IN THE one-party, socialist state of the People's Republic of Baltimore, Rep. Robert Ehrlich is not Maryland's Republican gubernatorial candidate.
Rather, Ehrlich is a man like that.
This news comes to us from one who should know: Del. Tony Fulton, a Democrat from Baltimore's 40th District. Fulton invited Ehrlich and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend to tour Carver Vocational-Technical High School on June 14. Ehrlich accepted and went to Carver, located in the heart of predominantly African-American West Baltimore.
Fulton said he received veiled threats from fellow black Democrats for such cheeky bipartisanship.
"I was told by some in my party that 'we are going to take care of business if you bring a man like that into our community,'" is how Fulton remembered the exchanges. The delegate didn't mention names, but the guilty parties out there know who you are.
Just what Ehrlich's detractors mean by a man like that is not clear. But the sneering contempt implied in such a phrase indicates that some black Democrats place Ehrlich way down on the morality scale, just a notch below Charles Manson. The congressman's offenses haven't been detailed, but let's compare them with those of a man black Democrats didn't consider a man like that. In fact, black Dems swear one William Jefferson Clinton, the mercifully departed 42nd president of the United States, was one of us colored folks.
Let's see now: There was perjury, subordination of perjury, obstruction of justice and that curious pardon of one Marc Rich, the fugitive tax evader who decided he would pass on court. Then there's that not-so-niggling matter of more black folks ending up in federal prison on Clinton's watch than on that of any Republican president.
No black Democrat has ever referred to Clinton as a man like that. Whenever Clinton visited African-American communities, black Democrats would trip over themselves as they puckered up to see who could be the first to kiss Bubba's royal butt.
Not so with Ehrlich. He is -- horror of horrors -- a Republican. What's more, the guy has the nerve to be a conservative. This makes Ehrlich no ordinary man, but a man like that: one who eschews the philosophy that to solve the problems of dreadful schools, poverty and other social ills, government should flog them to death with taxpayer-supplied dollar bills. We can't have a man like that for governor.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is another group whose myrmidons believe Ehrlich is a man like that. In this case, like that means "extremist," which is precisely what Brady ads that aired on two Washington-area radio stations early this month called Ehrlich.
The only problem with the extremist label is that Ehrlich is a moderate on the issue of gun control. His congressional voting record shows Ehrlich supports trigger locks on guns, background checks and a ban on the import of high-capacity ammunition-feeding devices. Ehrlich -- and the folks at the Brady campaign -- support Project Exile, a program designed to impose harsh mandatory minimum sentences on felons who commit crimes with handguns.
"I support the rights of law-abiding citizens to possess guns for a variety of reasons," Ehrlich said on the House floor in 1999, "not the least of which is self-defense." After elaborating on what he does and does not support, Ehrlich showed that he is more middle-of-the-road, not extremist, on guns. His views, he said, do not "fall neatly under any particular label."
Unless, of course, you happen to support Maryland's Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Then, if you're the Republican candidate, you become fair game for any label Democrats want to hang on you.
For Ellen Sauerbrey in 1998, that label was racist. For Ehrlich in 2002, the label is extremist. Or, according to some black Democrats in Baltimore, you're a man like that and should be shunned by other black Democrats.
Former state Sen. Larry Young, who now hosts a talk show on WOLB in Baltimore, has had Ehrlich on the air to give his views. Young, too, said he received calls "about why I, as a so-called progressive, would entertain Ehrlich coming on the air." Like Fulton, Young didn't name names. But Lord knows somebody should. Marylanders of all races need to know just who these fascists within Baltimore's black political leadership are. Surely, we can't have people like that leading us.