Maryland Voters

The failure of those who oppose Maryland's new speed camera law to collect enough signatures to bring the matter before voters may be a victory for traffic safety, but it also raises troubling questions about the challenge of taking any new law to referendum. Speed camera opponents had until Sunday night to collect more than one-third of the necessary 53,000 signatures to put the matter on the ballot next year, but they came up an estimated 1,600 short. And that's assuming the state would have considered the signatures valid; new requirements on what constitutes a legal signature might have caused many of those collected in recent weeks to be disqualified anyway.

When he began his U.S. Senate run in Maryland last year, Eric S. Wargotz was largely unknown. He still is. Wargotz, 53, is the Republican nominee running against Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski. The wealthy physician has put more than $500,000 of his own into the campaign, yet he risks being outspent by a ratio of more than 20-to-1. "You look at me, you say, 'My God, Eric, what are you, crazy?'" he recently told a tea party gathering in Montgomery County. "'How are you going to beat her with a couple hundred thousand versus a couple of million dollars?

A new poll shows that a solid majority of Maryland voters still resents spending $270 million on two football stadiums pushed by Gov. Parris N. Glendening, suggesting that it could emerge as a key issue in his race for re-election.The poll of likely voters, conducted for The Sun and other news organizations, also found that they are divided on whether to allow slot machines at horse racing tracks. But voters ranked many other issues, including education and crime, as far more important to the state.

The approach to National Harbor, where three highways meet on the Maryland side of the Potomac River, is pretty much a wow, with the arched 18-story atrium of a massive convention hotel its centerpiece. National Harbor is a still-new resort town on a slope overlooking the big river, with six hotels, upscale shops, restaurants, condominiums, marinas and a busy schedule of events that attract healthy crowds on weekends. David Cordish must look at Nat Harbor and wish he'd thought of it. Or maybe he wishes the place had been available as a location for gambling four years ago, when Maryland voters approved the return of slot machines to the state.

THIS MAY come as a surprise, given all we've heard and read about public schools in Maryland, but the state's voters give them higher grades than they did four years ago. Since 1998, a poll conducted for The Sun has been asking voters to grade the schools A, B, C, D or F. This year's grade point average is on the border between B-minus and C-plus. Four years ago, it was just above a C. The percentage of voters giving their local schools an A or B has increased over the four years, while C's, D's and F's have declined.

The Sun's newest poll shows Maryland voters strongly in favor of allowing same-sex marriage, strongly opposed to an expansion of gambling and split almost evenly on the Dream Act, which would grant illegal immigrants in-state tuition at colleges and universities. Another independent poll released days earlier, by Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies, found a big lead for the Dream Act, strong support for marriage equality and a statistical tie on the question of gambling expansion.

Maryland voters overwhelmingly feel that the nation is veering in the wrong direction and support Sen. John Kerry in his race against President Bush by 56 percent to 39 percent, according to a poll conducted for The Sun and released today. Disaffected by the war in Iraq and troubled by terrorism, the economy and the president's leadership, 62 percent of Marylanders surveyed this week said the country was on the wrong track, compared with 34 percent who said things were on the right path.

Fair and free elections are at the heart of any democracy. But how fair is an election when voters aren't offered a choice at the ballot box? That's the dilemma facing Maryland voters this year. After Tuesday's candidate filing deadline, 10 state senators appear destined to run unopposed in both the primary and general elections this year. Collectively, they represent more than one-fifth of the state. That's actually better than four years ago, when 15 candidates for state Senate ran unopposed.

Support for President Bush has cooled among Maryland's voters as terrorism fears linger and concerns about a new war in Iraq and a faltering economy come to the forefront, a new poll for The Sun released today shows. The nation's 43rd president has seen his popularity in the state fall from a sky-high 83 percent approval rating a year ago to a more pedestrian 55 percent - a still admirable figure considering the vast majority of Marylanders voted for someone else in the 2000 election. But when it comes to whether state voters think Bush deserves to be re-elected next year, just 39 percent say they would choose him, 45 percent would choose a nameless "someone else," and 16 percent are undecided.

When Paul S. Sarbanes said last month that he intends to run for re-election, state Democratic Chairman Peter B. Krauser rejoiced, calling the state's senior senator "an icon in Maryland politics."Asked how he would characterize Sarbanes' accomplishments, however, Krauser responded: "Can I get back to you on that? I'm not that familiar with the senator's record."Krauser has company.After more than 28 years in Congress, including 22 in the Senate, Sarbanes remains an enigma to much of a state that has given him one resounding electoral victory after another.