As Governor Steers Maryland to the Left, Talk Turns to 2016

But the opponents had no chance, as allies of the governor passed sweeping gun restrictions, the final victory in a series of triumphs that capped one of the most successful 2013 legislative seasons of any governor in the country.

Besides gun control legislation, Mr. O’Malley coaxed a liberal wish list from the General Assembly session that ended Monday: repeal of the death penalty, a $1.7 billion subsidy for offshore wind turbines and a bump in the gasoline tax to pay for mass transit and roads.

Republicans fumed that Mr. O’Malley had steered well to the left of Maryland residents’ concerns, and denounced his agenda as a punch list for a 2016 Democratic presidential primary campaign. Mr. O’Malley — largely unknown outside Maryland, though he is mentioned in presidential speculations alongside Govs. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado — said the bills were smart policy and in step with state residents.

“I don’t think the relevant question for Maryland families is whether we’re moving left or right; it’s whether we’re moving forward or back,” he said in an interview. To voters under 35, who represent a generational shift in American politics, especially on social issues, “these are pretty mainstream things,” he added.

In a relaxed mood a few days before the adjournment of the General Assembly, Mr. O’Malley, 50, offered a tour of the fine art in his office. He pointed out a Rembrandt Peale portrait of George Washington, whose distant eyes are the most arresting feature.

“They have the look of a man who knows how the conversation is going to end before it begins,” Mr. O’Malley said.

It was a comment that could apply as well to Mr. O’Malley, who is in his next-to-last year as a governor facing term limits. That he is looking ahead to a presidential campaign “is the worst-kept secret in Annapolis,” said Anthony J. O’Donnell, the Republican minority leader in the House of Delegates. Mr. O’Donnell added that the governor was “planting his flag as far to the left as possible” with left-leaning Democratic primary voters in mind.

Mr. O’Malley would not confirm any such thing. He said he was flattered that people noticed “the tough things we’ve accomplished here.”

“I haven’t put a whole lot of brain power or effort or time into 2016,” he said.

His successes come on top of others a year ago, when lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled legislature approved same-sex marriage and in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants. After opponents forced both measures onto the state ballot in November, Mr. O’Malley campaigned hard for them, and voters upheld the changes — victories that provided political capital that allowed the governor to pass his even more ambitious agenda this year.

But with lawmakers in Annapolis increasingly on the ideological wings of each party, it is an open question whether Mr. O’Malley has left Maryland residents behind. Protests against his gun restrictions, including an assault weapons ban and fingerprinting for handgun buyers, were the largest and most inflamed in memory. In a Washington Post poll last month, a plurality of Maryland residents, 48 percent to 41 percent, said the state was on the wrong track.

A former mayor of Baltimore, who despised the city’s dark portrayal in the television show “The Wire,” Mr. O’Malley is not a traditional liberal. His arguments to abolish the death penalty were practical, not moralizing, in keeping with his reputation for shaping policy by analyzing data. He argued that capital punishment failed as a deterrent and did not reduce violent crime.

Similarly, his defense of same-sex marriage and tuition breaks for illegal immigrants is an economic argument, aimed at attracting the well-educated and socially tolerant “creative class” to Maryland. “We believe that openness and inclusiveness are good for creating jobs and expanding opportunities,” he said.

Mr. O’Malley has succeeded with a fiscal policy balanced between tax increases and spending cuts, of the sort President Obama has sought with less success in talks with Congressional Republicans. He has nearly wiped out a $1.7 billion structural deficit he inherited in the Maryland budget, partly by slowing the rise of spending. He won re-election in 2010 in part by pointing out that spending went up less in his administration than under the previous governor, a Republican.

But Republicans denounce his tax increases, including on individual incomes above $100,000 — a definition of “high earner” that is lower than the $250,000 threshold Mr. Obama campaigned on during his re-election race. Critics say Maryland has chased entrepreneurs to lower-taxed Virginia.

“Since 2007, we’ve lost 40,000 jobs in this state; we’ve lost 6,500 small businesses who have closed their doors to move across the border,” said Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, the Republican minority whip in the legislature’s lower house.

Mr. O’Malley has been called a rising star in the Democratic Party since he rode on the back of garbage trucks as mayor. But he has picked his battles with care. He decided not to challenge Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in the Democratic primary for governor in 2002. When she lost the general election, Mr. O’Malley had a clean shot at Annapolis four years later.

He went on to lead the Democratic Governors Association, raising his national profile as a happy partisan warrior who attacked “the dinosaur wing of the Republican Party.”

Strategists who have worked with him do not believe he will seek the presidency in 2016 if Hillary Rodham Clinton commits to the race. The governor is close to Mrs. Clinton, whom he supported in her unsuccessful 2008 primary campaign. A generation younger, he will presumably have many options when his term ends in 2014, including a run for the Senate or a cabinet position in a future Democratic administration.

Mr. O’Malley pointed out that he had begun campaigning to overturn the state’s death penalty in 2007, his first year in office, long before Republicans in the General Assembly accused him of checking boxes for a presidential race.

