The company that owns Pimlico and Laurel race tracks lost $95.6 million last year. So it’s downsizing its ‘‘profit centers” (i.e. cutting Pimlico’s race days from 60 to 18 and Laurel’s from 196 to 112) and selling its 178-acre Bowie Training Center, forcing grooms, jockey’s and horse owners to flee Maryland. Can the Preakness be far behind?

Last week’s announcement by Magna Entertainment Corp. guarantees slots will be a major issue in next year’s elections. But which candidates gain or lose when slots returns to the political front burner?

Gov. Bob Ehrlich welcomes Magna’s bombshell for a number of reasons: First, he gets to say, ‘‘I told you so.” While the House of Delegates fiddled, Maryland became surrounded by slots-funded racetracks in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, draining horses and slots money from Maryland.

Ehrlich also gains because the slots issue is a food fight among Democrats. To defeat Ehrlich the Democrats must form a united front. But slots expose the deep rifts within the Democratic Party between the pro-slots Schaefer?Miller wing and the anti-slots Busch?Franchot wing. The Democrats and the media (a redundancy?) want to tar Ehrlich as an out-of-step extremist who can’t get along with the legislature. But the slots issue demonstrates that the legislature can’t get along with itself. If the Democrats spend the next 14 months tearing themselves apart over slots, that’s fine with Ehrlich. He’ll happily hold their jackets.

Finally, the slots issue helps Ehrlich because the pro-slots lobby (track owners, horse owners, horse breeders, gamblers) will pour big money into pro-slots campaigns during an election year when campaign contributions are tight because so many seats are open.

Meanwhile, gubernatorial hopeful Martin O’Malley wishes slots would go away. The more slots emerge as a ‘‘defining issue,” the more O’Malley squirms. On one hand, he needs the support of anti-slots zealots like the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, the black ministers and Montgomery County liberals. On the other hand, he needs all those Reagan Democrats living in suburban Baltimore where slots are favored 58 percent to 38 percent.

And to make matters worse, O’Malley’s Democratic opponent, Doug Duncan, is waging a spirited anti-slots campaign designed to force O’Malley into the slots fray. To date, O’Malley has taken a wishy-washy pro-slots stand, sort of. But now, thanks to Magna’s downsizing, he can’t avoid taking sides.

Political blunder

Gov. Bob Ehrlich’s biggest blunder was raising the state property tax during his first months in office. Faced with a $1 billion deficit inherited from his Democratic predecessor, Ehrlich tried to balance the state budget with spending cuts, slots revenues and accounting gimmicks. When the books remained unbalanced he raised the state property tax rate from 8.4 cents to 13.2 cents, costing property owners about $120 a year.

Regardless of your feelings about taxes, it was a dumb move because, one, he acted unilaterally without forcing Democratic lawmakers to share the heat. Before casting his vote on the three-member Board of Public Works, which sets the state’s tax rate, Ehrlich should have made legislative leaders publicly beg him to do so thus providing some political cover.

Two, he got nothing in return. Ehrlich should have traded his tax hike for legislative approval of slots. Instead, he raised the property tax and then sought assistance on slots as a reward for his good conduct, a rookie mistake in statehouse horse-trading.

Third, he gave his political foes live ammo to lob back at him for years to come. Yes, the Democrats and editorial writers urged Ehrlich to avert spending cuts by raising taxes, but the minute he followed their advice they whipsawed him as the pro-tax governor who broke his ‘‘anti-taxes” campaign pledge.

For instance, this July every Montgomery County taxpayer received their 2005 property tax bill accompanied by a letter from Doug Duncan and Council President Tom Perez (both Democrats). After crowing about the county’s recent 4.2 cent property tax cut, the Democrats added, ‘‘However increasing property values also mean rising state property assessments. Coupled with the governor’s nickel increase in the state’s property tax rate, every family budget is feeling the squeeze.”

Fighting back, Ehrlich announced, this week, his plans to repeal his property tax hike by a penny or two now that the state budget is flush. But the Democrats and editorial writers say the money is needed, instead, for new spending programs. Besides, they want the ‘‘governor’s nickel increase” on the books for next year’s campaign.

Football fumble

As Terps football fans witness another sputtering season they should reflect on how state budget cuts cost UM the nation’s top high school recruit.

Derrick ‘‘Slash” Williams (6-foot, 195 pounds, 4.28 second 40-yard dash, 3.5 GPA) starred at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in the shadow of Byrd Stadium where his dad, Dwight Williams, was an assistant athletic director. Last year, Derrick, a life-long Terps fan, was rated the nation’s top player triggering 57 college offers.

But, due to state budget cuts, Dwight Williams lost his UM job, souring his son on the Terps. ‘‘I thought that Dad was even favoring Maryland a little bit and I just finally said, ‘Dad, I don’t want to go to a school that’s taking food off my table....’” So this season Derrick Williams, a true freshman, is starting for Penn State.

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