March 18, 2005, 9:37 a.m.
All-American
Gov. Bob Ehrlich kicks tail in Maryland.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece appears in the March 28, 2005, issue of National Review.

Anne Arundel County, Md. — President Bush is at a community college, microphone in hand. This is one of his “real people” events, and the focus is education, plus jobs. Bush is a kind of talk-show host — Oprah for a morning. Onstage with him are the president of the college, a local hospital administrator, the real people (two inspiring students) . . . and “the governor’s here, how ’bout that?”

The governor is Bob Ehrlich, a 47-year-old Republican. He says to Bush, “I want some extra credit for wearing my W tie today.” His pink tie is decorated with the president’s key initial, a souvenir from the ’04 campaign. “Hot item,” Bush says. But “I don’t know about the pink.” Later, he refers to Ehrlich as Bobby. “They call you Bobby?” he checks. “Absolutely, Mr. President,” says Ehrlich. “You can call me anything you want . . .”

The Republican party calls him one of its favorite governors. A former football player, he looks a bit like a Ken doll, and thinks like a scholar of the American Enterprise Institute. He’s also a canny pol. Three years ago, he won unexpectedly in one of the most Democratic states in the Union. And he is remarkably frank about his principles and beliefs.

For example, can you imagine a governor who, on a radio talk show, dismisses multiculturalism as “bunk” and “crap”? You have one in Ehrlich. Repeatedly, he has called the Democratic party on racial dirty-dealing. And he scolds the business community, saying they lack spine, that they won’t support their own interests, that, indeed, they suffer from “Patty Hearst syndrome.” “You identify with your captors,” he told an assembly of businessmen and their lobbyists last year. “We need you to influence votes. We need you to be dangerous.”

The governor’s wife is not shy, either. Kendel Ehrlich is a former public defender and prosecutor who in 2003 addressed a conference on domestic violence. Talking about the effect of popular culture on girls in particular, she quipped that she ought to “shoot” Britney Spears. She apologized for this unfortunate way of expressing herself, but she also won many fans among parents nationwide.

Ehrlich is discussing her, back at home in Annapolis, following the Bush show, when the First Lady comes in, right on cue. She’s holding their year-old son, Joshua, who has an older brother, Drew. The governor tells her, ‘The president said, ‘Two more kids.’” Responds Mrs. Ehrlich, “Clearly he doesn’t know how old I am.” (North of 40.)

The governor — who pronounces his name “Er-lick,” not “Air-lick” — grew up outside Baltimore, in a just-folks community. He would later represent similar communities, in the Maryland house and in Congress. “My congressional district was the definition of Reagan Democrat,” he says. “The Democrats had a 70-30, or 65-35, advantage, and it was as safe a Republican seat as you’re ever going to find, at least for me.” When he ran for governor, he notes, he won in places where, only a generation ago, “people would spit if they heard the word ‘Republican.’”…

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