Stuff the Comptroller Says

Want to know what Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot really thinks about a subject, all you have to do is wait for him to finish the prepared remarks.

Who can forget Franchot appearing on WBAL Radio the day after the 2012 General Assembly session and calling for Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller to step down or his 2010 visit to the Central Baltimore County Democratic Club and his telling them that Democrats didn't have to spend "every bent dime" the state collected.

The Takoma Park Democrat's frequent off-the-cuff remarks lead one to wonder if he's attempting to channel the spirit of his predecessor, William Donald Schaefer—who also had no problem saying what he thought.

It's in that vein, and that of Justin Halper's Twitter feed about the things his dad says, that I offer you "Stuff the Comptroller says."

On the future popularity of his proposed real-time campaign finance database (watch him use that English Degree from Amherst College):

• "It will be the cognoscenti at first but I think it will be a broader audience down the road that want their representitives to not engage in the kind of broad-daylight brazen robbery that that three-day special session represented." 

On the General Assembly special session last month:

• "All of them responded to some dog whistle to come back to Annapolis and do the bidding of the gaming industry. It can't be described as anything in the public interest."

On why he's not running for governor:

• "Despite everybody kind of pulling at my sleeve saying 'would you take that fiscal message and run.' it's something I'm going to be very cautious about. I'm just speaking frankly. I've got a lot on my plate, frankly. I need the job like a hole in the head."

But then again...

• But times are tough and my party has not responded in an objective way to the fiscal danger that our state and the country are in...So, chances are I'll probably be dragged into it."

On real-time campaign finance reporting:

• "It's a disinfectant for the bacteria being injected into the political bloodstream."

On why gambling is bad for Baltimore City and who's to blame:

"They're going to put [a casino] by the football stadium with the kind of economic crisis that exists in that city, the kind of fiscal crisis. To bring in a gambling casino is just about the height of cynicism and I say to my own party 'guys, we can't blame the Republicans for that.'"