The Vail Spot via Instapundit

I’ve just heard from an impeccable source that Barbara Mikulski, the Democratic Senator who is up for reelection this November, will choose to retire. Mrs. Mikulski is expected to make her formal announcement in the next few days.

Mrs. Mikulski seriously fractured her right ankle last fall just prior to Edward M. Kennedy’s death. Due to the severity of the fracture, she had to have open reduction surgery, that included the insertion of pins, as well as the use of special surgical boots, during recovery. She had tried to arrive in time for Mr. Kennedy’s funeral but was turned away.

Her recovery has been exceptionally slow and she is evidently still in a great deal of pain. Reportedly, she has told her physician that she does not desire to seek reelection. Additionally, friends and family have been saying in the near future she will announce her retirement. Because of the very slow recovery, she has been forced to use a wheelchair, a walker or a cane in order to get around.

If Mikulski does retire, then who would run for her job on both sides? Does Ehrlich jump in the Senate race and leave the race for Governor on the GOP side wide open again?

UPDATE: We are also hearing that Senator Barbara Mikulski’s campaign has done polling in the past week or two.

UPDATE 2
Chris Cilizza on Twitter

Rumors that Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) is retiring are NOT TRUE, according to informed D source.

Update 3
Mike Memoli tweets that he has 2 sources saying it’s not true.

Other blogging:
Hot Air
Red Maryland
Baltimore Republican Examiner
NRO

Maryland Politics Watch reports that Craig Zucker will be reporting over $50,000 on hand in his campaign for the House of Delegates in District 14.

If you’re running for office in Maryland this year, you can do a couple of things to promote your campaign and its events online.

First, add the #mdtweets hashtag to your Twitter postings (“tweets”) on campaign events and news. Anyone with government and political news or events to promote can do the same. Others with events to promote are encouraged to use it as well. We will have some other news on the #mdtweets front in the near future.

Secondly, send your press releases for your campaign and its events to mail@insidecharmcity.com and we will run your unedited press release, or, if you have a site or blog with the news or event on it, we will link to it and post excerpts.

There was a blog post at Maryland Politics last week on the possibility that former Prince George’s County Executive Wayne Curry might be running against Martin O’Malley in the Democratic primary for Governor this year. Attendees at a scheduled birthday tribute including former Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder. About the time this blog post ran, the Baltimore media was fixated on the potential run of George Owings in the primary while the Democrats scurried to tie him to Bob Ehrlich.

I went looking for this blog post this morning. A link and blurb for it appear in the 2010 elections category view on their site but then when you click the link you get a totally blank page. I also googled for Wayne Curry Douglas Wilder and for Wayne Curry tribute and got a result for that blog post. Clicking on the Google search result link also produces a blank page. I tried it in both Firefox and Chrome and got the same results both places. Other stories in the 2010 categories or in old posts on that blog still work.

It just seems odd that this post appears to be the only on the Maryland Politics blog at the Washington Post site. I’m not stating an opinion on why it could be missing. I would hope that it is solely a technical glitch, but I’m sure there will be conspiracy theories among others about what might have happened.

Governor Martin O’Malley’s campaign manager made an attempt to tie former Governor Robert Ehrlich to birthers in a recent fundraising letter.

From WaPo’s Maryland Politics:

As former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) continues to mull whether to get back in the ring, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) has started taking some swings.

The latest came in a fundraising solicitation Thursday in which O’Malley seeks to tie Ehrlich to the “fringe right-wing base” of the Republican party — a difficult spot from which to win elections in a state where Democrats enjoy a 2-to-1 advantage in party registration.

The text of the full letter from Tom Russell is below the fold.
(Continue reading…)