Talking Head

Overheard during the absentee ballot count in Anne Arundel County where the vote count wasn’t going so well for congressional candidate Andy Harris:

“I just don’t get it. Bob Ehrlich marched in the Pasadena Parade and told everyone to vote for Andy Harris.”

What is the world coming to when Maryland Republicans don’t do exactly what Bobby tells them to do when Bobby tells them to do it?

Answer: The world has moved on from Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove and those who whine repeatedly that George Bush is the cause of all their political woes.

Hey Bob, you bought into Bush. You campaigned for him. He campaigned for you while you proudly held the “We Heart Our Prez” bumper sticker. Now that he’s broken, you can’t take him back to the store for a refund. Ever.

Anyway, Andy lost and he was not alone.

It was Bob Ehrlich who put himself out there for his fellow right-winger, despite the awkward body language at times. Bob allowed Andy to slap “Endorsed by Bob Ehrlich” on Harris billboards all over the Eastern Shore hoping it would bandage over Andy’s carpetbagger image.

Bob even went multi-media and cut a couple of TV commercials urging his “democrat (sic) and independent friends” to vote for his “friend” Andy.

And tens of thousands of Republicans, conservative Democrats and independents told Bob, “no thanks.”

Some conservative writers have detailed their own reasons for this turn of events:

“How much did Harris’ identification with former governor Ehrlich hurt him? (In all fairness to Mr. Ehrlich, he never pretended to be a conservative, as we wrote here. Many Republicans insisted on seeing him in this light, and then were vexed when he did not act as a conservative.)”

And those folks rely on logic that apparently escapes the average talk radio fan:

“Many Maryland conservatives know that the governor (Ehrlich) approved major tax hikes in 2004, and a state property tax hike in 2003. As his sometime chief of staff Steven Kreseski explained in 2003, “The governor just stated what he couldn’t accept [hikes in income and sales taxes], but there are 50 types of taxes he could accept.”

That’s what happens when you say one thing to your base voters and do another no matter how much you mislead them afterwards.

In truth, the big loser in November lost more than a multi-million dollar congressional race.

Bob spoke out against the slots referendum. He lost big.

Bob spoke out against early voting. He lost big.

Bob still speaks out about a two party state. He’s losing. Big.

Since 2004 Bob’s party has been out-registered by Democratic voters 10 to 1. In 2008 alone, MD Democrats grew by 226,000 voters - almost 14 percent - to the MD Reps 43,000.

Bob talks about his polling and popularity as if they are his tickets to relevance. But, he’s losing that, too.

The press ignored it but rest assured that Bob and his Bunker Boys took notice of the October, 2008 Washington Post poll that showed 53 percent of Marylanders understand and agree with the job being done by Gov. Martin O’Malley.

I know that’s no match for the 60 percent job approval that Bob speaks of as if it were yesterday’s snapshot, instead of over 4 years ago. But, it’s pretty good.

So, what do we know that we didn’t before? Talk is cheap and, Bob talks a lot.

Oh, and all of the above applies to Michael Steele as well, especially if he gets his dream job and spends the next few years as the RNC’s Numero Uno anti-Obama.

Mike, it comes with the job and you have to do it well or, you don’t get to keep it.