O'Malley is terrible. The fact that the Dems here fawn over him scares me; he was borderline-incompetant as mayor of Baltimore and will be no better for the state. Even Duncan would've been better. Frankly, big-city mayors from the machine party (Democrats in most cities, Republicans in Miami and a few others) are not trustworthy for higher office in general, and O'Malley is very much no exception to this rule. And Balitmore is more of a basket case than most cities, which O'Malley's term has seen no real improvement.
No one has ever claimed O'Malley was a great mayor, but to say he is borderline incompetent and the city has made no real improvement makes me wonder if you know anything about Baltimore City or the condition it was in when O'Malley took over. He stemmed the population hemorrhage, brought in 9 billion in outside investment, many neighborhoods have went through a major renaissance, grades 1-5 are now majority proficient in reading and math (none were majority proficient when he took over), graduation rates are the highest they've been in decades, sanitation has improved some (rats, trash pickups, etc.), violent crime and property crimes are down (the % is debatable), and CitiStat is a national model for government accountability. I could go on, but I’ll stop there. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal said on WBAL radio a couple weeks ago that O’Malley is one best Mayors Baltimore has ever seen.
Wrong again, in 2002 Ehrlich won by approximately 57,000 votes. O'Malley is currently leading by 110,000 votes with a few precincts still outstanding in Prince George's County. We also have 120,000 or so absentee ballots that have yet to be counted. Majority of the absentee ballots were requested and sent-in by registered Democrats, though, some believe Ehrlich will have a slight edge in the final absentee count because he pushed for them so hard (ironic considering he vetoed the bill that allowed for no-excuse absentee voting).
Ehrlich was the only incumbent Governor in the Country to lose re-election (Republican incumbents survived in CT, RI, VT, and CA). His job approval has always been rather stellar (50-55%), with fairly low disapproval ratings. He lost because he chose to run a negative campaign based on assassinating the character of not only Martin O’Malley, but the City of Baltimore, while his rock star challenger decided to run a campaign of hope, empowerment, and positive vision for the state of Maryland.
With that said, I'm not sure if O'Malley has a national future. He has always been branded as guy with a lot of ambition, but I've never once heard him mention it. People just assume he's going places because he's a young, good-looking, and charismatic Democrat. I think he's focused on Maryland and that is exactly what he should be focused on.
How sweet it is, Governor-elect O'Malley.
