State Political Analysis: Kittleman Race Has Statewide Context

By Len Lazarick

Republican Trent Kittleman's entry into the race for Howard County executive, hoping to unseat incumbent Democrat Ken Ulman, has a larger statewide context. That's why former Gov. Bob Ehrlich was the headliner for a Glenwood fundraiser two days after Trent announced her candidacy.
Ehrlich had tapped her for top transportation posts in his administration, giving her about as much government administrative experience as Ulman, 30 years her junior. She also had prior careers as a corporate attorney and as a Capitol Hill counsel.
Ehrlich has not announced whether he will seek to regain the State House - and in fact has truly not committed himself to the race, I'm told - but most people close to him want him to run and expect him to run.
In that potential rematch against Martin O'Malley, Howard County is a crucial swing county, as Ehrlich has repeatedly stated.

Local Strategy
Kittleman, stepmother to Senate Minority Leader Allan Kittleman, is just one of several Ehrlich administration appointees likely to be on the fall ballot in Howard County. Bob Flanagan, former secretary of transportation and House of Delegates minority leader, is campaigning to win the county council seat representing Ellicott City now held by Democrat Courtney Watson. Dennis Schrader, Ehrlich's homeland security director who later worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, may announce this month that he will try to reclaim his seat on the county council in the southeast district now held by Jen Terassa.
If Ehrlich cannot carry Howard County, as he did by almost 11,000 votes in 2002, he is unlikely to win the state - as he lost the county by 677 votes in 2006. Having strong Republican candidates up and down the ballot will help bring out his base in a year when the GOP feels the political winds at its back.
The campaign themes are traditionally Republican: Taxes and spending, with the new twist of opposition to overbearing government intrusion tapping into anti-incumbent anger.
Allan Kittleman introduced Trent at her announcement and reminded the 50 people there that Ulman, as a member of the county council, cast "the deciding vote" for an increase in the county's income tax to the maximum rate. And he associated the county executive's push for Healthy Howard County with the campaign for ObamaCare. "The majority of Howard Countians do not want government-run health care," Sen. Kittleman said.
Trent Kittleman took up the spending theme with the same speech at her announcement and at her fundraiser. She noted that, during the past 13 years, Howard County's population had gone up 29%, but its budget was up 400%. "It's wrong," she said. "The money comes from the labor of people."
In an interview, Trent Kittleman declined to specify what spending she was criticizing. "I will talk about spending later in the campaign," she said.
Ken Ulman will no doubt be anxious to hear what programs Kittleman doesn't want to fund, especially as he scrounges for cuts in the face of faltering revenues and declining state aid. Snow plows? Schools? Libraries? Free flu shots? Howard Countians may not like their taxes, but they sure do seem to like their services.

Ehrlich's Dilemma
Ehrlich has repeatedly said he will run again if he can win. He used to say he would run "if I can win, and if I can fix it," meaning the policy "mess" in Annapolis. But that surely must be in the back of his mind.
According to all the budget briefings and fiscal analyses, the governor elected in November, whether Ehrlich or O'Malley, will face quite a pickle, with $2 billion deficits going out for several years until the economy fully recovers.
It is clear that O'Malley isn't having any fun as he cuts programs again and again. He'd like to have the money to do new programs, but that's not going to happen anytime soon - unless there are major tax increases in 2011, as Republican legislators like Allan Kittleman are predicting.
Ehrlich, during his first term, did raise some taxes. They were mostly fees, like vehicle registrations and the flush tax. But he's averse to general tax hikes.
Does he really want to govern a state that's in worse fiscal shape than it was when he took office in 2003? Ehrlich got an economic rebound by the end of his term, and another rebound is certainly what every business owner and jobless person hopes to see. But is it likely?
The case of Del. Pat McDonough, the veteran populist Republican from eastern Baltimore County, is a telling case in this regard. For a while he considered running for governor, but now expects Ehrlich to run. He then explored a race for Baltimore County executive where the seat will be open. But Baltimore County's revenues are down, and it appears the next executive there will have to whack programs and services.
That doesn't look like much fun, McDonough determined. He's going to run again for delegate. Let somebody else handle the mess.

A Community Gathering
If I had tried to finagle my way into the top row of the choir overlooking the packed sanctuary at Maggie Brown's funeral, I would surely have found myself standing in the back of St. John Baptist Church, where I was originally standing before an usher tapped me.
Instead, I had a panoramic view of the more than 400 people in the congregation. As I scanned the crowd, I wrote down on the back of my program the names of the people I recognized, and came up with about 70, and had I known or remembered the names of other familiar faces, I'm sure I could have come up with another 50 or more.
The "homegoing service" for the former president of the Columbia Association (CA) was one of those community gatherings that reminds us of our connectedness through many paths - politics, business, community, church - and the ties that bind us together.
Maggie was a presence in Columbia for 40 years, working not only at CA, but for two Howard County executives. I particularly recall a conversation I had sitting with her at a chamber of commerce luncheon nine years ago, during a tumultuous period at the organization that manages Columbia's open space, community and recreation facilities.
"I try to keep my head down," she said with a laugh. She said almost everything with a laugh. Shortly thereafter, in a surprising development, she was tapped as CA president. So I would joke with her about trying to keep her head down, which was no longer possible in her new position.
But you couldn't keep Maggie Brown down, and the funeral service was a reminder of how far she had come from a segregated coal mining town in West Virginia, where the only place the races would really mix was down in the mine shafts. That was among the reasons Columbia was such a special place for people of that era, both black and white, for whom the civil rights movement was not history, but a life experience.
For many years, Maggie organized the celebration of Columbia's June birthday party, including cutting the cake with Jim Rouse. Her "homegoing" was another kind of celebration of life that reminded us of the values that made Columbia a special place back then and, we can hope, in the future.

Len Lazarick is the editor and publisher of MarylandReporter.com, which publishes original reporting and a daily roundup of stories about state government and politics from around Maryland. He can be reached at Len@MarylandReporter.com.