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Gov. Martin O'Malley and former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. crisscrossed the state last week honing their messages on job creation, as an issue that could decide the gubernatorial election took center stage in both campaigns.

O'Malley (D) touted the state's job creation numbers — up for the fourth straight month in June, albeit at a slower pace — and how incentives such as the $5,000 tax credit for businesses who hire people off the unemployment rolls have helped Maryland put people back to work.

Ehrlich (R) says O'Malley's done too much, namely when it comes to regulations he says are choking Maryland businesses.

"In some very fundamental ways they're talking past each other," said Laslo Boyd, a partner at Gonzales Research and Marketing Strategies in Annapolis. "They're not addressing the same question. The real challenge is going to be to what extent do they address the same issue at any point in the campaign?"

O'Malley continued a "Jobs Across Maryland" tour — a hallmark of his campaign — with a stop in Crisfield at Rubberset Co., a division of Sherwin-Williams Co. that makes painting tools. The company is using a $700,000 community development block grant from the state to make plant improvements as it expands its production line and adds 80 workers in two years.

Down the road, at the J. Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake, O'Malley hailed the jobless tax credit he signed into law in March. The credit has led to about 189 hires by 105 companies, according to the governor's office.

O'Malley also launched a series of four ads, coming shortly to televisions in the Baltimore market, which highlight what his administration has done to create jobs.

"The only way that we get out of this recession is to create more and better jobs," he said. "So that's what those ads represent."

The ads highlight the fact that with initiatives "like the new hiring tax credit, the biotech tax credit and the public-private partnership at the port, we can, in effect, create jobs," O'Malley said.

Announced in November, the partnership between the Maryland Port Administration and Ports America Chesapeake will create 5,700 jobs during the construction of a 50-foot berth at the Seagirt Marine Terminal Port in Baltimore to allow for larger vessels.

Each campaign had its own spin on the biotechnology tax credit, which provides income tax credits equal to 50 percent of an investment in a Maryland biotech company.

In dueling news releases July 22, the Ehrlich campaign noted the former Republican governor signed the bill into law in 2005. The release also said a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study giving Maryland high marks for job creation — and cited in an O'Malley ad — included in its 10-year assessment Ehrlich's four years as governor.

The O'Malley campaign countered with a "Fact Check" that said Ehrlich opposed the bill in 2004 and supported the 2005 bill only after failing to pass a weaker version.

Also July 22, Ehrlich had a roundtable discussion with about 40 Howard County business owners at The Crab Shanty in Ellicott City that focused largely on what the state can do less of to combat joblessness. He cited the need for less regulation and a reduction in taxes.

"The point of these small business roundtables has been to pinpoint and bring attention to the fact that the tax environment, the regulatory environment in Maryland, also contributes to the problem," Ehrlich said.

"The governor cannot impact the national economy," he said. "The governor does have direct impact particularly on the regulatory environment in his or her state."

The issue of jobs, Boyd said, is the most visible incarnation of what voters in recent Gonzales polls say is their top concern: the economy.

For the unemployed, economic concerns means jobs, Boyd said. For older Marylanders, it means their shrinking retirement accounts. For others, it is a lack of overtime or the need to be more careful with spending.

For businesses, it means uncertainty, Kathleen T. Snyder, president and CEO of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, said in a telephone interview.

Employers want to know that if they hire workers they won't have to lay them off because their taxes rise or government regulations change, Snyder said.

"All of it has to be taken into the context that we're in a global marketplace," she said. "And if we want Maryland to be competitive, we have to be mindful that taxes and workplace regulation do impact the bottom line."