Tom LoBianco, Maryland politics reporter

(Adds Richard Vatz reply below … TL)
I’ll forgo the resurrection analogies for this edition of the blogger roundup and jump straight to it: Bob Ehrlich is going to announce his run for governor Wednesday and that’s going to be the buzz for a long time. (You can debate whether that’s a good thing for his campaign as it detracts from the legislative session and the state budget, which are key debating points for anyone running for governor.)

Over at Red Maryland, Towson University Professor Richard Vatz, a longtime Ehrlich ally, is surprisingly pleased with The Sun’s coverage of Ehrlich thus far. (Full story here.) For anyone unfamiliar, the Sun and the Ehrlich Administration got in some pretty nasty battles during Ehrlich’s four years as governor. Most of it surrounded Ehrlich’s ban on any executive branch workers talking to Sun writers David Nitkin and Michael Olesker, reaching a head in late 2004 to early 2005.

Here‘s an excellent write-up from the Sun’s former ombudsman/reader’s advocate Paul Moore. (For full disclosure, I recently submitted my resume to The Sun. I’ve also been to a handful of Vatz’s bi-annual classes where Bob Ehrlich comes to talk political rhetoric.)

I’m not going into the old battles here because they’ve been pretty thoroughly explored by others more familiar with them than myself. I will offer one critique of this media critique, which is that Vatz has a horse in this race: Ehrlich. Whatever he says — just like whatever former JHU prof Matthew Crenson, an active Democrat, says — needs to be viewed in that context.

I e-mailed Vatz to ask why he’s being friendly to The Sun and will update this post when I hear back. So here’s what Vatz wrote back:

“Honestly, I do not write with ulterior motives… I wrote an earlier piece criticizing the Sun editorial page and an earlier article by another writer as well, but this Bykowicz has really impressed me with her journalism as the campaign starts – especially when contrasted with 2006. Who knows if it will last.”

I was going to link a fairly amusing post by former Ehrlich hack Joe Steffen here, but I have yet to independently verify his information so I’ll wait until later. (This is part of the problem in any sphere, blogos or otherwise. Information can be hard to independently verify, that’s part of the reason why people pay reporters to ferret information. Good info is valuable info.)

So check back a little later today, and I hope to have some (confirmed) news for you.

Former Republican Mayor of Westminster, Kevin Dayhoff, links Doug Tallman’s analysis of what Ehrlich would have to do to win, here.

I’m re-linking the link largely because of this one comment from Dayhoff:

I have always liked Doug Tallman’s work – and I especially like when a writer does his homework and gives me the numbers.

Among other things, as we get into the campaign season, it’s good to remember that we do have certain things bordering on objective benchmarks (to counter the inflated partisan hits) and we reporters do best when we lay out solid information. Doug hits the “if past is prelude” nail on the head in the piece with solid analysis of voter registration. (And another disclosure, I used to work for Doug, and I like his work, too.)

(This is almost completely-ridiculous, but I suppose we should leave that for when I blow the Friday Blogger Roundup deadline by a full week next time. Then it will be the (Meta) Friday Blogger Roundup. – TL)

Here’s a wrap of what the State House press corps has been blogging about recently. I’ve tended toward the state’s partisan bloggers in the last two roundups, so the full-time scribblers get their shot here.

Patuxent politics editor Bryan Sears has Baltimore County covered like no one else. Sears’s latest pull is an interview with potential county council candidate Mike Gimbel.

This is a great example of musical chairs shaking the political structure from the top down. With Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith term-limited out of office, a number of Baltimore County Council members are running for the job. In the process they vacate their seats, and so forth and so on.

As potential candidates go, we might have to wait a little longer to see if former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. will run for office again writes John Wagner at The Washington Post’s Maryland Politics blog. It’s been little secret that Ehrlich is considering challenging Martin O’Malley. It’s been a widespread rumor that he was considering announcing his intentions on March 25. And it’s still a big mystery whether he could beat O’Malley.

I’m equally guilty of playing the If-and-when? game, as it tends to grow into standard small talk around Annapolis. The man will run when he’s going to run, or not.

Sometimes you have to fight for political seats and other times you have them handed to you (more or less.) Such appears to be the case with Sarah Bloom Raskin, whose husband Jamie, is a state senator, writes Paul West at The Baltimore Sun’s Maryland Politics blog. (Anybody ever wonder why the two big dogs in town share the same blog name?)

Frederick News-Post writer Meg Tully takes on a long-standing debate in Annapolis over whether public funding should go to private colleges. And if you scroll down the page at her blog some, you can find this real gem about freshman Delegate Chuck Jenkins fighting Sen. Alex Mooney over a local delegation meeting and whether dogs should be eating with their owners at outdoor establishments.

(So here’s your weekly blogger roundup, early by a day because I’ll be down the ocean tomorrow. -TL)

Brian Griffiths at Red Maryland has a fairly amusing, if somewhat crude, political ad taking a crack at Maryland Democrats for accepting corporate donations while they criticize a Supreme Court ruling which struck down limits on corporate fundraising.

Red Maryland’s Mark Newgent takes a shot at Democratic candidate for House of Delegates Judd Legum for alleging that former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele has played down Bob Ehrlich’s chances of success in November. The potshots are a little thin on both sides here – Newgent points to Steele saying he had no idea that an RNC document left Maryland off a list of possible flips from blue to red, Legum says the document inherently carries the Steele imprimatur.

The whole thing’s a little contrived, but everything is always more contrived than usual during election season. Good barometer for an election year: “Does anyone care?”

Speaking of Legum, he’s going after Delegate Ron George pretty hard for a resolution the lawmaker put in calling global warming a “conspiracy.” There’s nothing surprising here: a liberal challenger going after a conservative incumbent on a hot-button issue. What is pretty amusing is that we get George’s response not on Legum’s blog, but over at Annapolis Capital Punishment. (Although it stands to note that Legum did link the rebuttal from ACP and George.)

I addressed the importance of reporting in last week’s roundup. Among other things, there was a fairly obvious error MoCo blogger Adam Pagnucco could’ve avoided with a simple phone call or e-mail. He still has yet to return my request for comment on that post …

Pagnucco continues his attacks on Prince George’s County Executive Candidate Rushern Baker this week pointing out some anti-labor folks associated with the Baker campaign. (Pagnucco’s day job is as a labor organizer.)

I had a good laugh, and will give due credit to Pagnucco for this post. A Rush Baker spokesman excoriated Pagnucco for publishing allegations of campaign finance violations without checking the facts. Pagnucco fights back, pointing to a Gazette article backing his claims.

Anway, if you want to dig deeper on that one, buy a coffee, click that link, and expect to waste at least a half hour.