Bob Ehrlich

When the renovated State House opened up earlier this month and Maryland got its first look at Bob Ehrlich's $37,500 rug, The Prince of Darkness blogged that the spiffy floor mat wasn't the only Ehrlich-era splurge. The longtime Ehrlich aide formerly known as Joe Steffen wrote that when Bob and Kendel inhabited Government House, they had the dining room done up in paint flecked with 14K gold. Real gold?! I was so on it! But the next day, Sheila Dixon got indicted. And ever since, as the mayor can attest, I've been pretty much all Sheila all the time.

BOB Ehrlich, the Republican congressman from Baltimore County, says he's "concerned with regard to the humanitarian crisis taking place in the Balkans," but thinks the NATO bombing should stop because of a "lack of a clear U.S. strategic interest." Translation: It's terrible what the Serbs have done to the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, but unless we have an oil pipeline or a Microsoft corporate campus to protect, let's save bombs and money and get out of there.The statement Ehrlich issued this week called for a halt to the bombing -- just what the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, would like.

The index to the Maryland section in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported information about the Bob Ehrlich for Maryland Committee.None of the money from the state political committee will be spent directly on Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s next elective effort. Also, the congressman has said he will dispense it to pro-business candidates in Maryland, regardless of party affiliation.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 7/30/97

BOBPAC, AS IT has come to be called, is off and running.Over the weekend, the Bob Ehrlich for Maryland Committee rolled up roughly $20,000 for use in the 1998 state elections at a poolside fund-raiser in Timonium.Nearly 100 supporters of Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. each paid $250 Saturday evening to attend a fund-raiser for the committee -- set up not for his congressional re-election, but rather to help friends in other Maryland political races."It's a nice start," Ehrlich said. "We're on pace to hit our goal of $125,000 by September of 1998.

An unlikely pair will be appearing on the state's political stage soon.Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., the Republican from Maryland's 2nd District, has signed up a new political director -- Paul E. Schurick, a Democratic operative whose name is virtually synonymous with that of his former boss, William Donald Schaefer.Schurick, 41, who had worked for Schaefer since Schaefer was mayor of Baltimore, first as a bureaucrat in the city's job training program and later as Governor Schaefer's chief of staff, will start with Ehrlich's campaign organization Dec. 1."

Declaring that he will give embattled Gov. Parris N. Glendening "a bloody nose on election night," freshman Republican Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. says the governor is his real adversary in his re-election bid this fall.Preparing to launch his first television advertising campaign, Ehrlich yesterday brushed past Connie Galiazzo DeJuliis, the Democratic nominee for his congressional seat, to attack the governor, lately a more controversial target.He charged that Glendening was the real power behind the DeJuliis campaign, and that the governor had snubbed him at events in his district.

About two dozen political campaign signs for Patrick L. McDonough are missing in Anne Arundel County, and the outspoken Republican candidate for Maryland's 3rd District congressional seat smells a conspiracy."

THE VOTERS WILL determine on Tuesday after next the direction the country will take for years. This is as close to a "liberal" vs. "conservative" plebiscite as any in memory.No, not the election for president. Everyone seems to concede that to President Clinton. And he has adopted enough of his adversaries' positions, for the nonce, to blur its ideological distinction.Rather, the election of Congress, the aggregate of individual races for the Senate and House of Representatives, is up for grabs.

Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., Maryland's newest congressman, says he was on a train from New York to Baltimore three weeks ago when he first learned he was a member of Newt Gingrich's ''farm team.'' Mr. Ehrlich ran across his name in a New York Times piece that listed him among the up-and-comers in the Washington revolution plotted by Mr. Gingrich, the self-described ''irrepressible 4-year-old'' who is now speaker of the House of Representatives.The close link to Mr. Gingrich shouldn't have been too great a surprise for the Republican freshman from Maryland's Second Congressional District.

The Greater Baltimore Committee's (GBC) annual Orioles luncheon, starring the entire Orioles team, was a standing-room-only affair Wednesday. More than 1,100 people filled Stouffer's ballroom to see their favorite players such as Cal Ripken, Raphael Palmeiro, Sid Fernandez, Chris Sabo, Brady Anderson, Tim Hulett, Ben McDonald, Mike Mussina and Lee Smith.This marks the Orioles' 40th anniversary and the 16th year that the GBC has brought members of the business community together with the Orioles to celebrate the beginning of baseball season.

In April, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s message to fellow Republicans in Howard County, delivered by his wife, Kendel, was a plea for guidance and support as he pondered another run for the Maryland state house. "This is all about you," Kendel Ehrlich told a packed Lincoln Day party dinner six months ago. "You need to tell Bob Ehrlich what you want him to do." Now those Republicans in this key political barometer county are cajoling, chanting, almost demanding that Ehrlich run for governor again against Democrat Martin O'Malley, but he is still not willing to commit, or even set a deadline.

