It seems that in order to debug with adb on os x you need to have your droid x set to "usb mass storage". See the following:
Droid X not connecting to adb on OS X
The problem with "usb mass storage mode" is that you cannot access the sd card while in this mode. The app I'm creating has some key functionality that accesses the sd card and needs to be debugged.
Is there a workaround for this issue?
It turns out setting the phone to "charge only" is the solution for this.