In his op-ed piece in today’s Sun, Thomas F. Schaller looks past the 2010 gubernatorial race to 2014 when Martin O’Malley would presumably be finishing his second term. Since the Governor would be prohibited by term limits for running for a third term, the Democratic field would be wide open in 2014. He mentions our own county executive as one of the leading political thoroughbreds in that race.
“Barring some cataclysm, Mr. O'Malley will be the party's gubernatorial nominee in 2010, of course. But there are rumblings already about who will be best positioned to be the 2014 nominee.
Along with Messrs. Smith, Franchot and Gansler, that not-so-small list includes Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and Howard County Executive Ken Ulman. Perhaps former congressman and NAACP president Kweisi Mfume will try to build upon his solid 2006 Senate primary effort.”
At least at that point he’ll be over forty!
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7 comments:
This says a lot about the democratic process. None of those folks would be hired to run a lemonade stand if they had to be approved by a board of directors of a publicly traded firm, but they can be elected in a democratic process to oversee a multi-billion dollar budget of a state. Amazing.
"the Democratic field would be wide open in 2104"
I expect any field 95 years from now is wide open. Really going out on a limb with that prediction, huh?
FM,
Anyone who's opened a newspaper or checked their investments knows some public companies, large and small, have seen boards approve CEschmOes repeatedly, so that's hardly a good measuring stick.
As for age having any bearing on anything, Maryland's had 66 governor terms (a couple people returned twice so I'm counting them separately). About 1 out of 7 times, someone under 40 was selected. About 1 out of 8 times, someone over 60 was selected.
Howard County's namesake, James Eager Howard, became Maryland governor at 36.
The CEschmOes who get elected by a corporate board are few in number but their misdeeds are very newsworthy. The vast majority of CEOs elected by a board are top notch people who do right by shareholders.
Plenty of schmoes get elected to public office. Blagojevich? Palin? Bueller? Bueller?
Ok, you've backed off your original position that corp boards never choose lemons to run lemonade stands. But, you just listed only 2 out of 50, a mere 4%, of the recent set of state governors. You think the CEschmOe rate is lower than that? Come on.
The bell curve can be found in every vocation, including democratically-elected office and board-appointed heads of corps. The most cost-effective cure for better bell curve shapes in these instances is better educating the citizen and investor.
Anon, if you think that corps are poorly run compared to government, you are smoking crack. Although there are always exceptions, corporate spending is generally efficient, used to spur innovation, and passes a cost benefit test.
I don’t think anyone can seriously make that claim about government, including Ken Ulman.
The major difference between elected officials and CEOs is that CEOs actually have to produce something: a profit. All that elected officials have to do is...get elected. Two very different propositions.
God freaking help us if Rat-boy Ulman runs for Governor!!!!! Maybe he could have his stooge sidekick Josh Feldmark be the Lt. Guvna! MD certainly deserves better possibilities than Ulman.
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