Nancy S. Grasmick, Maryland's state superintendent of schools, said she's proud of the fact that four different Democrats who've run for governor asked her to be their lieutenant governor.
A fifth Democrat might ask her one day; you'd make some easy money by betting that it won't be Gov. Martin O'Malley. The guv's made it clear: He wants Grasmick out.
Grasmick's a "poster child for No Child Left Behind," O'Malley has groused on public airwaves. What's more, she's "a pawn of the Republican Party."
The guv made those comments on Marc Steiner's radio show. He said them like supporting NCLB and being a pawn of the Republican Party are bad things.
Let's assume both things are true. In a state where Democrats dominate the legislature and there've been only two Republican governors in the past 41 years, isn't a state superintendent of schools being a "pawn of the Republican Party" a good thing? The last bastion of bipartisan politics in Maryland might be the state schools headquarters on Baltimore Street.
"I've tried to be bipartisan," Grasmick told me earlier this week. I asked Grasmick for an interview, and she consented. As testy as the guv and leading Dems in the state Senate and House of Delegates are about Grasmick, I figured it might be my last chance to interview her while she's still superintendent.
Under the current system, the governor appoints members to the state school board, who then choose a state superintendent. Grasmick was first appointed in 1991. In December, the board - which was then made up mostly of members appointed by former Gov. Robert Ehrlich - voted to give Grasmick another four-year term.
O'Malley cried foul. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller predicted, according to a story in The Sun, that "Nancy Grasmick is not going to be the superintendent. She should step aside." (Note to Miller: Grasmick already is the superintendent.)
House Speaker Michael E. Busch complimented Grasmick but hinted that the board should have waited to appoint a superintendent more suitable to the state's political leadership. Suddenly the woman who's served as superintendent under two Democratic governors and a Republican one is "a tool of the Republican Party."
"I don't understand why suddenly the whole business of being identified with the Republicans is so front and center," Grasmick said. "Actually, I'm a Democrat."
