Sun Endorses O'Malley

A good counterpoint to the Post's endorsement of Bob Ehrlich last week:

In the next four years, Maryland is likely to face a return of $1 billion annual budget deficits. Issues of growth and development, the continued degradation of the Chesapeake Bay, the quality of public schools, the region's congested roads and strained transit systems, the rising cost of health care and the future of the state's economy are of paramount concern. Such issues require a governor with vision who can work with the General Assembly and overcome what has devolved into a dysfunctional and contentious atmosphere in Annapolis.

Mr. O'Malley has demonstrated these leadership skills.

[snip]

Of course, neither Mr. O'Malley nor anyone else can claim that the city's chronic problems are now solved. Far from it. There are still too many murders, too much poverty and too many failing students in the public schools to even contemplate such a notion. But the progress under the mayor's tenure is clear and irrefutable. He has demanded accountability to a degree that his predecessors did not - and his CitiStat tracking system has become a national model.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has fared less well running a government - despite having far greater power and resources available to him. Too often the former congressman has chosen to score a political point rather than make policy.

[snip]

Mr. O'Malley and Prince George's County Del. Anthony G. Brown, his well-qualified choice for lieutenant governor who brings diversity and legislative experience to the ticket, have crafted a platform that promises reforms and new ideas. They have vowed to bolster public education and make college more affordable, improve the health care system, expand drug treatment, protect the environment, focus on the state's expanding knowledge-based economy, alleviate traffic gridlock and increase openness and accountability in state government. All are laudatory goals. Where the proposal falls short is Mr. O'Malley's opaqueness regarding how all of it might be financed beyond cost-cutting and efficiencies.

But at least the Democrats have a vision. Rather than outline any plans for state government in the next term, Mr. Ehrlich's campaign has been devoted primarily to portraying Baltimore as the seventh level of the netherworld. Such a stilted view of reality would be harmless enough if its underlying message were not so destructive.

The Sun also notes, as I tried to do, that Ehrlich, an alumnus of the Gingrich revolution, doesn't really do divided government that well -- which is why it's odd that the Post, among others, hopes that Ehrlich would take the lead in working with the General Assembly. I suppose the General Assembly could take more initiative, but, as the Sun notes, when they have, e.g., malpractice reform, Ehrlich has punted.