“These guys would be sorely pressed to say that that was some sort of appeal to the base in Keokuk, Iowa, or Manchester, N.H.,” he said.

He turned to an aide, Teddy Davis, his director of strategic communications. “They still have the death penalty in New Hampshire, don’t they?”

Mr. Davis said they did. “They had passed a repeal bill about 10 years ago. Governor Shaheen had vetoed it,” he said, referring to Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who is now one of the state’s senators.

And how did an aide to Maryland’s governor know policy details in New Hampshire, which holds the first presidential primary?

“Just learned my New Hampshire stuff,” said Mr. Davis, whom the governor recently hired to help with the next phase of his career.

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Primary Challenge to Rangel Turns Into a War of Endorsements

The incumbent, Representative Charles B. Rangel, and his most prominent primary opponent, State Senator Adriano Espaillat, have been engaged in a duel of endorsements in recent weeks, inviting reporters to City Hall, Harlem and the Bronx to hear their newest pledges of support.

Endorsements, analysts say, do not make much difference to voters, but the frequency of the announcements points to the peculiar dynamic in this race. Mr. Rangel, 81, who has been in Congress since 1971, is trying to signal to donors, the news media and the city’s political class that despite health issues and ethics concerns he is still going strong; Mr. Espaillat, in turn, is trying to show that Mr. Rangel has lost influential support.

“For Adriano, his endorsements are meant to show that he is getting traction, he’s building momentum, and that he himself is able to snatch away support from Charlie,” said Basil A. Smikle Jr., a political consultant who is not working for either candidate.

“For Charlie, it’s more of, ‘I still have support in this community, and the institutions that have been around, that people know, still support me.”

The endorsements also serve to remind the news media and voters that this year’s primary for federal offices is unusually early in New York: June 26. Mr. Rangel and Mr. Espaillat are both Democrats, and they will face each other in the primary, along with several other candidates. The district, which runs from Harlem to the northwest Bronx, is overwhelmingly Democratic, so the winner of the primary is expected to go on to win the general election in November.

John Gutierrez, an instructor in Latin American and Latino studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, described the endorsements as mostly “inside baseball” that would have little effect, unless they came with significant money and organizational support.

But he suggested that, for Mr. Rangel, the stream of announcements might serve as a substitute for more laborious campaigning that, because of his age and serious back problems, is more challenging this year.

“He’s not going to be at train stations, he’s not going to be visiting senior centers, he’s not going to be doing all of the retail politics that Adriano is, frankly, very, very good at,” Mr. Gutierrez said, adding, “Maybe for Charlie the endorsements sort of serve as an ‘in lieu of’ for campaigning.”

Mr. Espaillat has gathered the endorsements of, among others, two former Bronx borough presidents, Fernando Ferrer and Adolfo Carrion, Jr.; Councilman G. Oliver Koppell of the Bronx; a former congressman, Herman Badillo; and a state senator, Gustavo Rivera of the Bronx. Mr. Rangel has been endorsed by the current Bronx borough president, Ruben Diaz, Jr.; a Bronx congressman, Jose E. Serrano; and several members of the State Senate, the Assembly and the New York City Council. On Wednesday, Mr. Rangel was endorsed by Adam Clayton Powell IV — an endorsement rich with symbolism, because Mr. Rangel had unseated Mr. Powell’s father, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., in 1970, and the younger Mr. Powell had himself run against Mr. Rangel twice. On Friday, Mr. Rangel is expected to be endorsed by Assemblyman Guillermo Linares of Manhattan, whose support is significant because he, like Mr. Espaillat, is Dominican-American. Conspicuously, some prominent officials who have endorsed Mr. Rangel in the past appear to be sitting this year’s race out. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who taped campaign messages for Mr. Rangel two years ago, said recently that he had not yet made up his mind whether to get involved. And the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, when asked whether President Obama supported Representative Rangel, said “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” He did not.

Asked on Wednesday about the significance of endorsements, Mr. Rangel recalled some of the endorsements that he had received in recent years, including some in 2010, when he was under scrutiny for ethical lapses.

“In recent years, it has been a campaign that’s been endorsed by the mayor, the comptroller, the governors, and outstanding public officials from across the country,” he said.

“The endorsement announcements have highlighted a significant different in resources between the campaigns.

Wherever Mr. Rangel appears, a crowd of supporters materializes to hold signs and chant his name. When he announced the endorsement by Mr. Diaz, two dozen people stood behind him on courthouse steps, holding an arc of red, white and blue balloons. And when he was endorsed by Mr. Serrano, a group of men arrayed behind him on the City Hall steps responded defensively when a blogger asked an unwelcome question about Mr. Rangel’s house in the Dominican Republic.

“Charlie Rangel is the man! Charlie Rangel is the man!” they began chanting, drowning out further questions.

Mr. Espaillat, by contrast, is usually accompanied by only a few aides. A news conference in the Bronx on Monday to announce his endorsement by Councilman Koppell was so sparsely attended that it took place in a restaurant booth.

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