Because of the beliefs we share -- a belief in the dignity of every individual, a belief in the responsibility that each of has to advance the common good, a belief in the unity of spirit and matter -- there are goals that all Marylanders share.

These are our goals: to strengthen and grow our middle class and our family-owned businesses, to improve public safety and public education in every neighborhood of our state, and to expand the opportunities of learning, of earning, of enjoying the health of the people we love and the land and water that we love for more people rather than fewer.

These are our goals, and the choices our governor makes determine in many ways whether we make progress together towards our shared goals.

And this is our plan:

1. To protect our quality of life, we choose to make government work.

2. To improve and secure our quality of life, we choose to make government more effective, like Baltimore has done through the award-winning CitiStat program.

3. We choose to recruit and appoint the most capable people we can find to make government work more effectively. Call us old fashioned, but since all of us have to pay for government anyway, we believe that it can and should actually work.

4. We choose to make college education more affordable for all, rather than more expensive, in order to expand economic opportunity and build a more just society.

5. We choose to find the missing pieces of the healthcare puzzle so that responsible businesses who choose to cover their employees healthcare can afford to do so.

6. We choose to make Maryland a leader in improving public safety and homeland security at the same time.

7. We choose to invest Open Space dollars in the purchase of open space and to make public decisions with the best know-how of scientists, watermen, and farmers so that we measurably and relentlessly begin to restore the health of the rivers and streams that determine the health of our Bay.

8. We choose to harness the tremendous power of Maryland's diverse economy, brain-power and talent pool, to make the promise of minority and women-owned business a reality that expands greater opportunity for all.

9. We choose to advance a statewide vision for transportation, including mass transit, so that Maryland's character determines the future of growth instead of allowing growth to determine Maryland's future character. And,

10. When necessary, we choose to stand up to powerful special interests which time to time would, unchecked, profiteer at the expense of consumers and the working people of our State.

This is our plan, these are our goals. They are the goals of an ambitious people, and we would not choose to serve a people who were not. Give us your hand and your heart, and together we will make a better and stronger Maryland for our children and theirs.