Fun in the Free State

Delegate Franchot and others circulated a letter (on Friday) arguing that Dick Hug’s effort to support slots in Maryland through raising funds for an independent expenditure campaign is a “clear and distinct conflict of interest and an abuse of Mr. Hug’s prestigious position” as a member of the University of Maryland system, the Board of Regents. We’ll see if the revitalized efforts will stop slots again, or if they will help Franchot or Duncan to statewide election in 2006.

Also, former legislator Tim Maloney assails the congressionalization of Annapolis on the back of today’s Post opinion page. Solutions anyone?

The Maryland Democratic Party is now publishing an email “Majority Report,” but when reading it you should try not to think about the Tom Cruise movie – this past week it is far less gripping. The Maryland Republican Party was, if anything, even more vitriolic with its attack on Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley’s annual State of the City address, sending out a press release calling it ‘full of smoke and mirrors.