Adam Pagnucco: Marylanders Vote Strongly Against Tax Increases Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Check out the analysis by Adam Pagnucco of Maryland Politics Watch of the multiple anti-tax referenda and initiatives that prevailed even in the more liberal parts of the state. No quote here would do justice to Pagnucco's systematic analysis of the entire results.

Even Robin Ficker got his (first) Montgomery County anti-tax charter amendment, though barely. This bespeaks some ill tidings for Governor O'Malley reelection prospects, in my view; while Montgomery is almost certainly the most liberal jurisdiction in the state both politically and culturally, a move by Montgomery's wealthy taxpayers to the center (even the center measured by blue Maryland's liberal median and mean) on taxes could inflict serious damage on his reelection efforts against possible (my hunch: quite likely) GOP gubernatorial nominee former governor Bob Ehrlich.

Ehrlich paid lip service to social conservative agenda items but in his heart and habits Ehrlich was largely a GOPAC-style cost-cutter and advocate of restrained government. O'Malley is no Kathleen Kennedy Townsend but his approval ratings are way down into the "gonorrhea/kidney stone" level, in part due to modest but real tax increases on sales, excises and incomes. And Democrats should not get overconfident about Maryland after the twenty-point Obama win; Ehrlich got a much larger share of the vote in both 2002 and 2006 than McCain got in Maryland this past week - before Marylanders got their taxes increased.

UPDATE: I pretty much agree with the analysis by Brian Griffiths on these general points.


Longer portion of post goes here.