Walking the Plank

The O'Malley campaign threw Campaign Manager Jonathan Epstein overboard last night, in what is an interesting move.

Then there is this quote:

"We're doing this from a position of strength, not a position of weakness," O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said last night.

Which means that it was, in fact, done from a position of weakness. You don't fire the Coach when the team is going to the playoffs.

Of course, the O'Malley campaign is much weaker than it was six weeks ago. Team O'Malley is not taking on water, but they are not nearly the juggernaut that they were. Doug Duncan has received the endorsement of Progressive Maryland, and came pretty close to winning the endorsement of the Teacher's Union. His campaign has been battering O'Malley with TV ads for a few weeks now.

David Wissing notes:

Very curious and makes you wonder if there is some panic inside of the O’Malley campaign over what seems to be Duncan gaining some traction against O’Malley in the latest news cycles. It does make you wonder if there was an internal poll showing O’Malley sinking against Duncan that prompted this change or if this has anything to do with Doug Duncan getting a majority vote among the Maryland Teacher’s Union over the weekend.

Very intriguing, since it was only a few weeks ago that rumors swirled that Scott Arceneaux, Duncan's campaign manager, would be ousted.