Lar­ry Hogan’s big bet on being ‘stuck in the mid­dle’

DAVIDSONVILLE, Mary­land — For­mer Mary­land Gov. Lar­ry Hogan isn’t shy­ing away from being a polit­i­cal punch­ing bag for lib­er­als and con­ser­v­a­tives as a cen­trist Repub­li­can run­ning for Sen­ate in Mary­land. In fact, he’s embrac­ing it.
“Clowns to the left of me, jok­ers to the right,” Hogan told a crowd of sup­port­ers at a cam­paign event Sat­ur­day as he was intro­duced to the tune of Steal­ers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Mid­dle with You.” “Here I am, stuck in the mid­dle with you.”
In the deep blue state, Hogan’s core mes­sage to vot­ers is syn­ony­mous with the famous track — and why the for­mer two-term gov­er­nor quipped to reporters that it should become his campaign’s offi­cial theme song.
Hogan is run­ning to become the first Repub­li­can elect­ed to the Sen­ate in Mary­land since 1980 in the open seat being vacat­ed by retir­ing long­time Sen. …