Free Republic

ANNAPOLIS — Preparing to launch a Republican administration in deep-blue Maryland, Gov.-elect Larry Hogan on Monday introduced a transition team that included some familiar Democratic faces as he moved to avoid some of the partisan confrontations that stymied the state’s last Republican governor. Mr. Hogan repeatedly promised to lead a bipartisan executive branch that would be staffed with experts, not partisans, to work with the heavily Democratic General Assembly to tackle the state’s severe budget and economic problems. “We have an enormous challenge ahead of us,” Mr. Hogan told reporters as he introduced six members of his transition team. “I’m...

I received this email today from the VP of Academic Affairs at University of Maryland where I am a student. On Oct 29, 2014, at 10:15 AM, "Linda M. Clement, Vice President for Student Affairs" wrote: Dear Campus Community, On Thursday, October 30, the College Democrats will host Lt. Governor Anthony Brown and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a Brown/Ulman campaign event at Ritchie Coliseum on Route 1. While we are pleased to host this important event, there will be some impact on traffic and parking during rush hour on Thursday afternoon. The doors to Ritchie...

What a difference a day makes … twenty-four little hours … Why, just yesterday all was doom and gloom for Maryland’s Democratic governor, Martin O’Malley, who admitted to Bob Schieffer yesterday that he couldn’t say that people are better off now than four years ago, although he rushed to add, “but that’s not the question for this election”: One day later — and presumably, one Cory Booker-esque call from Team Obama — suddenly the world looks a lot rosier to Governor O’Malley: A day after saying, no, the country was not better off than it was four years ago, Maryland...

Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley said Sunday that Americans are not better off under President Obama than they were four years ago, a somewhat startling admission that Republicans and Mitt Romney immediately pounced on. On CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday morning, host Bob Schieffer asked O'Malley if he can "honestly say that people are better off today than they were four years ago." "No," O'Malley said, "but that's not the question of this election." "The question," he continued, "without a doubt, we are not as well off as we were before George Bush brought us the Bush job losses, the...

Want to know what Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich is thinking? Just listen: The difference between Virginia's budget situation and Maryland's? "They have a huge surplus because they passed taxes when they didn't need to," Ehrlich said last month. The controversy over an Ehrlich fundraiser held at a Baltimore golf club that has no black members? "All a bunch of nothing," he declared on July 5. His feelings about stem cell research? "I support stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research," he stated in April as the General Assembly was considering whether to allow state funding of it. Ehrlich didn't...

In an effort to broaden his appeal in the black community, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. staged a fund-raiser and rally last night at a downtown Baltimore nightclub in an attempt to win over traditionally Democratic voters. He even sang "Ain't No Stopping Us Now" as several hundred people, most of them African-American, ate Swedish meatballs and chicken wings at the $100-a-ticket event.