Think Bigger Maryland. Doug Duncan set to announce bid for Governor.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I was at Duncan's candidacy announcement this morning at his childhood home in Rockville.   He had Rep. Al Wynn introduce him, which is funny, since Wynn introduced the candidate at the last political rally I was at (for John Edwards)....at least he has good taste.  I was hoping Chris Van Hollen would also be there, but Duncan said he had to be in DC at the last minute to fight the Republicans on some gun control bill.  But most other elected officials in Montgomery, and many in PG were also there.

Duncan has a huge family...five children himself, and twelve brothers and sisters.  Two of his brothers look almost exactly like him....I almost went up to speak to one of them before realizing at the last minute it wasn't Doug.

Duncan made it clear he will focus his campaign on education, and will be making his first major policy proposals on that subject next week.  This is clearly designed to be a jab at Martin O'Malley, whose biggest failure in Baltimore is the school system....Montgomery has one of the best public school systems in the US, and Baltimore one of the worst. 

He never mentioned O'Malley, but made some not-so-subtle attack by saying that we have a responsibility to discuss Baltimore's problems and not just gloss over them.   He did mention Ehrlich directly, attacking him mostly for his slots advocacy and PR stunts....coincidentally, attacks he could have leveled at O'Malley.   

Doug obviously knows he's the underdog, and seems to have developed an interesting strategy to close the gap.  He did talk about his achievements in downtown Silver Spring,  which I hope will get more focus in the campaign if the media can get past O'Malley's charisma.