The blame game continues…

In case you were not within an ear shot of the nation’s capital, Governor Martin O’Malley made a couple of radio runs this past week, where he took ample opportunities to take shots at his predecessor, now-former Governor Robert Ehrlich.

It’s no secret that the current governor’s job approval rating is down from a year ago, way down, in the 30s. His reasoning behind that is because he raised taxes. That was what he told WTOP (103.5FM) political analyst Mark Plotkin, but he added that it was a bit more complicated than that. “We were left a $1.7 billion deficit by our predecessor that red ink came crashing on us. We had to make a lot of cuts and we also had to push a lot of unpopular measures and nobody ever stands up and applauds.”

If I am not mistaken, I believe that Ehrlich (R) left O’Malley (D) with a surplus and it was widely reported that the Governor would not face a deficit in his first year however, one would happen down the road. That was a pretty short road wasn’t it? This time last year we were hearing about deficits ranging from $1.3-1.7 billion. It should also be noted that the last democratic governor that was in office, Parris Glendening, left Ehrlich with a $2 billion deficit.

The deficit was not the only thing that O’Malley blamed Ehrlich for. This past Friday on WAMU (88.5FM), the Governor said that Ehrlich was the reason that the state office of tourism did not promote places to visit in the free state. “We are very critical of my predecessor for in essence hijacking tourism dollars that should have been promoting great destinations like Garrett County, Ocean City [and] the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. Instead of using them for that, he used them to entirely to promote his image and his name and his face and I felt that was wrong…”

O’Malley on both appearances blamed his predecessor for not spending enough money on school construction, contrasting the differences between how much his administration spent when compared to the previous one. On WAMU, he mentioned that he had to make unpopular choices such as raising the sales tax by a penny stating that Maryland was ranked 42nd in regards to a tax burden. I have to ask and if you want to clarify this for me please email me…is having a low tax burden all that bad? But, I digress.

O’Malley for the past 14 months has blamed Ehrlich for something. This time last year, I believe that he was gloating at the fact that he won the election. This year, I believe that he is frustrated because he was essentially not given the free pass he enjoyed in Baltimore as Mayor. The first sign of this was watching him talk with WJZ-TV (Channel 13) reporter Pat Warren towards the end of the last General Assembly session, where he stated that this was the toughest year he ever had in public service, and it shows. In the most recent Gonzales poll released in March, he actually dropped two points in his job approval rating to 37 percent.

I think that it is fair to start asking the question, when is Governor Martin J. O’Malley going to realize that not everything is Robert Ehrlich’s fault? When is the governor going to say that raising taxes might not have been a good idea, especially going into an election year where the economy is uncertain? Mr. O’Malley at this point is more concerned about his image as opposed to the working citizens of Maryland that he used to get into office. Ehrlich surely wasn’t doing a bad job considering the fact that he had higher job approval ratings than the current governor.

Many people thought that maybe with a democratic governor, there would be a bit of maturity in Annapolis and the general assembly would not engage in petty squabbles and start making real decisions. They were only half right. The partisan squabbling might have gone to a minimum (I guess it would with both houses seating over 70% democrat) but they have not made any real decisions. House Speaker Michael Busch (D-Dist. 30) has been aiming to raise the sales tax during the Ehrlich Administration, so that was not a tough decision considering many in the house and senate would follow the governor. And we all know what happened with the slots bill, they passed the buck to us.

Governor O’Malley’s reasoning behind throwing mud at Ehrlich is looking more insane by the day. I am sure that he will continue to find ways to blame Ehrlich in order to make up for his lack of leadership in taking on tough issues as time goes on. However, if he is still blaming Ehrlich for issues this time next year, Marylanders will seriously have to take a second look at O’Malley.

kennyburns@marylandpolitics.us