Ehrlich: Definitely not running (right now...)
The former guv spent the afternoon at Towson U. professor Rick Vatz's class, as he has many times before, sporting a new (and actually pretty interesting) lecture about negative advertising, which I'll post about later. But for now, the question everybody's been buzzing about since last Saturday's radio show: Is he or isn't he?
The answer, boring though it may be, is, he's not running at the moment and won't decide anything about 2010 for a long time.
"It's unknowable at this time," he said. "In looking at it, there are two sides of the issue. A lot of people are encouraging me to do it, whcih is great for the ego and nice to hear. On the other side, I lost with pretty high approval ratings." And, he added, there's not much evidence that Maryland voters are intersted in conservative candidates.
He said he has two things to consider as time goes on: What does his family think, and how does the lay of the land look?
On the family front, is Kendel putting the kibosh on a restoration attempt? Uh, no.
"Kendel Ehrlich has not said that," Bob said. "In fact, it's just the opposite."
As for the other part of the equation, Ehrlich said he would need to engage in "a conversation with the general public about the direction we've seen Annapolis take and whether this is the direction people want to see Annapolis take in the future."
He said the presidential vote in Maryland this year won't tell him much, but a Democratic win in the 1st Congressional district would.
"I don't think that's going to happen, but certainly that would be relevant," Ehrlich said.
In general, don't look for him to jump into the race just to be a standard-bearer for the Maryland GOP.
"People come up to me and say, 'You have to run,'" Ehrlich said. "It's not about running. It's about winning ... and that's what I have to focus on."
Comments
::sigh:
Gov. Ehrlich is right - it is about winning. With the exception of the civil war, few people ever fondly remember defeats.
Posted by: bryaninTimonium | October 30, 2008 8:44 PM