenge. He has been door-knocking for months, is using an aggressive direct-mail strategy, has a sizable campaign treasury and received a record number of votes in last week’s primary.

On transportation, Ehrlich was cool to the idea of dedicating a funding source to mass transit as some business groups such as the Greater Washington Board of Trade have called for. Philosophically, Ehrlich said, he could support it, but ‘‘politically” it would be difficult to pass it in the legislature because of opposition from rural lawmakers whose constituents depend more on roads than mass transit.

Ehrlich also repeated his long-held opposition to building a light-rail line connecting Bethesda to downtown Silver Spring and New Carrollton, known commonly as the Purple Line. The project has become a major priority in Montgomery County, and was a centerpiece in the last week’s Democratic primary for county executive. Ehrlich supports a Bus Rapid Transit approach called the Bi-county Transit Way.

Ben Ross, a longtime Purple Line advocate, said Ehrlich is putting the interests of his ‘‘golfing cronies above the interests of commuters” by opposing the light-rail option that would affect Columbia Country Club.

An alignment that does not infringe on the country club is ‘‘where most people are,” Ehrlich said.

G. Keith Haller, a Bethesda pollster, disagreed, saying that recent surveys have shown support for the Purple Line of more than 80 percent.

‘‘It looks like the Purple Line advocates need to meet with the governor to explain the importance of this project,” Haller said. ‘‘The numbers supporting the Purple Line are at a level that we have never seen on any major local issue here in Montgomery County.”