SWEET DAY FOR SAUERBREY?
BARNES, FRED
Sweet Day for. Sauerbrey? by Fred Barnes Bowie, Maryland ONE OF MY RULES OF THUMB in politics is pretty simple: Show me a Republican who lost in 1994, and I'll show you a loser. There was such a...
...So in the final weeks, his campaign has tried a different tack, demonizing Sauerbrey as a flaming right-winger...
...Since then, the worst Republican candidates got slightly less than 40 percent of the vote, the best slightly more...
...Rehrmann appeared with Sauerbrey in early October and lauded her...
...Anyway, her TV ads call Glendening "a governor who builds stadiums instead of classrooms" and tout her plan to pay for 1,000 more teachers...
...He's the least popular Maryland governor in decades, and for good reason...
...In 1994, she didn't have the money to respond on TV to attacks...
...Meanwhile, Glendening wants a grandiose, $15 billion expansion of the Washington area's Metro rapid-rail system that Sauerbrey contends will necessitate a hefty hike in the gas tax...
...There was such a strong GOP tide in 1994 that I concluded any Republican who lost must be a turkey or a poor soul trapped in a Democratic stronghold...
...Three times as many Marylanders commute to jobs in Virginia as the other way around...
...And in a humiliating flip-flop, Glendening invited President Clinton to campaign for him after snubbing Clinton in Maryland weeks earlier...
...She had one issue, cutting taxes, and she stuck with it despite advice from the queasy moderates who run the Maryland GOP to drop the issue...
...Glendening enlisted the White House to pressure Maryland's two most influential black politicians, mayor Kurt Schmoke of Baltimore and Prince Georges County executive Wayne Curry, to endorse him...
...But the senator had nothing to do with Shrum's working for Glendening, Shrum says...
...A racial conservative, Mahoney split the Democratic party by noisily opposing a fair-housing law and adopting the slogan "A man's home is his castle...
...She's far better known now, and people tend to like her...
...And she got a near-endorsement from Eileen Rehrmann, a county executive who challenged Glendening for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination this year...
...The last Republican to win the governorship was Spiro Agnew in 1966, and he swung to the left of Democrat George P Mahoney...
...Maryland can't afford it...
...Glendening has "seen fit to put stadiums and sports franchises ahead of schools," declared Crumlin, a black West Point graduate and Harvard MBA...
...He devoted $220 million to building a new football stadium in Baltimore for the NFL Ravens, whom he'd lured from Cleveland, and another $75 million for roads leading to a new stadium in Prince George's County for the Washington Redskins...
...At that time, the governor explained that appearing with the president would send a bad signal to his 18-year-old son...
...Selling Glendening to voters isn't easy...
...She clearly wants to have no discussion of her real views on gun control, the environment, choice," says Shrum...
...She wants to run on one issue, a tax cut...
...They did so without enthusiasm and without informing Glendening...
...It also had legs: Glendening and Democratic legislators, prompted by Sauerbrey's campaign, passed a 10 percent tax cut...
...She has a tougher hill to climb than Bush because Maryland is more Democratic and liberal than Florida...
...On his watch, the sense that Maryland is eating Virginia's dust economically has intensified...
...Glendening, 56, is also better known, but that hasn't helped him...
...Absent Bush, the rule seemed ironclad...
...Running in Maryland as a conservative (Sauerbrey calls herself "a Jack Kemp supply-sider") is normally a sure route to defeat...
...That is, until Sauerbrey, a 60-year-old former schoolteacher and state legislator, got 50 percent in 1994, losing by fewer than 6,000 votes...
...She's raised more than $5 million, five times what she spent in 1994...
...Glendening's response...
...Sauerbrey, the daughter of a steelworker, also has money this time...
...He's untrustworthy, a flip-flopper, and socially awkward: Clinton without the charm...
...conservatives and Republicans usually land in the Virginia suburbs...
...Now she says, "It's very reassuring when you have the ability to shoot back...
...All this has left Glendening in deep trouble...
...My sense is we'll hold what we got in '94," Sauerbrey says...
...Glendening will outspend her, but not by much...
...Now it's time to cut the other 14 percent, Sauerbrey argues, starting with a deep reduction in taxes for senior citizens and a cut in the levy on real-estate settlements...
...It may also make the difference between winning and losing...
...And Sauerbrey has a record to run against—Glen-dening's...
...The only obvious exception was Jeb Bush, who was defeated in the Florida governor's race four years ago but is a shoo-in this year (partly because Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles can't run again...
...Maryland has the second-highest state and local taxes on individuals in the nation...
...He hired a new media consultant, Robert Shrum, for help...
...Sauerbrey insists he funded the stadiums at the expense of education, and the charge has caught on, especially in the upscale Washington suburb of Montgomery County...
...Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Yet she now stands at least a 50-50 chance of ousting Glendening, the most egregious liberal hack among the nation's governors...
...Shrum is a longtime adviser to senator Edward Kennedy, and Kennedy's niece, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, is Glendening's lieutenant governor...
...That is a huge blunder on their part," says Stuart Stevens, Sauerbrey's media consultant...
...But maybe not...
...Thus, her proposal in 1994 for a 24 percent cut in state taxes was enormously popular...
...All she needs is a pickup of 3 or 4 percent in Montgomery to win...
...By "choice," Shrum means abortion, not school choice...
...His first task is putting together the Democratic base, and he's still at it with the election only weeks away...
...In Maryland, Ellen Sauerbrey, a narrow loser in 1994 to Democratic governor Parris Glenden-ing, is challenging him one more time...
...The goal is to make her radioactive to moderates and liberals in Montgomery County, even if they don't relish voting for Glendening...
...That's the county liberals and Democrats gravitate to when they move to Washington...
...Sauerbrey is backed by other crossovers, including former lieutenant governor Melvin Steinberg and Jim Brady, Glendening's ex-economic-development chief...
...What's improved Sauerbrey's chances in the last four years...
...State delegate Michael Crumlin, elected as a Democrat but now an independent, echoed this charge when he endorsed Sauerbrey last week...
...Another blunder by Glendening has allowed Sauerbrey to claim the education issue...
...Sauerbrey still has the tax issue...
...Virginia is cleaning our clock," Sauerbrey told the Maryland Chamber of Commerce...
Vol. 4 • October 1998 • No. 7
