"Leopold Endorses Gilchrest"

I guess it was only a matter of time. The Examiner was the only newspaper on my stoop this morning, so I picked it up. The blurb was a sidebar to the main story about Gilchrest jumping on the anti-amnesty bandwagon that his primary and general election opponents had been riding for some time now.

The blurb didn't mention the occasion of Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold's endorsement but what do you want for a blurb? This link is to a PDF of the Examiner page on which the News brief is found.

The Examiner's Len Lazarick says:

I asked him [Leopold] about Gilchrest at a tour of Fort Meade on Friday [5-25]. I noted Republican senators and delegates who were endorsing Andy Harris over Gilchrest, and asked Leopold about his position. “I’m supporting Gilchrest” he began by saying, and then pretty much volunteered the rest.

It was an interesting endorsement, however. Leopold basically said it was payback for Gilchrest's endorsement of his own recent bit of political opportunism. When they are not scratching each others' backs:

"We share the same passion for the environment," said Leopold...

That John Leopold is in bed with Gilchrest should be the final nail in Gilchrest's political coffin. Leopold has consolidated his hold on Anne Arundel County GOP politics after engineering a sweeping coup of the County GOP central committee which, when it takes a break from defending Gilchrest, is busy attacking the conservatives who, unexpectedly I guess, ascended to the State Party leadership.