A First Date At MACO?

The headlines generated by Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's speech Saturday to the Maryland Association of Counties were all about transportation funding. But much earlier in his remarks, the governor felt the need to put a rumor to rest.

In her introduction of O'Malley, MACO President Jan H. Gardner, a Frederick County commissioner, suggested that the governor and first lady Catherine Curran O'Malley might have had their first date at a MACO conference years ago.

O'Malley (D) thanked Gardner for giving him a chance to relive "my courtship days" but then set the record straight.

"It could be said that our very first date happened here in Ocean City, at a MACO conference," O'Malley told the gathering of several hundred county officials. "It could be said, but that would be a lie. ... I considered it more of a date than she did. She considered it one of those annoyances when I would try to chat her up."

O'Malley explained that the two crossed paths regularly in 1986, when he was working as the field director for Barbara Mikulski's U.S. Senate campaign and Katie Curran would often accompany her father, J. Joseph Curran Jr., to political events.

O'Malley said that he always looked forward to seeing Curran, who was then running for attorney general for the first time, at Democratic dinners and other events.

"Usually at his side was his stunning and intelligent, dynamic and very attractive daughter, Katie," O'Malley said, later adding: "I'm looking forward to reaching that milestone, it should come in a few years, when we will have been together for as long a period of time as I pursued her."