MARTIN O'MALLEY said he'd support his party's nominee for governor this year, but he didn't exactly reach for Kathleen K. Townsend's hand and raise it for the TV cameras in the ballroom, did he? Our charismatic mayor will not challenge Townsend and the Kennedy clan by entering the Democratic gubernatorial primary, and he said he was doing this for the good of the city, which is admirable.

But excuse me for asking: How does dissing the woman who could possibly be Maryland's next governor serve the good of the city?

Strikes me as dumb, a guy making his job harder than it has to be.

"Vacuum of leadership in the Democratic Party"?

O'Malley might as well have said, "Airhead."

"My party is adrift"?

He might as well have said, "Have you folks thought about voting for Bobby Ehrlich?"

O'Malleyites can spin this any way they like, emphasizing the mayor's commitment to the city and his casting aside personal ambition for the sake of continuing the job we elected him to do here. There are a lot of happy Baltimoreans today. The man they voted for but three years ago did the right thing. He did not "Venetoulis" his career. (One-time Baltimore County executive, "TV Teddy" Venetoulis, another charismatic reformer, ran before his time for governor, during his first term in Towson. He made the executive's job look like a mere steppingstone in his career plans, and he got trounced in the 1978 primary, didn't even carry his own county.)

But in his Wednesday grand-ballroom speech, O'Malley couldn't bring himself to mention Townsend by name, and threw in those shots at the Democratic leadership that could be read only one way -- he has utter disdain for KKT.

Hey, bro', if you're not going to run against the woman, get over it.

The conventional wisdom says KKT should be happy anyway -- happy that O'Malley backed down from the fight, freeing up oodles of money she can spend on flying in members of the Kennedy family (Arnold Schwarzenegger excepted) to help campaign against Ehrlich in the general election.

The conventional wisdom says the city will benefit from this because KKT will "owe" the O-Man.

To which I say: Oh, really? Does the late Robert F. Kennedy's daughter need O'Malley to pull a strong vote in the city against Ehrlich? I don't think so.

Assuming she gets elected, does she need to make good on whatever was on that wish list of funds for the city that O'Malley sent along to her camp?

Maybe. But, if she does, it will be because of others in Baltimore's political leadership and various fat cats who talked O'Malley out of running for governor. It will be because of Townsend's own sense of commitment to a heavily Democratic city with the highest concentration of poverty and other social ills in this wealthy state.

It will be in spite of the mayor.

And while that will make Townsend look a whole lot more gracious than O'Malley does right now, it could make the city's next few beg-a-thons in Annapolis tougher than they have to be.

Maybe O'Malley will come around. Maybe we'll see him summon reporters and Joe Curran to a grand ballroom again and raise KKT's hand and endorse her in a large, public way. Maybe. But I'm not going to be making any bets with Sheila Dixon that that will happen.

O'Malley is one of the smartest, most ambitious and calculating politicians we've seen in this state in a long time. He made a political judgment. Yeah, he cares about the city and he knows he still has a way to go to turn around its most persistent problems, and that can win him headlines across the country.

But he also knows that, if he wants to ascend politically in the next few years -- if he wants to, say, serve in the U.S. Senate some day -- it was probably not wise to alienate national Democratic leadership (KKT's Uncle Teddy et al.) by running in a race that would only serve to badly damage a member of the Kennedy clan's chances of becoming Maryland's first female governor.

So he helped himself.

But he could have helped the city even more with an endorsement of Townsend. He could have offered to sing "It's A Great Day For The Irish" at her next fund-raiser.

He just couldn't stomach the thought.

For your own political sake, and for the city's, get over it, your honor.