As the curtain came down on his gubernatorial years, Larry Hogan bid official farewell the other day in a voice slightly trembly, with his arms fluttering a little awkwardly, each feature a reminder that he is no made-for-TV political performer –- even if he does fall asleep dreaming of a White House run.
His final message was a reminder of the inherent decency that marked his eight years in Annapolis.
He wished the new governor, Wes Moore, good luck and praised the “peaceful transition” of power, guided by “our nation’s principles.”
This was more than empty cliché. Such phrases remind us that Hogan, a lonely figure among Republicans, was not afraid to stand up to the bully Donald Trump.
“The nation is more bitterly divided than ever,” said Hogan in his farewell address. He mentioned “angry false rhetoric,” for which no one needs explanation. He said, “Toxic politics will not restore America.”
He reminded us that, from that “snowy day eight years ago, I warned about petty rhetoric to enflame passions (which) need not influence our state.”
He was a decent man in an indecent time, from which the nation is still trying to find its bearings.
Does he get straight A’s? No, not if you care about life in the city of Baltimore. Hogan reached across party lines, but not necessarily across county lines.
He knows the city’s problems: high crime, linked to drug traffic and broken family life, and growing anxiety about downtown safety; under-performing public schools, which drive families with children out to the suburbs; lack of confidence in the overworked police and the erratically led state’s attorney’s office; the usual city flirtations with financial catastrophe; and a sense that City Hall is being guided by the naïve and the ill-equipped.
This is not news to Hogan. He’s admitted that crime in certain areas of the city – and anyone’s inability to cut into it – remains one of his greatest disappointments as he leaves office.
But his political base was always the D.C. suburbs, and too often Baltimoreans felt their city was an afterthought to this governor and to most state legislators, as well.
But Maryland got lucky with Hogan. In Washington, the Republican Party has gone through a public nervous breakdown over eight years, which seems unabated. But Hogan remained a profoundly civilized man, and unafraid to say when Donald Trump wasn’t.
That’s not a bad thing to build on, if Larry Hogan decides, over the next year or so, that he’s serious about running for President.
Michael Olesker’s latest book, “Boogie: Life on A Merry-Go-Round,” was recently published by Apprentice House. It’s the life story of Baltimore legend Leonard “Boogie” Weinglass, an original “Diner” guy who grew up to create the Merry-Go-Round clothing chain and contribute millions to charity.
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