Commentary: On Second Thought - And they're off

Go ahead, cancel Preakness.

Sure, it's the biggest and best day in Maryland sports. Yes, it attracts thousands of visitors and millions of their dollars to the state. Granted, it provides Maryland with some very flattering and otherwise prohibitively expensive national and international exposure. And, ahem, it gives young and lascivious adventurers the forum to join the Infield Club (it's the equivalent of the Mile High Club for Preakness fans located on the track's infield; no, I'm not making this up).

Nevertheless, let's call the whole thing off. What's the point?

To begin with, we've lost our raison d'boo. For those of you cultured types familiar with the French expression raison d'��tre but unfamiliar with raison d'boo, it loosely translates to reason to boo your fool head off. The etymology is complicated. Suffice it to say that it's of French-Baltimorese origin, Mademoiselle Hon.

Anyway, we Orioles fans, bitterly accustomed to being trounced by the New York Yankees and the team's turtlenecked owner, George Steinbrenner, were looking forward to booing the Boss' horse, Bellamy Road. But the horse suffered a leg injury and was pulled from the Preakness. C'est la vie, I guess.

The consolation is that a major underdog beat Steinbrenner's horse in the Kentucky Derby, and we are, when you get right down to it, the City of Underdogs. That's got a nice a ring to it. Why not spin our collective inferiority into a positive? The City of Underdogs. Why wasn't I consulted before Baltimore festooned its benches with The Greatest City in America?

Of course, there's one rather significant problem with underdogs. After they win your heart with a gritty, improbable victory, they invariably rip out your heart by losing shortly thereafter. Can we really endure that?

So we've got no whipping Boss and no legitimate shot at vicarious redemption through the underdog. And I don't know about you, but I stand no chance of joining the Infield Club. Even if I could consume enough Natty Boh to inspire the necessary immodesty, I don't think my back would hold out. Now that would be embarrassing.

To make bad matters worse, the Preakness isn't - as it usually is - the first big horserace in Maryland this year. In fact, it's not even the second.

Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Martin O'Malley have been thundering around the track in the Gubernatorial Stakes for months now. Meanwhile, Kweisi Mfume, Benjamin L. Cardin and Michael S. Steele are jockeying for the coveted Sarbanes Cup, named after Maryland's outgoing senior U.S. senator, Paul S. Sarbanes.

Since we don't have Preakness, we may as well all pull up a few thousand lawn chairs, a few dozen hibachis and heavens knows how many cases of beer and watch the Gubernatorial and Sarbanes. Although both races are long and have just begun, there already have been some exciting developments.

In the Gubernatorial Stakes, the defending champion Robert Ehrlich took the highly unusual step of revealing his entire strategy right out of the starting gate.

In political horse races, candidates generally identify a few paths (issues) they think will lead them past their opponents and to victory. Their opponents usually counter each sprint by responding to the issue taken.

For example, you'll remember that Walter Mondale made an issue of Ronald Reagan's age during the 1984 presidential election. Reagan countered, flipping the age question upside down: I want you to know that - I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience, he said during one of their debates.

So when O'Malley made an issue recently of the state's juvenile justice system, we expected Ehrlich to counter with something about the juvenile justice system. But he didn't. He countered with criticism of O'Malley's record on crime and the homicide rate.

It was a fascinating maneuver. Unfortunately, we're going to see it over and over again for the next 18 months, no matter what issue or path O'Malley chooses. He'll only stop saying it if it stops working, which is where all of the race's drama hangs.

In the Sarbanes Cup, Mfume got out of the gate first. With an extraordinary career line (former congressman, former head of the NAACP, former television show host), it looked as if Mfume might just win it going away. But then he was slowed by muddy conditions, as accusations made it into the press that he gave preferential treatment to some while leading the nation's oldest civil rights group.

I'm no oddsmaker, but I think Mfume will emerge and the things to watch for are whether Cardin, the quintessential plodder, can catch Mfume and whether Steele decides to run.

Perhaps Magna Entertainment, the owner of Pimlico Race Course, should consider taking bets on the Gubernatorial Stakes and the Sarbanes Cup. Not only could the company make money after losing $4.1 million during the first three months of this year. Its leadership might like to see others lose on political bets, having lost several themselves in the push for slot machines.

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