Republican Lt. Gov. candidate Mary Kane has a message for Marylanders: we should just be more like Texas.

In a faux news report produced by the Ehrlich-Kane campaign, Kane favorably compares Texas’ economic policies with those of Maryland. “I was just in Texas—Texas happens to be doing pretty good,” she says in the video.

Absent from Kane’s dire picture of her home state is any mention of the actual state of the Texas’ economy in relation to Maryland’s.

At 8.2%, the unemployment rate in the Lone Star state is more than a point higher than Maryland’s. Texas’ bond rating (AA+) is lower than Maryland’s. Per capita income in Texas is about half Maryland’s. And Texas is currently facing an $18 billion budget deficit, caused in large part by the very tax policies cited by Kane as a model.

Mary Kane’s decision to trash Maryland and claim that Texas is doing better is bizarre and  troubling for someone who wants to be the second-highest ranking official in our state. It sounds like Bob Ehrlich and Mary Kane want to impose deficit-busting, Texas-style fiscal policies on Maryland.