Look, LeRoy Myers ran a great campaign, but when an absolute novice Daschles the Speaker of the House of Delegates, you know the incumbent screwed up big time. Cas Taylor was seemingly oblivious to the impact of Washington County in his newly drawn district, a place where he wasn't as familiar to the locals so the gun lobby's attacks weren’t as easily blunted. Combine that with Myers attaching himself to the hip of Ehrlich while linking Taylor to the Glendening/Townsend record, and Taylor should have known he was in for a tough race. Somehow, none of this occurred to him until the last week – too late for him to effectively communicate the advantages his influence could have mustered for Washington County.

This was an over-hyped, needlessly expensive vanity campaign with no ‘there there.’ Gov. Parris Glendening (notice how he keeps showing up in the worst campaigns?) wanted to punish William Donald Schaefer, so he sent his Secretary of State John Willis to run a nasty campaign against him for Comptroller. Not to be outdone, Schaefer reciprocated and the rest is gutter tactics history. After $50,000 of Glendening-funded radio-buys, the Washington Post quoted the Governor saying, “If I thought [it was a measure of my popularity], I would have gone out and waged a real campaign.” Way to be a friend.

After Democratic nominee Ann Tamlyn dropped out for health reasons, the Democratic central committees of District 1 turned to the runner-up, Kostas Alexakis. This Greek-born businessman who had been a good donor to Democratic causes relished the role of candidate to his detriment. His impromptu confrontations of Gilchrest were more uncomfortable than thought-provoking and his postulations on the environment were confusing and often inaccurate. Oh yeah, and he was pestered by this rumor that he didn’t even live in the district.

Jack Johnson was almost overwhelmed by a corruption eruption near the end of the campaign. Looking like a shoo-in, he made it plain that he wouldn’t campaign much and took his sweet time establishing a campaign infrastructure. Then as the negative stories mounted, his momentum subsided. He appeared flustered at a news conference meant to celebrate an endorsement and truly looked like he was fading toward the end. His powerful patronage organization pulled him through, but just barely.

Several in the state GOP have complained that the D.C. types who made Steele look great on T.V. and become the darling of national Republicans in 2006, are the same people who kept him from doing squat in his home state. They feel his field operation left much to be desired, which makes sense considering he drastically out-campaigned Cardin in the media and debates reflected in tightening poll numbers and he still lost by 10 points.