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Governor Craig? Maybe it's no longer out of the question

Let me start out by saying that although I've known him for some 36 years and consider him to be one of the whip-smartest people in my sphere of acquaintances, I never considered David Craig gubernatorial material.

That was until last week, when I watched the current governor,Martin O'Malley, thumb his nose at the citizens of Maryland and propose adding a 6 percent gasoline tax on top of the 23-cent gallon tax us hard-working folks in the Free State fork over every time we stop at the pump.

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O'Malley instantly provided Craig, perceived as the only Republican foolish to battle the usual Democratic tsunami in 2014, with an election issue to seize and ram right back down the majority party's collective throats. People are angry about the O'Malley plan, and whatever the outcome, that anger is going to stay with them right to election day in 2014.

Heck, this could be Bob Ehrlich and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend all over again.

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Were Craig to get out in front and offer a plausible alternative (and they do exist), he might actually make it impossible for the editors of the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post to write him off, as they have so far.

Craig needs to work fast. One Democratic gubernatorial aspirant Comptroller Peter Franchot already has tried to lay claim to being the anti-gas sales tax candidate. Fortunately for Craig, Franchot, Attorney General Doug Gansler and Howard County Executive Ken Ulman are all Democrats whose protests will ring hollow when they try to disavow a fellow Democrat's duplicity.

With the right message from a Republican like Craig, I'm betting the usual fear mongering about dire consequences, if we don't raise taxes and spend billions on mass transit and other nonessential government activities, will no longer play to a majority of Maryland voters.

O'Malley's gas tax plan is a pure case of an out-of-touch, lame duck politician -----ing on the people who elected him and thinking he can get away with it. Who wouldn't relish the opportunity to tar every other Democrat who wants to be governor with the same brush?

Granted, Craig doesn't possess the preppy Ivy League look and glib tongue of a Bob Ehrlich. But Craig knows government at the local and state level as well as Ehrlich did before he became governor, and Craig actually has run something, which Ehrlich couldn't claim when he ran in 2002 (nor could his opponent). And, though the budgets of most other counties and the state have been reeling, Harford County's budget has been running up surpluses because Craig has refused to fork over money he didn't have to the school system, which would have required major tax increases to sustain.

There's no doubt Craig is handicapped by his minority party affiliation, and he hasn't been able to raise anywhere near serious money to run for governor. Many of the state's political moneymen saw Ehrlich's potential from the get-go in 2002 and jumped aboard. (Many of the same people jumped off when they figured O'Malley was the boy in 2006.) Craig hasn't generated that kind of buzz yet, and maybe he won't, because it's hard to spread your message without the green.

But with all that seems to be against him, Craig has been handed an issue upon which to run that should resonate with every voter, one he is certainly capable of exploiting it he can get the word out that he's the candidate of sound finances and of no new or higher taxes.

A generation or so ago, Harry Hughes came out of nowhere and rode the corruption issue right into the governor's mansion. Folks, corruption Maryland style was small potatoes compared to the reaming your wallets and pocketbooks will take should O'Malley's gas tax increase ever see the light of day.

Whom can you trust to protect your hard-earned money? Franchot? Gansler? Ulman? Craig? That's what the 2014 governor's race will come down to and, thanks to Martin O'Malley's arrogance, David Craig's name has become part of the discussion.

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