Local Headlines
(2006-11-08)
Candidates for governor of Maryland: Democratice challenger, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley and Republican incumbent Governor Robert Ehrlich.
With reports still showing the governor's race in a dead heat, O'Malley took the stage at the Hippodrome to declare victory.
O'Malley: "We have been through a bad jag of four years of the politics of division and fear. Tonight, Maryland moves forward again."
But Ehrlich wasn't about to cave in. He appeared in the ballroom of the Hyatt Regency downtown shortly after O'Malley's speech to buck up his supporters.
Ehrlich: "We just don't know folks. We just do not know. And so we're going to overtime, yeah. (applause...)"
He said this was merely intermission and that his supporters should recharge their batteries as they waited for word.
Ehrlich: "Obviously the next couple days are going to be filled full of tension, the provisional ballots, the absentee ballots, the whole nine yards, we'll see where we are in a couple days, and we'll get you all back together. Thank you for everything you have done for us. We love you so much."
Republicans said during the night they were sure that the more than one hundred eighty thousand absentee ballots favored them. Yet Ehrlich sounded less than confident.
Ehrlich: "The door to door, the twenty five dollar contributions, the coffees, the bumper stickers, the lawn signs, bottom line, the love that you have shown to me and to us over so many years is something that I obviously will carry forever."
O'Malley, on the other hand, was moving from campaigning to being governor.
O'Malley: "This campaign's been tough, but governing is going to be even tougher. We have to pull ourselves together and move forward, to strengthen and grow our middle class, to improve public safety and public education and every part of our state."
Gansler, the Montgomery County State's Attorney who handily won his race for state attorney general handily, joined O'Malley on the stage. Later, he said the Democratic sweep for top offices showed Marylanders wanted a change.
Gansler: "You know, one of the most heartening things I saw yet also one of the most discouraging things - was I was in Evangel Cathedral in Prince George's in a precinct there today and for people to vote. It took three hours, which is unconscionable, but very few people left. They wanted to vote, they wanted to send a message, even if they had to stand there for three hours, they were going to do it and we saw the results of that tonight."
His fellow Montgomery County Democrat Peter Franchot greeted supporters at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Silver Spring. Franchot, who unseated Comptroller William Donald Schaefer in the primary, said he would be a fiscal watchdog in the tradition of his predecessor.
Franchot: "I'm going to look at the and say that this is the tax payers' dollar and we have to treat it as a sacred dollar and we have to be vigorous and vigilant about how we spend it."
A few hours after Ehrlich and O'Malley spoke, the numbers appeared to be breaking the mayor's way. With 96 percent of the precincts reporting, O'Malley held a 90,000 vote lead. But that's close enough that the absentee ballots could have an effect.
With Melody Simmons and Taunya English, I'm Joel McCord, reporting in downtown Baltimore for 88.1, WYPR.
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