With barely a month to go until the Nov. 8 general election, the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor are trying to place specially ground lenses over the eyes of Maryland voters, the better to see the true colors of the opposition.
To Democrat Parris N. Glendening and his supporters, Republican Ellen R. Sauerbrey is a right-wing extremist whose ,, policies would turn back the clock on abortion rights, destroy the public school system and permit Uzi-toting criminals to roam 4l the streets.
That is her secret agenda, Mr. Glendening and his handlers say. Her pledge to cut taxes and streamline government, the centerpiece of her campaign, is merely a Trojan horse to conceal her real motives. Just to be safe, though, the Glendening team trashes the tax cut plan, too.
To Mrs. Sauerbrey and her champions, Mr. Glendening is a free-spending liberal who can be rolled by any special interest group willing to endorse him, a disciple of big government out of touch with reality as middle class voters know it.
There is another image the Sauerbreys would like to convey of Mr. Glendening. It is punctuated by a picture of the Prince George's County executive taped to the wall of Sauerbrey headquarters in Cockeysville and by the single word below it: Taxman.
The implication is that Mr. Glendening as governor would raise taxes, which he has said he has no plans to do. Just as Mrs. Sauerbrey, despite her anti-abortion record, has said she would not attempt to reverse the 1992 referendum that solidly affirmed a woman's right to an abortion in Maryland.
At the moment, the race appears to be competitive, something of a surprise because Mr. Glendening not only survived a hard-fought primary battle, but turned three credible, reasonably well-funded rivals into road kill, the closest running 36 percentage points behind.
Mr. Glendening's victory in the primary, if not the margin, was expected. Mrs. Sauerbrey, however, charged past the Republican favorite, U.S. Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, surging from 13 points behind in the polls just before the election to 14 points ahead on primary day.
As a result, Mrs. Sauerbrey, the Republican leader of the Maryland House, became the focus of enormous news media attention immediately after the Sept. 13 primary. Nationally syndicated columnist George F. Will likened her to Margaret Thatcher. In the parlance of politics Mrs. Sauerbrey received a tremendous bounce from her victory, Mr. Glendening next to none.
"Most people didn't know who Ellen Sauerbrey was before Sept. 13, and so their first look at her was as this dragon slayer," said David Seldin, Mr. Glendening's press secretary.
'Extremist'
The Glendening campaign, which had spent months preparing to take on Mrs. Bentley, suddenly found itself facing Mrs. Sauerbrey. Within hours, she came under attack from various Glendening surrogates, and soon from Mr. Glendening himself, as a dangerous fringe figure.
"One of the things we feel is important is educating voters on who she really is," said Emily Smith, Mr. Glendening's campaign manager. "She really is an extremist and represents the radical right."
A major question as the campaign goes into its final four weeks is the extent to which voters -- especially independents and moderate Republicans targeted by both sides -- accept that characterization. A related question is whether the charge is good politics.
"I think it's a mistake," said pollster Steven Raabe of Potomac Survey Research in Bethesda. "A lot of mainstream people voted for Ellen Sauerbrey in the primary, and they just don't feel cutting taxes is a radical-right proposal."
Herbert C. Smith, a political science professor at Western Maryland College, compared the Glendening game plan with President Jimmy Carter's strategy in 1980 of trying to tar challenger Ronald Reagan as a tool of the radical right.
The good news for Mrs. Sauerbrey is that Mr. Reagan was elected president by a wide margin. The bad news is he didn't carry heavily Democratic Maryland in 1980, though he did four years later.
Mrs. Sauerbrey may be more vulnerable, various political observers say, on her plan to cut personal income taxes by 24 percent over four years. She says it will cost $820 million, though Democrats put the price tag at $2 billion.
She has described in general terms how she would make the first year's cuts. After that, the proposal is so lacking in detail it resembles the secret plan of candidate Richard M. Nixon in 1968 to end the war in Vietnam.
"As voters get more and more information about [the tax proposal], they'll realize the difficulty and implications of doing that," said Del. Gene W. Counihan, a Montgomery County Democrat.
Another Montgomery Democrat, state Sen. Laurence Levitan, chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee, agreed, but with a nervous caveat.
"The numbers don't work," he said. "The question is, will people look at the numbers or just say it sounds like a good idea."
Mr. Glendening, for the moment, is pursuing a two-track strategy, criticizing Mrs. Sauerbrey while promoting his 12-year record as county executive and his plans for re-invigorating the public schools, beefing up law enforcement and energizing economic development efforts.
Less visibly, his campaign is laboring to put together a get-out-the-vote operation that would allow Mr. Glendening to capitalize on the 2-to-1 registration advantage that Democrats enjoy over Republicans in Maryland.
"In the primary, Helen Bentley did not turn out her voters," said campaign manager Ms. Smith. "We're not going to make the same mistake."
As for Mrs. Sauerbrey, she and her supporters seem unfazed by the attacks, airily dismissing them as little more than background noise.
Asked about the extremist label, campaign manager Richard W. "Monti" Montalto laughed and pointed to a picture of Mrs. Sauerbrey on his office wall: "You look at that face. When she gets on television that whole image is dispelled."
'Tax fanatic'
For her part, Mrs. Sauerbrey counterattacked last week, challenging Mr. Glendening's portrayal of himself as a "mainstream moderate" by calling him "a tax fanatic who never met a tax he didn't like."
That characterization, Mr. Montalto indicated, was just a taste of what lies ahead.
"Glendening has a lot of scabs, and we're going to pick those scabs, and he's going to bleed," Mr. Montalto said.
Mrs. Sauerbrey also is counting on a corps of volunteers that showed itself in the primary campaign to be passionately committed to her. "Her people would walk in front of a truck for her," said Professor Smith.
Mr. Glendening displayed enormous organizational strength as well during the primary season. In addition, he has said he plans to spend $2.5 million for the general election, compared with about $1 million by Mrs. Sauerbrey, who is limited to that amount because she has accepted public campaign financing.
The financial disparity gives Mr. Glendening a major advantage, especially with the Democratic Party running a half million dollar coordinated campaign for all party candidates while the state GOP, as the result of an attorney general's opinion now under court challenge, has been barred from directly aiding Mrs. Sauerbrey without having the amount spent charged against her limit.
Last week, however, a group independent of Mrs. Sauerbrey kicked off a drive to raise at least $125,000 to assist the Republican standard bearer by mounting a negative television ad campaign against Mr. Glendening, which could help level the playing field.
Despite the financial gap, Mr. Montalto is not poor-mouthing. "We were outspent by Bentley, too," he said. "It's how you use your money. We're going to squeeze out everything we can."