(Adds Richard Vatz reply below … TL)
I’ll forgo the resurrection analogies for this edition of the blogger roundup and jump straight to it: Bob Ehrlich is going to announce his run for governor Wednesday and that’s going to be the buzz for a long time. (You can debate whether that’s a good thing for his campaign as it detracts from the legislative session and the state budget, which are key debating points for anyone running for governor.)
Over at Red Maryland, Towson University Professor Richard Vatz, a longtime Ehrlich ally, is surprisingly pleased with The Sun’s coverage of Ehrlich thus far. (Full story here.) For anyone unfamiliar, the Sun and the Ehrlich Administration got in some pretty nasty battles during Ehrlich’s four years as governor. Most of it surrounded Ehrlich’s ban on any executive branch workers talking to Sun writers David Nitkin and Michael Olesker, reaching a head in late 2004 to early 2005.
Here‘s an excellent write-up from the Sun’s former ombudsman/reader’s advocate Paul Moore. (For full disclosure, I recently submitted my resume to The Sun. I’ve also been to a handful of Vatz’s bi-annual classes where Bob Ehrlich comes to talk political rhetoric.)
I’m not going into the old battles here because they’ve been pretty thoroughly explored by others more familiar with them than myself. I will offer one critique of this media critique, which is that Vatz has a horse in this race: Ehrlich. Whatever he says — just like whatever former JHU prof Matthew Crenson, an active Democrat, says — needs to be viewed in that context.
I e-mailed Vatz to ask why he’s being friendly to The Sun and will update this post when I hear back. So here’s what Vatz wrote back:
“Honestly, I do not write with ulterior motives… I wrote an earlier piece criticizing the Sun editorial page and an earlier article by another writer as well, but this Bykowicz has really impressed me with her journalism as the campaign starts – especially when contrasted with 2006. Who knows if it will last.”
I was going to link a fairly amusing post by former Ehrlich hack Joe Steffen here, but I have yet to independently verify his information so I’ll wait until later. (This is part of the problem in any sphere, blogos or otherwise. Information can be hard to independently verify, that’s part of the reason why people pay reporters to ferret information. Good info is valuable info.)
So check back a little later today, and I hope to have some (confirmed) news for you.
Former Republican Mayor of Westminster, Kevin Dayhoff, links Doug Tallman’s analysis of what Ehrlich would have to do to win, here.
I’m re-linking the link largely because of this one comment from Dayhoff:
I have always liked Doug Tallman’s work – and I especially like when a writer does his homework and gives me the numbers.
Among other things, as we get into the campaign season, it’s good to remember that we do have certain things bordering on objective benchmarks (to counter the inflated partisan hits) and we reporters do best when we lay out solid information. Doug hits the “if past is prelude” nail on the head in the piece with solid analysis of voter registration. (And another disclosure, I used to work for Doug, and I like his work, too.)
