Baltimore has a very interesting election calendar.  In 2008 we have the presidential election, in 2010 we have elections that determine statewide offices (Governor, Delegates, State Senators...), and in 2011 we have citywide elections for local offices (Mayor, City Council, Comptroller...).  It costs a lot of money to hold each election.  It would save a lot of money if instead of having citywide and statewide elections in separate years, we had them in the same year.  This would also prevent statewide office holders from running for citywide office (and vice versa) with no fear of losing their current office.  In Maryland you can not run for two positions at the same time so current officeholders would have to give up their current position in order to run for another one no matter what level of government they were currently a part of.

It would even make more sense for Baltimore to do away with primary elections for citywide offices.  The Democratic Primary is all that counts in Baltimore for those seeking local political offices.  Independents and other parties have no say in who wins that primary. In a sense independents are disenfranchised.  The primary winner goes on to to the general election and crushes the competition.  The media and the etablishment political machine play a huge role in making the general election an afterthought.  In theory the 2nd place candidate in the primary may have been heavily favored by independents who will never get a chance to vote for him or her.  In order to save money and give a say to voters besides democrats I say we get rid of the Baltimore primaries and make everyone run in the general election. It will be one less election to pay for. Now if the Democratic and Republican Parties want to pay for their own primaries then more power to them.