Either Republican Ellen R. Sauerbrey is swimming against the current of public opinion or she has caught the edge of a changing political tide that is about to sweep Maryland in a completely new direction.
Whatever voters decide, her up-from-nowhere campaign for governor has been a relentless, bruising attack on the philosophical underpinnings of government that Marylanders have embraced for decades.
A victory by Mrs. Sauerbrey on Nov. 8 would make her Maryland's first Republican governor since Spiro T. Agnew won in 1966, and its first woman governor ever.
More importantly, it would shift control over the purse strings of Maryland's $13.5 billion budget from liberal and moderate Democrats into the hands of a staunch conservative.
Decision-making would pass from governors who, for 26 years, have been rooted in Baltimore and transfixed by urban needs to one whose outlook is suburban.
There is no question the 57-year-old delegate from Baltimore County represents change. The question is whether the changes she has pushed with so little success in the legislature for 16 years are suddenly in sync with the thinking of most Marylanders. "She represents such a radical departure from the status quo that if you're really unhappy, Sauerbrey is a natural," said James Gimpel, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland College Park. "But I'm not sure people are that unhappy."
Her Democratic opponent, Prince George's County Executive Parris N. Glendening, paints her as a right-wing extremist, especially for her opposition to gun control and abortion rights for women. Her policies, he says, are out of the main- stream.
Mrs. Sauerbrey attacks the fundamental New Deal belief that government can and should attempt to solve society's problems. She is convinced Marylanders want to return to a simpler time when government was not on their backs, not in their pocketbooks, not telling them how to run their businesses or lives.
"I want you to wake up the day after I'm elected knowing the fruits of your labors are yours," she says at stops along the campaign trail, where she has steadily evolved from a timid but unwavering champion of the smaller-is-better style of government into one of its most confident and forceful advocates.
"Maryland is not the Maryland of 20 years ago," she says instructively, sounding like the high school science teacher she once was. "Today, the minds and hearts of people are moving in our direction."
She has struck a chord with voters like Wayne D. Albrecht, a 55-year-old lawyer and retired Social Security administrator from Howard County. Mr. Albrecht has plastered his pickup truck with "Sauerbrey for Governor" signs and has driven it 7,000 miles through 19 counties to spread the word.
"I just think the woman represents integrity," he said. "She has a consistent, clear record. She doesn't change her story. She has a value system that I think needs to underlie our society. And she has the will and energy and determination to do what she says she's going to do."
An unabashed admirer of Ronald Reagan, Mrs. Sauerbrey's economic policies mirror his. She wants to reduce the tax burden Maryland citizens and businesses as a means of stimulating the economy and creating jobs. She wants to shrink the state work force and limit the scope of what government does.
But, just as President Reagan shifted federal responsibilities and costs to the states, so Mrs. Sauerbrey's critics predict she will shift state responsibilities and costs to Maryland's counties and cities.
The centerpiece of her campaign has been a pledge to reduce state income taxes by 24 percent over the next four years. That would translate into an annual revenue loss of $800 million by the fourth year and a cumulative loss of $2 billion over the four-year term.
If fully implemented by 1999, the tax cut would give a family of four earning $50,000 a year an estimated $10.81 a week extra to spend.
Tough on crime
Like other candidates for office this election year, Mrs. Sauerbrey also has outlined a get-tough-on-crime program that would eliminate parole for violent offenders and require inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences (up from a 50 percent requirement approved by the legislature just this year).
She would revolutionize education in Maryland through a series of controversial proposals to encourage competition between schools. Over the vehement objection of the state teachers union and others, she wants to give parents who send their children to private schools a taxpayer-funded voucher to help with the cost, and to empower parents unhappy with their community school to set up a school of their own.
She also wants to capitalize on growing public impatience with welfare by limiting payments to two years and by refusing to extend benefits to children born to mothers already on welfare. Democrats William Donald Schaefer and Bill Clinton basically agree with her on these points.
But Mrs. Sauerbrey goes farther. Even as bishops of Maryland's Roman Catholic Church and other advocates for families and children are calling for more spending on social programs, she vows to cap benefits where they are. And, arguing that welfare dependency breeds crime, she would fingerprint recipients to combat fraud.
Critics who see her agenda as radical say parts of it -- school vouchers, for instance -- probably would not get through Maryland's Democratic-controlled General Assembly. The -- budget is another matter.
Maryland's Constitution bestows unusually broad budgetary powers on the governor. If a program is not included in the governor's budget, the legislature cannot put it back in or transfer funds from other programs to pay for it.
Since her upset victory over Helen Delich Bentley in the Sept. 13 Republican primary, the campaign for governor has focused mostly on Mrs. Sauerbrey's tax plan. She has laid out a sketchy scenario for how she hopes to achieve the savings needed to finance the first year's 6 percent cut, and has promised to give up her $120,000 salary if unsuccessful.
But she has failed to tell voters precisely how the state can afford such generous tax relief.
'Big Easy'
She insists she can raise the $200 million needed in the first year by freezing spending for state agencies, eliminating vacant jobs and making government more efficient. And she says there will still be enough money to give state workers a raise and to increase, as currently scheduled, state aid to local governments and schools.
"Ellen's campaign is the 'Big Easy:' easy to understand and easy to like," said Del. D. Bruce Poole, a moderate Democrat from Hagers town and a former House majority leader. "Who doesn't think their taxes are too high? Who doesn't want their taxes cut?"
