Editor’s Note: Welcome to Route 50 East, a new Campus Drive feature rounding up the news of the day from Annapolis as long as the legislature is in session this spring. Expect Route 50 East to be posted each weekday afternoon/evening. Enjoy!

The buzz from Annapolis this week centers around the maybe, maybe-not gubernatorial ambitions of former Prince George’s County Executive Wayne Curry.

From The Washington Post

Curry held a gala event for his birthday, and fellow Democratic O’Malley bugaboos Jack Johnson and Doug Duncan, a former university vice president for administrative affairs who was said to be considering a run for governor himself, were both in attendance. Here’s some video shot by a Baltimore radio host and blogger at the event, via Maryland Politics:

Then, Curry showed up — seemingly for no reason in particular — at a major budget hearing in Annapolis. At both stops, Curry lambasted the state’s leadership, without ever naming O’Malley in particular. Here’s how the Washington Post’s Aaron C. Davis described Curry’s complaints:

There’s unfairness laced into O’Malley’s spending plan, that it takes money from Prince George’s County and other poor areas and deposits it in rich areas, Montgomery County chief among them. Echoing Republican criticism, Curry also said the governor’s plan fails to seriously deal with the state’s long-term budget imbalance.

“Both speak of indifference of leadership,” he said without uttering O’Malley’s name.

More analysis after the jump.

O’Malley already has two announced challengers: Democrat George Owings, a conservative former state delegate who was the state’s Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs under O’Malley’s predecessor, Republican Robert Ehrlich; and Republican Larry Hogan, who was Ehrlich’s appointments secretary. But neither is consider a serious threat. Ehrlich would be if he ran, but that is still up in the air. Curry, Josh Kurtz writes for Center Maryland, would be a formidable candidate:

Curry is perhaps the most gifted natural politician in Maryland — sharp, funny, charismatic, spontaneous, a strategic thinker, and tough when he needs to be … Some people looked at the array of leaders and concluded, if Curry can attract a former mayor of Baltimore like Schmoke and the former executives of Montgomery and Anne Arundel like Duncan and Owens and former and current Members of Congress like Wynn and Donna Edwards and Elijah Cummings, then O’Malley clearly has something to worry about, because his base is fractured — or at least willing to flirt with a potent potential challenger.

But Kurtz notes that Curry has flirted with state-wide runs before, and concludes it’s difficult to predict what Curry will do. Len Lazarick echoes that stance at Maryland Reporter:

So is he going to run for governor, run on a ticket with former MoCo exec Doug Duncan or Bob Ehrlich? Or just drumming up business for himself and the Murphy law firm?

I have no idea what Wayne Curry is going to do, and maybe he doesn’t either. But I know what he was clearly doing in Annapolis Monday — glad-handing politicos, chatting up reporters, getting his digs in at the incumbent governor, generally stirring the pot and trying to drive the O’Malley camp crazy.

Wayne Curry was having FUN.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 8:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.