HAGERSTOWN -- Mayor Martin O'Malley and Democratic Party leaders know they cannot beat Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. in conservative strongholds like this Western Maryland city.
But that hasn't stopped them from trying to energize Democrats in the state's conservative-leaning rural regions.
"I'm here in Washington County because Western Maryland is very, very important to the outcome of this statewide race," O'Malley, a Democrat, said before a recent speech here.
O'Malley's strategy for a statewide win in the governor's race is to make sure he does not lose rural regions as badly as party nominee Kathleen Kennedy Townsend did four years ago, while securing large victories in the heavily Democratic jurisdictions of Baltimore City and Montgomery and Prince George's counties.
In 2002, Ehrlich trounced the former lieutenant governor outside the traditional Democratic core, with his margin of victory in the pivotal battleground of Baltimore County providing enough for his win.
O'Malley aides say they believe enhanced organizational efforts in Western Maryland and voter worries over prison violence is giving the mayor momentum that Townsend lacked in Allegany, Garrett, Frederick and Washington counties.
The state GOP scoffs at the Democratic push, and says its longtime coordinated efforts in the area will easily carry Western Maryland, where 47 percent of registered voters are Republicans and 37 percent are Democrats. In the four Western Maryland counties, Ehrlich won 67 percent of the vote in 2002. "We are very confident that not only we will win Western Maryland but that we will increase the margins," said Audra Miller, a spokeswoman for the state Republican Party.
A Sun poll last month found Ehrlich maintaining strong support in rural Maryland, leading O'Malley by 14 points. But that is less than his lead in January 2005, when the governor led the mayor by 18 points.
Some Ehrlich supporters concede that the governor's lead might have slipped slightly because of poor management and conditions in state correctional facilities. Western Maryland is home to several prisons and institutions run by the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Violence this year has led to the killings of two correctional officers and nonfatal stabbings of three others.
"This is Ehrlich country," said Del. Kevin Kelly, an Allegany County Democrat who supports the GOP incumbent. "I think there are problems with corrections, but there have always been problems with corrections."
The management problems led AFSCME Council 92 to endorse O'Malley, said Executive Director Ron Bailey. The union represents mostly correctional officers and handles collective bargaining for nearly all state employees. Four years ago, it backed Ehrlich.
Ehrlich has landed the endorsement of the Maryland Fraternal Order of Police and the Maryland Classified Employees Association, which represents police, correctional and other state employees.
No quid pro quo
Robert Stephens, president of the MCEA, said Council 92 backed O'Malley because the mayor supports legislation allowing the union to collect fees on all state employees, not just its union members, to pay for its collective bargaining authority. Ehrlich opposes the fee. Bailey said O'Malley told the union that he does not oppose the fee, but that there was no quid pro quo for the endorsement.
The governor has worked to ease tensions with correctional officers with pay raises this year and legislation to hire retirees to offset staffing problems, said Kelly, the delegate. He said he did not know if that would be enough to mend divisions, but he added that there is not enough discontent to translate into enhanced Democratic turnout. "Ehrlich has been very good to this part of the state on highway projects and by giving us the first high school in 50 years to be constructed in Allegany County," Kelly said. "These [correctional] employees are not one-issue people."
O'Malley made the drive from Baltimore last week to meet with Hagerstown business leaders at a hotel conference room here. As he pulled off Interstate 70, large blue Ehrlich signs greeted him.
Correctional officers endorsed Ehrlich in 2002 believing the prison system could not get worse, the mayor said. "But it has," O'Malley said. "I think we will do much better in Western Maryland then we did four years ago."
Derek B. Walker, the state Democratic Party executive director, said local central committees have been trained since last year to use databases to reach voters with phone calls and door-to-door visits. The party is also targeting by phone 8,000 voters in Western Maryland to encourage them to vote by absentee ballot, said Patricia Heck, chairwoman of the Washington County Democratic Central Committee.
One difference between O'Malley and Townsend, Walker and Heck said, is that local Democratic candidates are not reluctant to be seen with the mayor, who they say has made more appearances in their part of the state.
"There was a perception that with [Townsend's] connection to the national Democrats and her Kennedy name that she didn't fit out there," Walker said. "The fact that local candidates are willing to accept the statewide candidates is a boon."
Increased involvement by the state party and active O'Malley field directors is energizing Democrats who felt ignored in 2002, Heck said.
But other top Democrats acknowledge that it will be tough to make a dent in Ehrlich's lead out west. The state party has been "dead in the water" in rural areas for years, said Washington County Democratic Central Committee Vice Chairman N. Linn Hendershot.
"Realistically, O'Malley can't win here," Hendershot said. "If we can do five points better, it will be a successful effort."
O'Malley aides say that's fine. A five-point improvement is their best-case scenario, they say, and would give them critical extra votes needed for victory.
The number of total registered voters in the Western Maryland counties of Garrett, Allegany, Washington and Frederick has increased 8 percent over the past four years, from 243,000 to 263,000 -- and is about 8 percent of the state total. Republicans have outpaced Democrats in new registrations, but the biggest jump has been among unaffiliated voters.
Corey Stottlemyer, Ehrlich's regional political director for the western part of the state, said the governor's efforts this year are far more coordinated than in 2002. To him, that can only spell wider margins.
Stottlemyer said that prison problems have hampered Ehrlich, but that "we've made some inroads to bring some of [the voters] back."
Some Republicans said that if O'Malley were serious about those areas, he would be spending money on television commercials. But on the main stations in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore, O'Malley has not bought airtime.
Ehrlich has spent more than $65,000 on television ads on one of Western Maryland's most-watched stations, NBC 25 in Hagerstown, since July, records show.
Since early August, Ehrlich has spent $250,000 on WBOC-TV and its Fox affiliate in Salisbury. Those channels have the greatest reach in Caroline, Dorchester, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico and Worcester counties, a station executive said. Ehrlich won all of those counties in 2002.
O'Malley aides said the mayor needs to conserve his cash to pay for expensive TV advertising on the Baltimore and Washington media markets, which they say reach some rural areas. Ehrlich had $8.5 million in his campaign account, compared with $4.4 million for O'Malley, according to August records.
"I think it is less important to go up on TV out there," Walker said. "It's easier to generate a buzz with visibility with big events. You have a presence that way, and you don't have to use the electronic media as much if the goal is to increase by five points."
Looking east
Walker said that is a similar aim for other rural areas, including the Eastern Shore and the Southern Maryland counties of Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's that Ehrlich won in 2002.
O'Malley spent a day last weekend on the Eastern Shore -- at a two-hour church service in Cambridge, a large luncheon with other candidates in Willards and interviews with television stations in Salisbury.
Del. John F. Wood Jr., a Democrat representing Charles and St. Mary's counties, is supporting Ehrlich, but he said the Democratic strategy is benefiting from ever-increasing numbers of registered Democrats statewide. In August there were 1.7 million registered Democrats, an 8.9 percent increase over 2002. There are 902,000 registered Republicans, a 7.6 percent increase.
Wood said an influx of Democratic residents from Prince George's County and Northern Virginia into Charles County would make it harder for Ehrlich to hold onto Charles.
"I think Ehrlich will carry Calvert and St. Mary's [counties]," Wood said. "Charles County is a question mark."Baltimore Sun
