Political Business

By Len Lazarick

Large Dutch Treat For The Chamber

When county executives from neighboring jurisdictions pop up as the featured attractions for Howard County Chamber of Commerce luncheons, it means just one thing: they’re running for governor.

Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan got his shot at the chamber crowd last May, and it was Baltimore County Executive Dutch Ruppersberger’s turn at the podium last month.

Both Duncan and Ruppersberger are imposing men with strong pro-business records who earned their living in business as they pursued part-time political careers. Ruppersberger, more impressive as a hands-on manager and leader than he is as a public speaker, emphasized his credentials as an advocate of “regionalism”—“probably one of the most important issues we can deal with in local government.”

Regionalism represents the pluses and minus of the role he and Duncan must play as county executives. “We all have to run governments,” noted Ruppersberger, who has turned his attention to infrastructure and transportation in his own county. In Maryland’s four media markets—Washington, Baltimore, the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland—Ruppersberger and his tongue-twisting name are little known beyond the Baltimore market, just as Duncan is not widely known outside the D.C. suburbs.

In the contest to succeed Gov. Paris Glendening, limited to two terms as is Ruppersberger, “the person who’s ahead now has 100% name recognition,” Ruppersberger admitted, referring to Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Her national notoriety hit him in the face at last year’s Democratic convention in Los Angeles. And her potential opponents, well, they have “very low name recognition,” said the Baltimore County executive. A lot depends on “luck, timing and opportunity.”

Kathleen, as she’s called by most politicos here much as U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski is known by her first name, has other advantages, besides her family standing as the oldest child of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the emotional backing that insures, especially among black voters so crucial in a Democratic primary. She has run and won two major statewide campaigns and played a crucial role in Glendening’s reelection. She also benefits from the press and political apparatus of the Glendening administration, make that the Glendening-Townsend administration. Every major announcement, particularly involving economic development and BWI Airport that are now part of her portfolio, must mention her name and include a quote from her.

While Kennedy Townsend occasionally stumbles in media interviews, Ruppersberger himself had a major stumble last year, as brought up by a question from commercial real estate broker Dick Pettingill at the luncheon. Ruppersberger’s attempt to gain condemnation powers for the county to revitalize rundown areas in eastern Baltimore County was petitioned to referendum and soundly defeated by 70% of the voters.

“The issue got away from me, and I didn’t get it back,” Ruppersberger admitted. “I made a mistake,” not in trying to get the power, which he maintained other counties already have, but in how he handled the politics of it.

It takes a big man to admit a well-publicized and embarrassing political fumble. It takes an even larger talent to climb out of the political hole he fell into on his home turf, and beat a Kennedy, even in the county both of them call home. There’s also talk now that Duncan may team up with Kennedy Townsend as her running mate, both eliminating an opponent and strengthening her hand in the D.C. suburbs.

This sort of insider baseball talk generates immense yawns from the general citizenry, just recovered from a prolonged bout of the presidential election flu. The turnout for Ruppersberger was decidedly light at the chamber lunch, barely a third of the 300 plus people that had packed the Columbia Sheraton ballroom for Jim Robey’s State of the County speech in January.

Biting the Hand

Things are pretty bad in Annapolis when Republican legislators start attacking the Chamber of Commerce, seen as their natural allies in the lonely fight against increased spending, higher taxes and greater government regulations.

The GOP leaders of the Maryland General Assembly, most of whom hail from Howard County, and all their colleagues but one sent a letter to more than 900 member of the state Chamber of Commerce criticizing the chamber’s failure to oppose Glendening’s promise to pay union wage scales for the reconstruction of the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge (I-95) over the Potomac River.

“Having abdicated its responsibility to oppose the Glendening-Townsend administration in Annapolis, the Maryland chamber now has little credibility with the Bush administration in Washington as well as the Republican members of the state legislature,” the senators and delegates wrote.

President Bush, at the urging of state Republicans, issued an executive order blocking Glendening’s pro-union agreement. The small band of Republicans, led by Howard County’s Sen. Martin Madden in the Senate and Dels. Bob Kittleman and Bob Flanagan in the House, lost seats in 1998 election and face an uphill battle to fight Glendening’s flouting of spending affordability limits.

The state government has had several years of surpluses, but Glendening has chosen to spend almost all of it, rather than return any to Maryland taxpayers.