“Grassroots” movements in politics, by definition, are supposed to be natural and spontaneous.

So an ad that hit Craigslist on Monday certainly stood out. It sought participants for a “grassroots rally” in Prince George’s County against Maryland’s ballot measure on expanded gambling — and promised pay between $25 and $40 per person:

“One day, 1.5 hour project. You will be a rally participant. Duties are to stand in crowd, clap, cheer, hold a sign and be on time. Children are welcome. No further commitment. Payment at end of rally.”

The advertised rally was said to be taking place Tuesday morning in Upper Marlboro.

Sure enough, an anti-gambling rally is scheduled Tuesday in Upper Marlboro. But the organizers claimed to have nothing to do with the ad — and no one else exactly stepped forward to take responsibility either.

“We’re not paying anyone,” said Bishop Joseph H. Thomas, chairman of the Community Empowerment Coalition, which issued a press advisory Monday for a “grassroots community rally press conference.”

Thomas’s organization has long opposed plans to allow a new casino in Prince George’s County, where National Harbor is considered the most likely location.

Question 7, which will appear on Maryland’s ballot in November, would allow a casino in the county, as well as Las Vegas-style table games at the state’s five existing slots locations.

Thomas vowed to look into who is behind the ad. Another version — which promised top pay of $45 instead of $40 — appeared on the Web site ClassifiedAds.com. The job it listed as available: “Rally participant — Crowd Filler.”

Both versions of the ad provided the same email address for those interested in applying. An inquiry by The Washington Post requesting additional information went unreturned early Tuesday evening.

So, too, did a call placed to a contact person listed on the ClassifiedAds.com.

Question 7 has attracted massive amounts of money from companies with a stake in the outcome of the expansion plan. As of Monday, the two sides together had reported giving more than $34 million to ballot-issue committees set up to campaign for and against the measure.

Penn National Gaming, the only funder so far of the opposition, has itself given more than $18 million.

A spokesman for the Penn-funded ballot-issue committee said his group had no role in organizing Tuesday’s event and that he was even unaware of the location.

Fresh off his latest round of attacking Republicans on the Sunday morning talk show circuit, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) did not tread lightly on Monday when a questioner on a call-in radio program began comparing the economies of Maryland and Virginia.

O’Malley blasted Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) for shooting off “confetti cannons” over a budget surplus derived from “gimmicks” like underfunding the commonwealth’s public-employee pension costs.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley looks on before signing the Civil Marriage Protection Act in Annapolis, on March 1, 2012. (Patrick Semansky - AP)

Before WTOP’s hourlong “Ask the Governor” program was over, O’Malley took McDonnell to task for recovering a smaller percentage of jobs than Maryland had since the start of the recession; coddling millionaires, and instituting voter ID laws: “We don’t have those sort of voter suppression laws; that would be over in Virginia,” O’Malley said.

Asked by host Mark Segraves if he should maybe come back on the air to debate McDonnell face-to-face, O’Malley said he’d be happy to “have a discussion” with McDonnell before the election about how to best create jobs and bolster the recovery. The opposing views across the Potomac, O’Malley said, represent the country in microcosm.

Any debate, he added, “can be followed immediately by a push-up contest.”

McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin responded — tongue firmly in cheek — that it was a “nice offer.” In an e-mail, he played off another point of contention between the two states: companies that have left Maryland to relocate in Virginia.

“Gov. O’Malley sure seems to always be thinking, and talking, about us. Frankly though, it’s going to be a little difficult to find the time to debate the governor right now. We’re just so busy helping the thousands of former Maryland residents who have recently moved to Virginia get situated. Also, we already kind of have our own, gubernatorial version of a push-up contest. It’s called state unemployment rates. Spoiler alert: Virginia wins.”

Whether or not O’Malley and McDonnell square off before November, calisthenics aside, it would be far from the first time the two have jousted as heads of their respective parties’ governors associations, or as frequent surrogates for President Obama and Mitt Romney on the 2012 campaign trail.

Near the beginning of the radio interview, O’Malley first took issue with a caller’s premise that Virginia’s budget was in better shape than Maryland’s.

