Seeing What They Want to See
Yesterday the Baltimore Sun recognized Governor-elect Larry Hogan as the 2014 Marylander of the Year. And rightfully so, given how the Hogan campaign overcame expectations and transformed the political landscape of this state.
However, there was one particular statement in their recognition of the Governor-elect which clearly does not pass the smell test. In the opening paragraph of their piece, they wrote:
Around this time last year, the question of whether and when businessman Larry Hogan would enter the race for Maryland governor was of small interest beyond some hard-core Republican Party activists. Concocting a path for him to actually win was at that point was no more than a fun parlor game among Maryland politics’ true obsessives, requiring so many hypotheticals as to seem absurd.
Except it must not have been too absurd because such an idea, such a concept, appeared on their own editorial pages.
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Let us take you back to January 23, 2014, when Red Maryland’s Greg Kline wrote:
The answer appears simple. Even in a state as blue as Maryland, voters are wearied by scores of tax increases and the implementation of one of the most far left agendas in the nation. Moreover, Mr. Brown’s patent failure on the one signature responsibility he has had as lieutenant governor, the state’s execution of health care reform, has likely led some voters to conclude that he lacks the capability to govern effectively. His lackluster public appearances have also done little to avoid the inevitable comparisons to another lieutenant governor looking to advance: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
History should make state Democrats wary as well. The last two times there was an open race for the governor’s seat were 1994 and 2002. Republicans did extremely well in both elections, with Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. winning a shockingly easy victory in 2002. Many of the same conditions in those races exist in 2014, namely a perpetual fiscal mess in Annapolis and voter fatigue with the current two-term administration….
….Republicans would do well to exploit the weaknesses of the Brown campaign and the state’s Democratic machine this year, given the fissures within the party. It’s their best chance to win the Maryland governor’s seat in more than a decade.
So in the very editorial pages of the Baltimore Sun overseen by the same editorial board that talked about the number of “absurd hypotheticals” required for Larry Hogan to win the race appeared virtually the exact same scenario that Larry Hogan rode to victory in November.
Once again this is a perfect display of the insular nature of newspaper editorial boards, particularly the one at the Baltimore Sun. How many times over the course of the last eight years has their Board ignored our State’s fiscal realities and leadership vacuum in order to merely rubber stamp the policies and the candidates put forth by the Liberal Democratic establishment? And how many times has the Editorial Board ignored warnings such as the one Greg wrote back in January?
The Baltimore Sun Editorial Board seems like they are unprepared to adjust to the new reality. Maybe in 2015 they’ll learn that things have begun to change…….
