The gloves came off this week in a long-brewing feud between Gov. Martin O'Malley and Comptroller Peter Franchot this week after the comptroller held a roundtable Tuesday to denounce the governor's proposed increase of taxes on gasoline.
O'Malley, in an interview, told The Sun that "Peter never saw an issue he couldn't be on both sides of." His fellow Democrat, the governor said, is "kind of our version of Mitt Romney."
Romney's political opponents have criticized the Republican presidential candidate for his changes of mind on key issues over the years. O'Malley said Franchot has shown a similar ideological flexibility during his political career, charging that the comptroller had favored gas tax increases during his General Assembly career. Franchot said he opposes a gas tax now because of the weakness of the economy.
"Now he holds himself up as the great crusader against this," O'Malley said. He also mentioned Franchot's acknowledged change of heart on expanded gambling, which he supported before he opposed it.
The comptroller wasn't taking O'Malley's comments lying down.
"I'm sorry to get in the way of the governor's presidential campaign," he said -- -- a reference to speculation that O'Malley is positioning himself for a run at the White House in 2016. "It's hard enough to do they day-to-day work of getting Maryland's fiscal house in order without dropping a national campaign into the middle."
Franchot is regarded as a likely candidate for governor in 2014, when O'Malley can't run again. In recent months, the comptroller has been aggressively distancing himself from O'Malley on matters large and small, including state contracts that come before both of them at the Board of Public Works. Up to now, the two have generally managed to keep their disagreements from getting openly personal.
"The Democratic Party is big enough for people to disagree on issues without name-calling," Franchot said.
If Franchot is the Romney of Maryland politics, O'Malley was asked, who is the Rick Santorum? The governor nominated Anne Arundel County Del. Donald Dwyer, the General Assembly's most outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage. To a Republican, that could come as a compliment.