Anyone still in doubt about former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s political aspirations should look no further than his campaign accounts.

He's now a private citizen with a radio talk show and a day job at a law firm, but in 2007, Ehrlich's campaign account logged more than $114,000 in contributions. Nearly all of it came in donations of $1,000 or less, the result of letters he sent to supporters asking for money.

"I'm just keeping hope alive," Ehrlich said this month as he celebrated the primary victory of state Sen. Andy Harris' congressional campaign. He said he still has a role to play in Maryland political life, because people affected by tax increases passed by the General Assembly in November were "demoralized."

"The only hopes Bob Ehrlich is trying to keep alive are his own," said David Paulson, spokesman for the Maryland Democratic Party, who noted that the state GOP has fallen short of its fundraising goals in recent months. "If he cared a great deal about the Republican Party, he might contribute some of that money to them. "

Ehrlich isn't coming close to the fundraising of the man who defeated him - Gov. Martin O'Malley collected more than $2.2 million in campaign checks last year - but it was enough for him to keep up contact with his supporters through direct mail and to keep at least a skeleton of his campaign apparatus intact. He spent nearly $400,000 and has a remaining cash balance of about $120,000, compared with O'Malley, who has nearly $1.2 million in the bank.

A spokesman for the governor declined to comment.

To keep his campaign account going, Ehrlich has relied on the good will of supporters like George Rew, a retired Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. dispatcher who lives in Parkton. When Rew, 65, received a letter from Ehrlich in April asking for money so he could keep his campaign office open and continue his involvement in politics, Rew and his wife gave $150 each.

"When I opened the letter, my impression was that he wasn't really done with the political world, he may be running again, and it doesn't hurt to have a little war chest on the side," Rew said. "I just believe in supporting the people who impress me in office, and he did not disappoint me."

Herb Smith, a political science professor at McDaniel College, said Ehrlich might be disproving the famous line attributed to novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said, "There are no second acts in American lives."

"He's on the comeback trail; it's pretty obvious," Smith said of Ehrlich. "He certainly has demonstrated a resiliency."

A statewide poll conducted for The Sun from Jan. 6 to 9 proved a mixed bag for Ehrlich. While nearly 58 percent of voters viewed him favorably compared with 28 percent unfavorably, only a third said they believed the state got better on his watch.

"Right now, Bob Ehrlich is benefiting from the contrast with Governor O'Malley, who bit off an unpopular policy challenge" when he led efforts to fix a long-standing budget imbalance, in part by raising taxes by $1.3 billion in November's special legislative session, said Steven R. Raabe, president of OpinionWorks, the polling firm that conducted the survey.

"But [the poll results] were not exactly a strong endorsement of his time in office," Raabe said. "I suspect his posture is to keep all his options open at this point, and why shouldn't he?"

Ehrlich was flying high this month after a pair of appearances with Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. He also basked in Harris' victory in a three-way race that unseated Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest. Ehrlich endorsed Harris in the primary for Maryland's 1st Congressional District and appeared in a commercial for the campaign.

In a brief interview at Harris' jubilant victory party, Ehrlich said he believed his efforts were working, giving several examples of what he described as backtracking by the General Assembly. He pointed to the abandoned effort of O'Malley and legislative leaders to oust state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick - an Ehrlich ally - as one example of how Democratic Party leaders are "scared."

"That's the reason you see them pulling back now," he said. "This may be the most Democratic state in the country, but it's not the most liberal state in the country by any means."

bradley.olson@baltsun.com