“Well, Dave,” O’Malley responded to the caller. “Let me tell you the facts.” O’Malley ticked off some of his most well-worn statistics, including Maryland’s AAA bond rating, and its four years with top-rated schools. Both Maryland and Virginia ended their most recent fiscal years in June with hundreds of millions of dollars more than expected, though Maryland’s came in part from a tax increase on high-income earners.

“One thing that we don’t do in Maryland is if we’ve … finished a month where we have more cash on hand than might have been projected, we don’t light off confetti cannons, call a press conference, pat ourselves on the back and say by ‘golly, we have a surplus.’”

McDonnell, O’Malley said, has also built Virginia's surplus through “gimmicks, including sometimes short-funding their pension obligations and other things.”

O’Malley also stressed his administration’s four-year freeze on tuition at Maryland’s public colleges and universities:

“We’re making college education more affordable, when it’s being made more expensive in Virginia. Tuitions go up when they invest less in education.

“And on the most important indicator of all, recovery and job creation, we have recovered 67 percent of the jobs we have lost during the Bush recession here in Maryland. Our neighbors in Virginia have recovered 63 percent of the jobs they lost.

“We also have the highest median income; a higher median income than in Virginia.”

O’Malley then briefly ratcheted down the rhetoric.

It’s easy to pit the states against one another, he said, “But we’re really not against each other. Maryland Virginia and the District is one very strong, science and security corridor of innovation. And we work best when we work together. The most important capital that we share are the talents, the skills and education levels of our people.”

(Martin also sent a follow-up e-mail to note O’Malley and McDonnell have a “very positive working relationship” on regional issues).

But then the on-air conversation turned to the election.

“Gov. McDonnell is a sworn opponent of asking millionaires to pay anything more for anything. He is an opponent of even having millionaires return to the same fair income tax levels they paid during the Clinton administration. So he wins on that one.”

And had he mentioned that Maryland was better than Virginia?

“We believe that over the long term when you see some of the short-funding of education that is happening in Virginia, that some of those decisions that have been made recently, while they have not come home to roost are not in the best long-term interest of expanding opportunity or improving opportunity for children in Virginia.”

“You contrast that in Maryland … We are creating a higher median income and the best schools in the nation.”

Staff writer Laura Vozzella contributed to this post.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)If voters reject a Prince George’s County casino in November, the issue is most likely dead for the remainder of his tenure, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said Monday.

“Perhaps some future governor will want to wrestle with this issue again,” O’Malley (D), whose second term ends in January 2015, said during an appearance on WTOP’s “Ask the Governor.”

O’Malley also used the talk show to criticize Penn National Gaming for spending so heavily to try to defeat the gambling-expansion plan on the ballot.

So far, Penn has ponied up more than $18 million in an effort to derail Question 7, which would allow a new casino in Prince George’s, as well as Las Vegas-style table games at Maryland’s five previously authorized slots sites.

The legislature authorized putting the question to voters during a special session in August called by O’Malley, who said at the time that he wanted to put the divisive issue of gambling behind him.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signs the state’s same-sex marriage law. (Photo by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)Proponents of same-sex marriage in Maryland have already tapped actors, athletes and musicians to help raise money for a November ballot measure. Now another profession is stepping forward: chefs.

More than 60 Washington-area chefs and at least a dozen “mixologists” are joining forces for a “Chefs for Equality” event sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights lobby.

Proceeds from the Oct. 24 event at the Ritz-Carlton in the District will be used to help try to pass Question 6 on Maryland’s ballot, according to organizers. The night is being billed as “an extravaganza of food, cocktails, fashion and music.”

The announcement of the event comes as both sides in Maryland’s same-sex marriage debate gear up for a costly ad war. At issue is whether voters should uphold a gay nuptials law signed by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) in March.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley addresses the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. on Sept. 4. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) was largely back on message Sunday during a return to the national talk-show circuit, praising President Obama for creating jobs and blaming Republicans for not allowing him to so more quickly.

“Instead of losing jobs as a country, we’re actually gaining jobs as a country,” O’Malley told Candy Crowley, host of CNN’s “State of the Union,” when asked about the strength of the economy in light of a sluggish growth rate of 1.3 percent for the second quarter.

O’Malley, who appeared in a segment with Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), said the economy would be doing better if Republicans in Congress weren’t blocking the president’s jobs initiatives.

“I think they’ve been trying hard,” O’Malley said of what he characterized as Republican efforts to stymie Obama.