I knew that MD has a Republican governor but that,IMO,doesn't mean anything.Massachusetts has had "Republican" governors for the last 16 years but has the most Marxist Congressional delegation of all and went for Gore *and* Kerry 65-35.
Hey Gay state conservative,
Here's the story. The Maryland legislature is indeed Marxist. This is exactly why they gerymandered the districts. There are 2 adjacent districts #2 and #3. #2 was held by the current Republican gov. while the 3rd was held by a dem. Ben Cardin. They made district 2 more liberal by dumping many Dems from district 3 into #2. They were successful and the 2nd went solid Dem.
However, in the process they made #3 noticably less Dem. At the time they never envisioned this seat opening up. Now that Paul Sarbanes is retiring from the Senate and Ben Cardin is attempting to win his seat, suddenly the third district is left open with a more favorable climate for Republicans. At the time it made sense to the Dems to gerymander in this manner because they netted a seat. However, they never predicted this unintended consequence.