But Mr. Poole, like other Democrats, said the more her plan is scrutinized, the more obvious it becomes that it cannot work.
"There's no free lunch," said Mr. Glendening, who has argued that the state cannot absorb such a loss of revenue without laying off workers, raising college tuitions, and doing irreparable harm to health and social programs on which thousands of ill or needy Marylanders depend.
Critics point to Mrs. Sauerbrey's crime proposal as an example of the flaw in her mathematics.
Her admittedly rough budget plan for next year calls for a 1 percent, or $6 million, increase in the public safety budget. That is not enough to cover the $10 million cost of operating the new central booking facility in Baltimore, according to prison officials.
No plans for new inmates
There is no additional money for housing the 500 to 1,000 inmates that enter the system each year, nor for the further influx that will result from this year's sentencing laws.
And it does not take into account the extra staff and prison space (at a construction cost of $70,000 per bed) that would be needed if Mrs. Sauerbrey's own get-tough sentencing and parole proposals should be enacted.
Her response to such protests has been to tell voters to trust her, that she can make her plan work because she has the guts and determination to make hard choices.
She calls Mr. Glendening "Chicken Little" and dismisses his "sky is falling" arguments as what one would expect from a tax-and-spend Democrat interested in preserving the status quo.
Mrs. Sauerbrey is banking on voters seeing the Democrat as just more of the same, while seeing her as someone chomping at the bit to try something new, even if they have doubts about her ability to pull off all she has promised.
Look at my past, she says, referring to her 16 years as delegate. Few lawmakers in Annapolis have been more consistent in their approach and fundamental beliefs.
The steel worker's daughter could not be more anti-union. She has supported the pro-business agenda of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce so unwaveringly that she has been jokingly referred to as one of the Assembly's "Chamber maids."
In her first term, Mrs. Sauerbrey helped force reluctant legislative leaders to adopt a guideline that, in every year but one since, has kept government spending increases at or below increases in personal income.
Her successes, however, have not been achieved by going along. When she became leader of the House's small Republican caucus, she adopted a much more confrontational style than her predecessor, Robert R. Neall, now Anne Arundel county executive.
"She'd rather make an ideological point than a law," complained one Democrat, Del. James C. Rosapepe of Prince George's County.
Such critics forecast that the state is in for four years of divisive, partisan gridlock if she becomes governor. She is, after all, adamantly opposed to many of the major positions the legislature has taken in recent years.
She was the floor leader against Governor Schaefer's successful bill to ban assault pistols. She has consistently opposed efforts to make abortion more available (though she says as governor she would not tamper with Maryland's 1992 abortion rights law).
She has fought almost every attempt by the legislature to protect the environment, usually arguing that such laws are too onerous and costly to business and industry. The League of Conservation Voters says her voting record on environmental issues is about the worst in Annapolis, but says it did not matter because her opposition was ineffective.
Such stances have earned her the support of taxpayer protest groups, the National Rifle Association and other gun rights organizations, anti-abortion groups and fundamentalist Christians. But they have put her at odds with the majority of her legislative colleagues.
Mrs. Sauerbrey says that is why she got into the governor's race in the first place: out of frustration with her inability as a lone delegate to change the course of government policy.
"I'm tired of nibbling around the edges and making a minor adjustment here and a minor adjustment there without making a real change in the ship of state," she said a year ago, when her chances of winning looked much slimmer than they do today.
"The only place you can do that is from the governor's seat."
7+ Tomorrow: Democrat Parris N. Glendening
CANDIDATE PROFILE
ELLEN R. SAUERBREY
Age: 57
Home: Baldwin, Baltimore County.
Family: Husband, Wilmer. No children.
Education: B.A., English and biology, Western Maryland College.
Experience: Maryland House of Delegates, 1979 to present. House minority leader, 1987 to present. Former high school science teacher.
Running mate: Paul H. Rappaport, lawyer and former Howard County police chief.
POSITIONS ON ISSUES:
ABORTION: Has consistently opposed abortion rights measures. Opposes any expansion of Medicaid-funded abortions for poor women, but says she will not tamper with the state's abortion rights law ratified by voters in 1992. Would seek to reduce the number of abortions by requiring that women seeking one be given information about alternatives.
CRIME/GUN CONTROL: Supports the death penalty. Would eliminate parole for violent offenders, and would require inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences (up from the current 50 percent.) Opposes gun control as ineffective in nTC fighting crime, but would enforce mandatory sentences for crimes with guns.
EDUCATION: Believes education can be improved by increasing competition among schools. Would propose a $2,000 voucher for parents who send their children to private schools, and would allow parents to send children to public school of their choice. Would empower parents unhappy with the school in their community to start a school of their own.
TAXES/BUDGET: Promises to cut state income taxes by 24 percent over four years to spur the economy. Says state can absorb the annual loss of $200 million in revenue without layoffs, without raiding the pension fund, without cutting aid to schools and local governments, and while giving state employees a 3 percent pay raise.
ENVIRONMENT: Believes environmental regulations and laws are too onerous and costly to businesses and need to be relaxed. Has consistently voted against environmental protection bills and is considered by environmental groups to have one of the worst voting records in the General Assembly. Says, however, that she now supports 25 of 26 specific environmental protection recommendations made in July by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
STADIUMS: Has consistently opposed use of taxpayer funds to build stadiums or arenas to keep or attract professional sports teams to Maryland.