Change Maryland Responds To Gov. Martin O'Malley's Political Attack

Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan appeared on WBAL's "C-4" show this afternoon to discuss the organization's study on tax flight and the Governor's response yesterday.

C-4: The Governor said Change Maryland is a partisan political organization led by a failed Congressional candidate, Ehrlich appointee and would-be candidate for Governor. Is that the preferred way for a Governor to handle something like this?

Larry Hogan: It was a childish lashing out. Once again, Governor O'Malley chose to attack the messenger, rather than address the facts.

We are not going to lower ourselves to his level and resort to name calling. But, it was surprising that he used a state website, using tax payer funds, to make this kind of a petty, personal, partisan attack.

He can call me names if he wants to, but Change Maryland is the largest grassroots organization in the state with 14,000 members and they insulted our members.

These are not our numbers, these are the IRS numbers in our study. CNBC wrote the story, not us. If he wants to lash out, maybe he should lash out at NBC and the IRS.

C-4: This thing is big national news. You have opened up the debate. They are talking about this across the country. They've been able to control the spin, here in Maryland, but they can't control the national media.

Larry Hogan: The Governor has had a bad week on an NBC network. This tax exodus story broke, then CNBC came out with it's annual business climate report, in which Maryland slid again in the rankings. And they also ran our opinion piece yesterday in CNBC. So I think the national media focusing on what is really happening in Maryland just frustrated the Governor because it may effect his presidential aspirations.