Campaign Headquarters

Democratic 2nd District City Council candidate Beatrice "Bea" Gaddy ran her campaign headquarters out of a vacant rowhouse owned by a landlord criticized by a neighborhood organization for owning scores of rundown properties.In an agreement with Stanley Rochkind, Gaddy used the house in the 1800 block of North Washington St. for free in exchange for fixing it up. But after inquiries by The Sun, Gaddy, 66, returned the house to Rochkind this week."I've moved almost everything out because I know how people could perceive it," Gaddy said.

The balding guy with a shy way about him would always sit in the back of the church, usually by himself, and silently slip out after Communion and before the final hymn. Congregants at Old St. Paul's in downtown Baltimore recalled one-time vestryman William Donald Schaefer on a glorious Easter Sunday, just three days before the former mayor and governor will return to his old church one last time. Services for Schaefer, who died at 89 a week ago, will be held at the historic church Wednesday after he lies in state at the State House and in City Hall Monday and Tuesday.

Democrats to open campaign headquartersThe Carroll County Democratic Party will have a grand opening of its campaign headquarters at 37 E. Main St. in Westminster from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. tomorrow.Maryland Comptroller of the Treasury Louis L. Goldstein is scheduled to attend.Shepard, Gouge set fund-raiser SaturdayRepublican gubernatorial candidate William S. Shepard and his running mate, Carroll Commissioner Julia W. Gouge, will sponsor a fund-raiser Saturday at the Sykesville Fire Hall.A social hour will begin at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25 per person.

As reality television, the Howard County League of Women Voters' candidate forums aren't exactly competition for "The Real Housewives of D.C.," but there will still be 19 reruns this month of the various General Assembly and congressional candidates' discussions last week on the two Howard County government channels, Verizon's 44 and Comcast's 99. Tuesday night, those running for county executive and council get their turn before the cameras at...

The balding guy with a shy way about him would always sit in the back of the church, usually by himself, and silently slip out after Communion and before the final hymn. Congregants at Old St. Paul's in downtown Baltimore recalled one-time vestryman William Donald Schaefer on a glorious Easter Sunday, just three days before the former mayor and governor will return to his old church one last time. Services for Schaefer, who died at 89 a week ago, will be held at the historic church Wednesday after he lies in state at the State House and in City Hall Monday and Tuesday.

He's in the mayoral race to stay, assures Du BurnsClarence H. Du Burns, who was mayor of Baltimore for a year before losing to Kurt L. Schmoke in the 1987 Democratic primary, says he is in the mayor's race to stay.At the recent opening of his campaign headquarters, Burns deflected rumors that he might abandon a mayoral race to make a move for City Council president."I like to go down the street and have people say, 'Hi, Mr. Mayor.'Burns called the open house "another piece of showing people that I am running for mayor.

Meet the candidates at Joppatowne parkMeet candidates who are running for county and state offices at a Candidates' Day from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. today at the pavilion at Mariner's Point Park on Kearney Drive in Joppatowne.Barbecue, hot dogs and nachos will be for sale by the Joppatowne High School Athletic Booster Club.The event is jointly sponsored by the Joppatowne Civic Association, Foster Branch Homeowners Association and Rumsey Island Residents Association. It will take place rain or shine.

WASHINGTON -- After about 114 hours of near-nonstop campaigning, Bob Dole finally got a full night's sleep Tuesday night in his own bed.He woke up yesterday with, as he had foreseen, nothing to do. For the first time in nearly half a century, he held no political office, having resigned from the Senate to run for president and then watched as his presidential aspirations were crushed in Bill Clinton's landslide victory Tuesday.Dole spent a few quiet hours at his campaign headquarters here yesterday afternoon, wrapping up loose ends, posing for pictures with his aides and his Secret Service detail and perhaps giving a thought to the future.

A Baltimore Circuit Court jury deliberated just 40 minutes yesterday before finding state Del. Tony E. Fulton not guilty of stealing money during his 1990 re-election campaign.Mr. Fulton, 40, was acquitted of two counts of felony theft and misdemeanor misconduct."It was obvious that the charges were bogus, and given the fact that the jury only stayed out a half-hour or so, it seems they were convinced, too," said an elated Mr. Fulton after the verdicts."This shows that the system works. My family and I still have a lot of healing to do, but I'm happy in knowing that today I got justice," he said.

While city police said yesterday that they had no leads in the May 16 burglary of mayoral candidate Mary Pat Clarke's campaign headquarters, two of Mrs. Clarke's staff members are offering a $1,000 reward for the return of a computer taken during the break-in.Police said the burglary took place after an 8-by-15-inch plywood panel anchoring a window air-conditioning unit was removed from the third floor of Mrs. Clarke's headquarters, located in a rowhouse at 2511 N. Charles St.A laptop computer worth $6,000 that contained a detailed analysis of voting patterns in Baltimore was stolen along with $40 in cash, a television, a videocassette recorder and a telephone, said Cheryl Benton, Mrs. Clarke's campaign manager.

