"He's on the comeback trail; it's pretty obvious," Smith said of Ehrlich. "He certainly has demonstrated a resiliency."
A statewide poll conducted for The Sun from Jan. 6 to 9 proved a mixed bag for Ehrlich. While nearly 58 percent of voters viewed him favorably compared with 28 percent unfavorably, only a third said they believed the state got better on his watch.
"Right now, Bob Ehrlich is benefiting from the contrast with Governor O'Malley, who bit off an unpopular policy challenge" when he led efforts to fix a long-standing budget imbalance, in part by raising taxes by $1.3 billion in November's special legislative session, said Steven R. Raabe, president of OpinionWorks, the polling firm that conducted the survey.
"But [the poll results] were not exactly a strong endorsement of his time in office," Raabe said. "I suspect his posture is to keep all his options open at this point, and why shouldn't he?"
Ehrlich was flying high this month after a pair of appearances with Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. He also basked in Harris' victory in a three-way race that unseated Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest. Ehrlich endorsed Harris in the primary for Maryland's 1st Congressional District and appeared in a commercial for the campaign.
In a brief interview at Harris' jubilant victory party, Ehrlich said he believed his efforts were working, giving several examples of what he described as backtracking by the General Assembly. He pointed to the abandoned effort of O'Malley and legislative leaders to oust state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick - an Ehrlich ally - as one example of how Democratic Party leaders are "scared."
"That's the reason you see them pulling back now," he said. "This may be the most Democratic state in the country, but it's not the most liberal state in the country by any means."
bradley.olson@baltsun.com
