O'Malley's Reach Sends Ehrlich to D.C. Suburbs

By John Wagner and Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 8, 2006; A01

The road map that Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. hopes will guide him to reelection has sent the Republican to an unlikely place in search of votes: the heavily Democratic Washington suburbs.

A month before the Nov. 7 election, Ehrlich has stepped up his efforts in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, a tacit recognition that the strategy he rode to victory in 2002 cannot be fully replicated this year against Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley (D).

Four years ago, in edging Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend to become the state’s first Republican governor in a generation, Ehrlich piled up unprecedented vote totals in the suburban counties that ring Baltimore. That region is home to significant numbers of registered Republicans as well as blue-collar Democrats who were willing to give an affable local congressman a shot at the governor’s mansion.

With O’Malley, however, Ehrlich faces an opponent whose popularity extends beyond the borders of his own heavily Democratic city into parts of the surrounding suburbs. So the governor has turned toward Washington to help make up the difference.

In the past week, Ehrlich has conducted a half-dozen interviews with news outlets in the Washington market, attended several fundraisers and picked up the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce’s backing.

“Last time, I was a complete stranger” to the D.C. suburbs, Ehrlich said in an interview. “We tried, but we got beaten there. Badly. This time, it’s a different story. . . . This time we’re looking for a major uptick in support.”

In 2002, Ehrlich won statewide by 66,170 votes in a race in which 1.7 million ballots were cast. To win reelection, he is seeking to offset gains the Democratic nominee could make in the Baltimore suburbs by improving his performance elsewhere. The voter-rich Washington suburbs provide the most enticing target, despite their decidedly Democratic tilt.

“It’s really a matter of numbers,” said John Willis, a former Maryland secretary of state. “If my opponent is eating into the margin in my base, I’ve got to go eat into the margin in his base.”

Last week, O’Malley and his top aides expressed confidence that the mayor, who grew up in Montgomery, was not losing ground to Ehrlich in the Washington area. To the contrary, as he becomes better known in the region, his support among Democrats is firming up, O’Malley said.

“We are picking up strength all over the state, most notably in the last few weeks in the Washington suburbs,” he said. “We’re going to continue to gain strength there.”

Tomorrow, Democrats will hold a unity rally in Prince George’s, the state’s most heavily Democratic jurisdiction, to build interest in O’Malley and other candidates on the ballot.

When he ran for governor in 2002, Ehrlich said, he arrived in the Washington suburbs as a largely unknown Republican congressman from Baltimore County. Since then, he said, he has worked hard to build trust and political support.

“I think we’ll see a substantial increase from Prince George’s as a function of our performance and our record,” Ehrlich said. “It’s very different than four years ago.”

Ehrlich said his support for economic expansion projects—including National Harbor, the $2 billion waterfront development—and his efforts to expand minority business opportunities have helped him with voters in Prince George’s. He also cited efforts to forge a relationship with County Executive Jack B. Johnson, a Democrat. The two played golf together over the summer to discuss the possibility of attracting the national NAACP headquarters to the county.

State Sen. Ulysses Currie (D-Prince George’s), whom Ehrlich identified as someone who has warmed to him, said he has noticed the governor’s attempts at courtship. “I think he has tried,” Currie said. “But I don’t think at the end of the day it’s going to necessarily help him.”

Currie said he believes that Prince George’s residents are not going to be willing to cross party lines in a year when, nationally, Republicans are on the ropes.

“With what’s going on at the national level now, I don’t see him doing significantly better than what he did in 2002,” Currie said. “People know he’s a Republican.”

Four years ago, Ehrlich attracted more votes than the GOP’s 1998 gubernatorial nominee, Ellen R. Sauerbrey, in every Maryland jurisdiction save one: Prince George’s. Despite his historic selection of a black running mate from the county, Michael S. Steele, Ehrlich drew 6,178 fewer votes there than Sauerbrey did in 1998.

Townsend wound up outpolling him in Prince George’s nearly 77 percent to 23 percent.

O’Malley aides point out the significant growth in the county’s Democratic voter base since 2002. The number of Democrats has increased by nearly 50,000 in Prince George’s since Ehrlich’s election; the Republican side has gained 200.

If he is not able to persuade Prince George’s residents to vote for him, Ehrlich may be able to sour them enough on O’Malley that they stay home. That, Democrats say, is the aim of a radio ad Ehrlich has been airing in the county that accuses the Baltimore police department of unlawfully arresting thousands of African Americans a year.

The ad is narrated by William H. Murphy, a prominent black criminal defense lawyer in Baltimore and a longtime friend of Ehrlich’s.

“He sanctions and directs the arrests of thousands of Baltimore City people, predominantly black, without ever charging them with a crime,” Murphy says in the ad, referring to a policy of stepped-up enforcement of “quality of life” offenses, such as loitering, under O’Malley.

Police say the strategy helps break up drug corners and deter serious crimes. But it has generated some outspoken critics, including members of Baltimore’s legislative delegation.

“He’s trying to play the politics of division and fear,” O’Malley said when asked about Ehrlich’s ads last week.

In Montgomery, Ehrlich won 38.3 percent of the vote in 2002—not significantly better than other recent GOP nominees for governor. He predicted improvement this year. “I’m not going to say it’s a sea change, but it’s significantly different.”

Ehrlich said Montgomery’s Jewish community will be part of that difference. In the 2002 election, Ehrlich said, he was successful in forging ties with Baltimore’s Jewish community. As governor, he has reached out to Montgomery’s large Jewish population, in part by helping alter homeland security regulations to enable Jewish schools and facilities to get federal grants for security upgrades.

State Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons (D-Montgomery), who used to be a Republican, called the governor’s suggestion that he can win broad support in the Jewish community “fanciful.”

“He would be exaggerating his connection with the Jewish community to believe that he is going to somehow roll up large numbers,” said Simmons, who is Jewish. “There’s no basis for that.”

Simmons said that if Jewish voters shy away from Ehrlich, it will be because of his approach to issues Jewish voters consider important: higher-education funding and stem cell research.

“If you look at the tuition rises at the University of Maryland, this is not something that’s going to sit well,” Simmons said. “Not only that, but Jewish voters are disproportionately committed to support for stem cell research, and Ehrlich has waffled on the issue.”

While Ehrlich is hoping to make inroads into the Washington suburbs, O’Malley aides point to polls suggesting that he is making strides in Ehrlich strongholds.

Their confidence is born of O’Malley’s popularity in the Baltimore region, which has been bolstered by his constant presence on the local news the past seven years. The expansive Baltimore media market reaches more than half the state. Ehrlich has sought to counter O’Malley there with a series of television ads highlighting the low performance of Baltimore’s schools and its continuing struggles with crime.

O’Malley aides are banking on the ads having limited impact, given how much people in the region know about the mayor and governor.

“It’s not possible to know two candidates in a region better than people know Ehrlich and O’Malley,” said O’Malley spokesman Steve Kearney.

Printer Friendly