With his party's nomination finally in hand, Sen. Barack Obama urged Democratic leaders in Maryland and elsewhere to realize that an extraordinary organizational effort would be needed for him to win in November. He was young and inexperienced, and he was black. He had to be more than an inspirational speaker. We have to change the game, he said. His evolving plan required doubling and redoubling what is often called the ground game: voter registration and turnout. He would need a 21st Century version of what campaigns have always done.

DES MOINES, Iowa - Of all the "name" Democratic presidential candidates operating campaign headquarters here for the kickoff 2004 caucuses, the one who seems to have made the least effort in Iowa so far is Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut. So it's not surprising that he is running only fifth in the latest Zogby International poll of Iowa Democrats, with a mere 4 percent support. Although Mr. Lieberman probably has the highest name recognition of all the candidates after being the party's vice presidential nominee in 2000, he has not been as visible in the state as the competitors he trails in the poll.

AS I WRITE this, they're probably still cleaning up from the Bob Ehrlich victory party, yet already I've got a monster case of campaign withdrawal. God help me, I even miss all the negative commercials that polluted the airwaves in recent weeks: "Bob Ehrlich: Do we really need a governor who favors tire-dumping in the Chesapeake Bay?" "Isn't it time Kathleen Kennedy Townsend comes clean about her plan to release Maryland's inmates?" I miss the candidates waving at me with their big, toothy grins from busy intersections at rush hour, and the frisson of fear I get when, attempting to wave back, my car drifts into the other lane and the guy behind me lays on his horn.

In an effort to broaden his appeal in the black community, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. staged a fund-raiser and rally last night at a downtown Baltimore nightclub in an attempt to win over traditionally Democratic voters. He even sang "Ain't No Stopping Us Now" as several hundred people, most of them African-American, ate Swedish meatballs and chicken wings at the $100-a-ticket event. Ehrlich, the expected Republican nominee, and his running mate, Michael S. Steele, the Maryland GOP chairman, told the crowd at Hammerjack's they intend to fight for black voters as they take on likely Democratic nominee Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

JIM BROCHIN HAS the face of a choirboy, the smooth patter of a born politician and the shoes of a man who has walked, say, from here to Argentina, which might not be far off the mark. Brochin, you see, is a conservative Democrat - he insists this is not an oxymoron - running for state senator in the 7th District, which consists of Towson, Timonium, Cockeysville and portions of northeastern Baltimore County and southwestern Harford County, including Fallston, Abingdon and Joppa. In his campaign to unseat Republican incumbent Andrew P. Harris, Brochin says he's knocked on some 8,000 doors in his heavily GOP district in the past 2 1/2 years, which accounts for his marathon-runner's physique and the god-awful shape of those black wingtips.

They didn't think it could happen again. The candidates, the lawyers, the newspaper reporters. Veteran New Jersey politician and lawyer Jim Florio had an inkling it might be otherwise while watching presidential returns last week, he says, but he didn't have time to reminisce before "a whole bunch of people started calling me." People from his first campaign for governor. Democrats who still regard themselves as "veterans of The Recount." Across the state, his Republican opponent in that race, Tom Kean, now president of Drew University, stayed up until 4 a.m. hoping to discover the fate of old family friend George W. Bush - their grandfathers went to college together.

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Al Gore explains his decision to move his presidential campaign headquarters to Nashville, Tenn., by saying he wants to take it "directly to the grass roots and directly to the American people."Translation: I've got to do something to take the focus off me as a Washington political animal tethered to Monica Lewinsky's old boyfriend.The idea that moving a presidential campaign out of Washington will bring a candidate closer to the American people is laughable, considering how presidential campaigns are conducted these days.

Thieves broke into the campaign headquarters of U.S. Senate candidate Ron Franks early yesterday and stole three computers containing invaluable data.A laser printer, video camera and four cassettes containing shots of Dr. Franks' stump speeches also were taken from the headquarters, in the basement of a house on Ritchie Highway in Pasadena. The videos were to be used in televisions ads before the primary in September."That's kind of irreplaceable," said Dr. Franks, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates and an Eastern Shore dentist.

It's almost time for the political conventions, which means that millions of concerned U.S. voters will be glued to their TV sets, watching the last few episodes of "Survivor." Some TV viewers will also watch the conventions, but the majority of these will be Labrador retrievers who turned on the TV by biting the remote control and cannot figure out how to change the channel. Very few actual people watch the political conventions anymore. Al Gore could accept the Democratic nomination buck naked, and nobody would notice except maybe Tipper.