Green Party's Boyd, alternative voice in gubernatorial race BALTIMORE, MD (wypr) - Governor Robert Ehrlich's campaign ads thus far have portrayed him as a centrist; his Democratic challenger, Mayor Martin O'Malley, says the governor doesn't do enough for "working families." And for the most part, they ignore Green Party candidate Ed Boyd, who says neither one of them understands the average voter. WYPR's Joel McCord reports:





Boyd's smiling likeness stares down from the giant billboard high over North Howard Street. "O'Malley arrests us, Ehrlich abandons us, Boyd is one of us," reads the slogan. "Keep the BG & E rate caps." It's the theme at the center of his long-shot campaign for governor:

IC: "We got both our mayor and our governor who's been receiving money from BGE/Constellation and instead of them saying I want to give the money back because it doesn't even have the proprieties of looking right, they say no because they've already made up their mind who they're serving."

He says they are serving Constellation Energy CEO Mayo Shattuck.

Boyd, on the other hand, would have the state take over public utilities. He calls it "Marylandization."

IC: "It's about time that we really call ourself progressive, show how progressive we are by taking over the power lines."

Boyd, 44, grew up in the Liberty City section of Miami, served eight years in the Navy and has been homeless, twice. He moved to Baltimore, where he works as a recruiter for a temporary employment agency, three years ago.

His billboard slogans and the issues he talks about in an interview in the lobby of the Peabody Court Hotel -the arrests for nuisance crimes, for example- seem aimed at a Baltimore audience. But he says they can resonate in Cambridge and Cumberland as well:

IC: "There's a frustration that the folks who we're supposed to have put in office, they're not working for us. They're sleeping with a master called greed and big business."

Thomas Schaller, a political science professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, says it is unlikely that frustration will turn into votes:

IC: "The Green Party in Maryland, with seventy eight hundred members is probably not going to have an impact on the general election, especially since this state has pretty strong environmental policies."

It also appears the Boyd campaign has had little impact. Schaller who described the Green Party as almost uniformly white liberals, was surprised to find out Boyd is African American:

IC: "I honestly didn't even know that. That's fascinating."

And Audra Miller, a spokeswoman for the state's Republican Party got Boyd mixed up with Kevin Zeese, the Green Party's Senate candidate. She and Schaller agree however that Boyd is more likely to peel votes away from O'Malley than Ehrlich:

IC: "The issues that are of concern to folks that vote with the Green Party, sympathize with the Green Party's goals and align themselves in that way will be thoroughly disgusted by Martin O'Malley's record on the environment."

The Baltimore League of Conservation Voters has given O'Malley high marks on environmental issues since he first ran for city council and twice endorsed him for mayor. In its most recent evaluation, The Maryland League of Conservation Voters gave Ehrlich a D-plus for his environmental record.

But there is little in the Maryland Green Party's agenda related to environmental issues. Miles Hoenig, Boyd's campaign manager, says Green candidates focus on opposition to the Iraq war, a single payer health care system and the state take-over of public utilities:

IC: "BG&E/Constellation has such a power grip over Martin O'Malley and Robert Ehrlich and almost all the state delegates."

Hoenig holds out little hope for a Boyd victory in November, but says success can be defined in other ways, like getting more visibility for his party.

I'm Joel McCord, reporting in Baltimore, for 88.1, WYPR.
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