Sen. Two Live Them LooGAR Wrote:
bluejayway Wrote:
Did Bono have to run for governor, I ask you?
I suppose the obvious questions are whether he's a decent mayor, whether he's a plausibly decent governor, and how good the band is or isn't.
I'm pretty sure he is a good Mayor. Hard to get re-elected as a white man in a majority black city w/o doing some good. I know he would be a good Governor. If you can find it, there's an excellent piece on him in the December 02 or Jan 03 issue of Esquire.
interesting cat. I'd be interested to know what Elvis Fu thinks of him?
This isn't totally thorough, and I was going to keep it short, but my boss kept popping in the he went outside for a while, so it's sorta mishmashed together.
To me, O'Malley isn't running for Governor, he's running for President.
He's young, good looking and a white mayor in a black city. Right now though, the race is Bob Ehrlich's to lose, and I'm not sure he will, even against O'Malley. Sticky part is, if you win Baltimore City, Prince George's County and Montgomery County--and nothing else--you win the state. This is easily illustrated by Parris Glendenning's awful performance [his approval rating was 50th, lower than the then-governor of Arizona, who had been
indicted], but he still won re-election in 1998.
The state is still staunchly Democrat, but not so much as 15-20 years ago. Ellen Sauerbrey, a less than spectacular GOP candidate, was only narrowly defeated by Glendenning twice, and Ehrlich beat sitting Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend fairly easily in 2002.
Also add in that in 2004, Senator Barbara Mikulski defeated Republican State Senator E.J. Pipkin 65-35, well below the 70%+ she used to getting. I know this sounds like polishing a turd, but considering she once won her U.S. House seat with 76% of her district, I think it helps point to the shift in state politics.
The 2006 race for retiring Senator Paul Sarbanes' seat should be interesting, and if Kweisi Mfume somehow pulls enough minority voters to beat Rep. Ben Cardin, then look for Lt. Gov. Michael Steele to be elected as an black Republican Senator.
O'Malley's big problem will be crime. Yesterday Baltimore City released findings stating that the reason 2004's violent crime stats
appear to be higher than 2003 is due to problems in recording crime during Hurricane Isabel. Cmon, now.
Murders are down slightly over last year, but still far too common. O'Malley will hammer Ehrlich saying the state hasn't helped him out enough, and there will plenty of complaints about not enough state money for cops, DAs, schools, etc. which will boil into slamming the Ehrlich budget and his concentration on legalizing slot machines in MD (this is the hot button topic for the past several years, and I don't know O'Malley's stance on slots). Glendenning left record high money shortfalls all over, and things are only now getting closer to normal.
. I saw them open for Spoon a couple/three years ago, and have been following them ever since.