News of the World, the British tabloid that made a splash with the Michael Phelps bong photo, has a new story about the Olympian, and thank goodness this time there's no photographic evidence. In fact, the paper offers no evidence at all, save for the word of a Baltimore stripper. Scores dancer Theresa White told the paper that she knows Phelps in the biblical sense, and that back in November they had a three-hour romp with a third, unidentified person. Forget the purported sexcapades.

When the renovated State House opened up earlier this month and Maryland got its first look at Bob Ehrlich's $37,500 rug, The Prince of Darkness blogged that the spiffy floor mat wasn't the only Ehrlich-era splurge. The longtime Ehrlich aide formerly known as Joe Steffen wrote that when Bob and Kendel inhabited Government House, they had the dining room done up in paint flecked with 14K gold. Real gold?! I was so on it! But the next day, Sheila Dixon got indicted. And ever since, as the mayor can attest, I've been pretty much all Sheila all the time.

Lawmakers and taxpayers screamed bloody murder when they heard about bailed-out execs flying around in corporate jets. So the reaction tonight, when a company affiliated with American International Group simply tosses $200,000 into the Inner Harbor air? Ooh! Ahh! Ports America, a cargo-terminal operator run by a company that is partially owned by AIG, is footing the bill for Baltimore's New Year's Eve fireworks display. AIG has received more federal bailout money than any other company, about $150 billion so far. The $200,000 fireworks display means that 0.00013 percent of that cash is being set aflame, right?

Just a couple of years ago, when Republican Bob Ehrlich was governor of Maryland and running for re-election, he stood next to Rudy Giuliani at a $2,000-a-plate fundraiser in Baltimore, and the former New York City mayor took questions from reporters. When one brought up Maryland's blue statehood, Ehrlich stepped forward to make a correction. "Light blue," he said, and ha-ha-ha and hee-hee-hee - that Bobby Slots was some funny guy, no? Calling Maryland "light blue," suggesting that Democratic power is thin here, was wishful thinking on Ehrlich's part.

Maybe Sheila Dixon's "Cleaner, Greener" thing is working a little too well. In need of a rodent for that municipal ad campaign, Baltimore sent away to New York for a freeze-dried rat. A cash-strapped city that only a decade ago had more rats than people, that had a fit when the last mayor plucked police chiefs from the Big Apple, blew $200 on a single Yankee vermin. Just what Baltimore needs: another fur scandal. But it turns out that buying mail-order rodents isn't throwing money down the proverbial rat hole.

Story going around Maryland political circles: Guy's sitting at a red light at President and Lombard when police lights in the black SUV behind him start flashing. He thinks the cop's trying to get by, so he moves over a bit. Next thing he knows, the cop's rapping on his window and telling him to get out of the car. "What'd I do?" he asks. "The mayor wants to talk to you." So the guy - Greg Massoni, a spokesman for former Gov. Bob Ehrlich - walks over to the SUV. The back window comes down, and it's Sheila Dixon, who chews him out for a bumper sticker on the back of his Expedition.

On their radio show last week, Bob and Kendel Ehrlich seemed to be in cheerful agreement with a caller named Dee that if Barack Obama is elected president, a race war will ensue. Or as the Daily Kos summed it up: "Elect Barack, and We Get Civil War." (Sadly, that political blog and PolitickerMD beat me to this one, but I've been busy looking for Sheila Dixon's missing fur coats.) Maryland Democratic Party spokesman David Paulson first posted the transcript on PolitickerMD, but I listened to the audio myself.

Anyone still in doubt about former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s political aspirations should look no further than his campaign accounts. He's now a private citizen with a radio talk show and a day job at a law firm, but in 2007, Ehrlich's campaign account logged more than $114,000 in contributions. Nearly all of it came in donations of $1,000 or less, the result of letters he sent to supporters asking for money. "I'm just keeping hope alive," Ehrlich said this month as he celebrated the primary victory of state Sen. Andy Harris' congressional campaign.

Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. seems to be everywhere. He and his wife, Kendel, take calls on a weekly radio show. He's exhorting Marylanders to oppose his successor's tax and slots plan - an "insulting, phony piece of junk," he says. He has written a newspaper op-ed piece chastising the new administration. He's talking to college students at Towson University and fills in later this week behind the counter of an Annapolis-area coffee shop. What, exactly, is Bob Ehrlich up to? When he left office 10 months ago, defeated convincingly by Democrat Martin O'Malley, Ehrlich opened a Maryland office for a powerhouse North Carolina law firm.