Paid for by Citizens for Colburn Committee. Authority John W. Phillips, Jr., Treasurer

Gov. Ehrlich speaks at Talbot GOP barbecue
Gov. touts record, tells supporters to fight Democratic ‘monopoly’
By TRAVIS DUNN
Staff Writer - Star Democrat
May 14, 2006

EASTON — Gov. Robert Ehrlich addressed a few dozen Talbot County Republicans Saturday afternoon at a barbecue held here at the home of Lee Denny on Woodland Court.

Speaking on Denny’s back lawn, his amplified voice echoing across Jacks Cove, Ehrlich encouraged his supporters to fight to transform the political climate of the state and to oust what he termed “the monopoly” in Annapolis.

The 2002 gubernatorial election was not the fluke his detractors claim it to be, he said, and Republicans need to teach Democrats that lesson this fall.

The chief way Republicans can assure future success, he said, is to “break out of these caricatures” of Republicans that have been created by the press and by Democrats.

Among them: that Republicans don’t care about education, or the environment, or people with disabilities. Or that Republicans come in one color: white.

“They say, ‘Mike Steele, he’s black, he can’t be a Republican,” Ehrlich said. “He’s actually had to defend the color of his skin in the course of this campaign.”

Ehrlich blamed the press — mainly The Sun and The Washington Post — for perpetuating these stereotypes and for abetting the political aims of the Democrats who viewed his election “as an accident.”

“We can change the status quo,” he said. “We can upset the pundits. We can drive The Washington Post crazy.”

Redefining the Republican caricature, he said, is necessary to ensuring the GOP’s growth in the state, and he encouraged his supporters Saturday to begin that work now by reaching out to independent and undecided voters, as well as moderate Democrats.

“If you approach them with information on the record, you can close,” he said.

Ehrlich also surveyed the future political landscape of Maryland, where the urban areas would stay Democratic, the suburbs and rural areas would go Republican, and the “middle suburbs” (or areas that are not quite suburban and not entirely rural) would prove to be the critical battlegrounds.

Republicans, in order to bring the GOP message to the unconverted, should focus on the recent vote in the Legislature regarding the failing Baltimore City schools, he pointed out at some length. (The vote prevented an automatic state take-over.)

Ehrlich offered this “horrific public policy” as the clearest example of the Democratic ineptitude in Annapolis.

“We have to come in and change the schools,” he said. “They’re done. They’re broken.”

The “partisan bitterness” in Annapolis, however, is the main obstacle to any kind of change, he said, and unlike anything he has seen in his career.

“It’s just a byproduct of the fact that we’re inconvenient,” he said. And also because he believes he and Steele bring alien qualities to the capitol — honesty and straightforwardness.

“People tend to give you great credit in political life when you’re not a phony. People come up to me and say, ‘Thank you for not lying to me,’” he said.

“That’s really nothing you should be thanked for.”

Ehrlich was joined Saturday by the some members of the Eastern Shore delegation — Sen. Richard Colburn, R-37-Mid-Shore, Del. Jeannie Haddaway, R-37B-Talbot, and Del. Adelaide Eckardt, R-37B-Dorchester.