(1-1-2006) Election year gamesmanship is the ‘elephant in the room’ when talking about any legislation this year in Annapolis. You just can’t get around it. Everyone will be jockeying for position – maybe even the administration, finally. (Well. Maybe not. In three previous sessions its failed to show it has much grasp of what’s at stake. Remember, these are the wizards who championed a flush tax to all homeowners, raised the cost of higher education to all students, burdened all businesses with new fees, and reduced health care benefits to all state employees – all to fully phase in right before the election. Shrewd.)
Election year gamesmanship is why we now likely won’t see a bill to change the primary date. Democrats’ strategy had been to move the September primary to earlier in the year; this would give their gubernatorial candidate time to recover from the primary fight and to raise funds before going up against Gov. Ehrlich in the November general. This disadvantaged some down-ticket Democrat candidates in the same way, but was seen by party leaders as a fair trade, given the priority of taking back the governors office. (For the record, last year we predicted the date change was a virtual done deal.) So what changed? Martin O’Malley is pulling ahead of not only his sole primary rival, Doug Duncan, but Bob Ehrlich too. Since Democrats are likely to retake the governor’s mansion no matter when the primary is held, they’ll leave it early to advantage their challengers in General Assembly races.
Democrats’ optimism is well placed. A race with many similarities was just settled in Virginia. Vying for an open seat, Democrat Tim Kaine faced an up-hill battle against Republican Jerry Kilgore, who only a year before was seen as heir apparent to the state’s top seat. But Kilgore took his grass-roots base (including gun owners) for granted, and went out of his way to telegraph what he would not do for them, apparently in hopes that left-leaning voters might not dislike him so much. This de-energized his base, and the majority of voters did what they always do when faced with a choice between some cheap imitation liberal and the real thing: they voted Democrat. Kaine won in a walk.
Maryland voters will soon face the same choice: a Democratic challenger trying to appeal to liberal voters and an incumbant governor who was once a Republican, also trying to appeal to liberal voters. Will the administration reverse course and unveil an eleventh hour legislative package to issue-advocate for its base? Doubtful. But you can bet money that Democrats will flood the statehouse with bills intended solely to draw the administration out of its shell on a host of kitchen table issues, advantaging their presumptive challenger. What happens to them one way or the other will affect the political backdrop against which our issues are seen. It will be a wild ride.