Morning Read: Party Crasher, Gov. O'Malley Edition

Is that Tareq Salahi? Nope, just Gov. Martin O’Malley crashing the RNC party. The governor—who is also head of the Democratic Governors Association—made a surprise trip to Tampa Tuesday, filled with lots of GOP-hating sound bites.

At a press conference Tuesday just outside the convention’s security perimeter,  O'Malley slammed Romney’s economic plan and record at Bain, according to the Maryland Reporter.

“Romney economics would spell disaster for America’s middle class,” he said. “Gov. Romney does not have what it takes to grow this economy. The lessons he learned as a corporate buyout specialist were not lessons that should be applied to a national economy.”

O’Malley’s next target: Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey.

“Tonight you’re going to see Chris Christie, a governor who has the fourth worst unemployment rate in the country, giving his angry, Don Rickles keynote,” he said, “extolling the virtues of their candidate, Mitt Romney, and holding up as their new face, Congressman Ryan, part of the most unpopular House of Representatives in modern times.”

The Republicans fought back, and had some choice words for the Democrat, even taking a dig at his Celtic Rock band, “O’Malley’s March.”

VIA Washington Examiner:

“It’s stooping pretty low for an Obama surrogate to infiltrate the Republican National Convention to cast aspersions on Gov. Mitt Romney, our party’s nominee for the presidency,” said Maryland House Minority Leader Tony O’Donnell.

“Gov. O’Malley should stick to playing the guitar as he plans to do next week at the Democratic National Convention, rather than come to Tampa to crash our Republican Party,” said Maryland Senate Minority Leader E.J. Pipkin.

IN OTHER NEWS:

* Obama will be in Virginia once again today, this time making a campaign stop at UVA.

* Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli makes a pretty reasonable suggestion to PBS.

* Columnist Jeff Schapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch writes that ticket-splitting is a dying Virginia tradition.

* D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray proposed changes to the District’s campaign finance rules to help increase “accountability and transparency” in city politics.

* Gov. McDonnell’s daughter, who served in Iraq as an Army platoon leader, will address the RNC crowd Wednesday.

* McDonnell plays it safe and rallies Republicans in his RNC speech

* The Wilson Building gets a lactation room!

* The D.C. Board of Elections defends its decision to toss an initiative to ban corporate campaign contributions from the ballot.

* The film company that once created a reality TV program featuring D.C. Council member Marion Barry has been awarded a city contract to make a documentary about Barry's ward.

* O’Malley should look to his own finances instead of Romney’s

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