Off-Topic

Franchot is running for governor, and he is triangulating himself as the voice of reason between a tax-happy governor and the dysfunctional General Assembly. I'm not saying he's sincere, but he's definitely an opportunist here.

Franchot and Gansler are political streetfighters. It will be interesting to see if Brown can play that kind of hardball.

We are so F'd for years to come....not like this has changed over the years, but there was at least Dems like Schafer in the past.

The Senate slow-played the budget during the final week to try and get the House to pass the Senate's gambling bill (table games, a new PG casino). It blew up in their faces and they ran out of time on both bills.

Brown is not wining anything!

Franchot is winning nothing; he returns as Comptroller.

fixed

I hate to interrupt the O'Malley sucks circle-jerk, but he's coming on my show tomorrow morning. Are there any questions or topics that we may not have thought of that anyone would like us to bring up? Keep in mind that this is a morning talk show type interview, so we're not going to be totally grilling him and we don't have a ton of time to get into policy minutiae.

Ask him why he likes to bend us over and shove tax increases up our a$$ every year....oh and also ask him if he knows the meaning of "cutting spending", "restraint" or "living within your means"?

Yes, because that's clearly going to be asked on network television. I didn't think I'd have to put a disclaimer in, but how about we stick to stuff that's actually, I don't know, somewhere in the general vicinity of realistic?

Ask him how he expects to win a presidential election with a history of huge middle class tax hikes?

Hey that's what i would ask him...any "real" question you ask him is not going to be answered and he will respond in the fashion you posted, which is some focus group tested BS non-answer answer.

The culture of the General Assembly is very often about the House vs. the Senate. Because they have a finite 90-day window to approve bills, the one chamber will very often hold the other chamber's bills hostage ... which will the cause a reverse hostage taking. It's a flipping mess, and one of the reasons few bills of substance get passed before the final week. Of course, a governor with real leadership can be active in pushing legislation through, but O'Malley doesn't play that game very much, so it's up to the Mikes to be the star chamber that decides what gets through. And if they disagree, well, you have the mess you saw on Sine Die.

BTW, the last governor who was really active in playing superlegislator was, of all people, Crazy Willie Don Schaefer. He was very big on pushing bills--especially appropriations--through the General Assembly at lightning speed.