The Once and Future Governor: Ehrlich Rally, Bel Air, MD

I am told that I live in a deeply blue state. The outward evidence for this abounds: our House of Delegates and State Senate has been dominated by Democrats for a long time, controlling almost 3/4 or the lower house and 2/3 of the Senate.

But as you can see, it's not that blue a state: The Eastern Shore, Western spur, and Pennsylvania borderlands are still quite rural and routinely vote GOP. But the populations centers, the Baltimore-DC axis, is overwhelmingly Democratic. So if you've ever heard me refer to my homeland as "The People's State of Baltimorea", now you know why. I instantly understand the way a Democrat living in Austin, TX must feel; like living in a ghetto surrounded by "those people."

Eight years ago Maryland did what it had not done since the 1960's: send a Republican to the State House. Bob Ehrlich's victory came by the confluence of a number of circumstances. First, Parris Glendenning was leaving his second term with low approval ratings. Second, the Dem nominee, Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townshend, made a poor choice of a running mate, choosing a retired admiral who had just switched parties. Third, 2002 was a Republican year.

2006 was not. Martin O'Malley, who had taken credit for Baltimore sinking from sixth-most dangerous city in the U.S. all the way to twelfth, managed to gather the old MD-Dem coalition, promising to spare us a utilties-rate hike and deal with our structural deficit. He beat Ehrlich by 6.5% that november.

You see what I mean. That thin strip of blue counties outvote the rest of us.

Of course, there wasn't a damn thing O'Malley could do about BG&E's rate hikes, and he knew it. And his solution to the structural deficit was a 14% across-the-board tax increase, the largest in state history. He's a by-the-numbers progressive governor, determined that all good choices are public choices, and that bureaucratic oversight is the same as political unity.

It is with this in mind that I attended a rally to return Bob Ehrlich this afternoon. I snapped a few pictures, (including the one at the top of this post):

The crowd started small around 4:15...

...and got bigger by the time...

...that Ehrlich got up.

The rally address was brief; he'd been to eight others that day, and had more to do before he was done. But Ehrlich, speaking to us in an odd combination of pressed (if well-worn) slacks and a workout shirt, was upbeat, confident. He predicted not only his own victory, but victory for Andy Harris in his race to oust Frank Kratovil from his Congressional seat and right the wrong done by that RINO, Wayne Gilcrest two years ago. He predicted 10-15 seats in the House of Delegates switching hands (which would still be nowhere near a majority, but would also be miraculous). He closed by saying (as near as I remember):

In 1989, multi-party Democracy came to Eastern Europe, and multi-party democracy will come to the State of Maryland in 2010.

I know that I will never live in a red state. If such was ever something I really wanted, I'd move across the Potomac or out West. But if I could live to see my home state turn purple, I'd die content.

VOTE.