O'Malley's inner circle gets a reshuffling
A reshuffling in Gov. Martin O’Malley’s inner circle will elevate Matthew D. Gallagher to the chief of staff office that’s being vacated by Michael R. Enright, who will become a senior adviser to the governor.
Gallagher, who was deputy chief of staff, has worked with O’Malley since he was mayor of Baltimore. As a staffer in the city, Gallagher ran CitiStat, a performance-based management tool that became the model for a similar program implemented on the state level.
Enright, who served as first deputy mayor in Baltimore and has been friends with O’Malley since they met at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, will focus on tracking federal stimulus dollars and on energy issues. Enright has been spearheading negotiations with Constellation Energy Group, trying to wring concessions from the Baltimore company as it seeks regulatory approval for a deal to sell half of its nuclear power business to Electricite de France, a French utility, for $4.5 billion.
Some Annapolis watchers also are speculating that the reshuffling means Enright might have more free time to work on the governor’s re-election campaign.
While the election is more than a year away, O’Malley already has begun raising money and this summer hired Thomas Russell, a veteran of state and federal elections nationwide, to manage his campaign.
In an e-mail to supporters last month asking for donations, O’Malley warned: “This won’t be an easy election. We’re in for a fight.” Although it isn’t clear at this point how tough the fight will be. While some Democrats have hinted at challenging O’Malley, none have formally announced their candidacy, and a clear Republican front-runner has yet to emerge from the GOP pack.
One issue that many expect to take center stage in the election — no matter who runs against O’Malley — is energy. Rising utility bills have been a thorn for O’Malley since he campaigned on promises to fight electricity price hikes that he was then unable to roll back.
Comments
Shouldn't it read that OMalley lied about rolling back electricity charges to get elected?
And that our fearless leaders in Annapolis circa 1999 created this mess to begin with deregulation. And that those leaders were Democratic.
Posted by: jay | September 2, 2009 6:45 PM
and jay...it should also read that the only people who opposed deregulation were LIBERAL Dems...the conservative dems and every single Repbublican in the General Assembly voted for deregulation.
Posted by: mook | September 9, 2009 9:18 AM
Question to Mook,
How many conservative Dems are there in the General Assembly?
Becuase in order to win the Governor office all you have to do is win PG County, Montgomery Co and Baltimore City. Those counties are the have the most people as well as the most representative in General Assembly. Those areas are suppose to be the most liberal.
Posted by: Les | September 11, 2009 9:10 AM