Bumper Stickers

Comptroller William Donald Schaefer may be campaigning for fellow Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in her bid for governor, but his closest and most loyal supporters are split, with some actively backing her Republican opponent. About half of Schaefer's inner circle -- a powerful group of about a dozen Democrats who have been his friends and political advisers for decades -- are supporting Townsend. But others connected with Schaefer's office and his run for re-election are handing out campaign literature for Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., raising money for him, and have printed "Ehrlich/Schaefer" bumper stickers.

A FRIEND has a love-hate thing with a maple tree. It has grown too large for the front lawn on which it stands. It is a massive umbrella blocking out the sun. I've been standing there as landscape professionals have warned gloomily that the grass on my friend's front lawn would never grow thick and luxurious, like his neighbor's, until the maple comes down. The branches need to be trimmed away from the house every couple of years. One of these days, the roots are going to burst right through the stone foundation of the house.

Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend agreed to two televised debates with Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. yesterday, a number the Timonium congressman dismissed as too low to serve the needs of voters. Responding to Ehrlich's repeated demands, Townsend offered through a spokesman to begin negotiations after next week's primary to set the location and format of two debates between gubernatorial nominees. A third would pair the lieutenant governor candidates, Republican Michael S. Steele and Democrat Charles R. Larson.

BUMPER STICKERS and lawn signs don't vote, but they start conversations. Why are there so many more "Ehrlich for Governor" strips? Who's putting out the red and blue one that says, "Democrats work/Republicans whine"? And what about, "You're better qualified than Kathleen"? It's all part of a campaign's early phase, the one where you try to become a household word. You oil up the apparatus so it can get the converts and the base to the polls. Thus do party professionals express high anxiety about Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's campaign.

SURE, IT'S premature, but it's reality: If Kathleen Kennedy Townsend wins the race for governor, her name will be catapulted onto the list of possible Democratic vice-presidential candidates in 2004. Her iconic maiden name would be part of the appeal. She's also of the right gender to balance a ticket of such male aspirants as Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, John Kerry of Massachusetts or John Edwards of North Carolina. Sure, she'd be lacking in experience. And she'd be coming from a smallish, liberal-leaning state not known for launching politicians onto the national stage.

Baltimore County Executive C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger's campaign staff has admitted that volunteers might have violated federal election finance law the day he kicked off his bid for Congress when they handed out brochures and bumper stickers paid for with state campaign funds. On the second stop of his congressional campaign Monday, volunteers distributed a six-page, full-color brochure promoting his accomplishments over the past eight years. They also handed out green and yellow bumper stickers, left from Ruppersberger's 1998 run for county executive, at a senior center in Baltimore's Cherry Hill neighborhood.

I DIDN'T READ this one in Police Blotter or see it on Animal Planet, but it's a good story anyway. Peggy Coffman, an Ohio handler of hounds, was in New York recently for the 126th Westminster Kennel Club Show. While there, she told the Associated Press of an experience with Baltimore police in October. Coffman said officers summoned her from a restaurant here to ask about the license plates on her van: "AFGHAN1." Cops had the van surrounded and the officers, Coffman told the AP, "wanted to know what that was all about."

LOS ANGELES - I turned 37 this month. Wow! That was fast. One minute you are in the seventh grade, pulling bra straps; the next you're barreling down on 40. The time just goes. Of course, when I was a kid I thought by now I'd be married and have kids and a house in the suburbs, just like The Brady Bunch. Nothing has turned out the way I expected. But so what? Who's life does? I've noticed a few changes: Gray hairs have popped up hither and yon, I have less energy and there is fat on my back.

We had been at South of the Border for more than 12 hours when my 9-year-old son posed a compelling question: "How come Pedro's always holding his stomach?" Sure enough, everywhere we looked, Pedro -- South of the Border's grinning, mustachioed, sombrero-wearing mascot -- stood with a hand on his ample belly. Why? we wondered. Well, there's no easy answer. Then again, there's no easy answer about anything having to do with South of the Border, the gloriously campy, slightly seedy "resort" off Interstate 95 just south of the border separating South Carolina and North Carolina.

In a single moment of teen-age misjudgment, 17-year- old Danny Ong smashed his car into a utility pole Wednesday and died while speeding home from the last day of classes in Columbia. It was the kind of tragedy that reminds parents to be fearful. And it happened at a time of year that makes them particularly jittery about turning over the car keys. "Kids are off of school, they need to be mobile, [and] parents feel trapped into giving them the car, even if they don't want to, just out of convenience," said Michael M. Gimbel of the state chapter of Students Against Destructive Decisions and director of Baltimore County's Substance Abuse Bureau.