Campaign Headquarters

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.

IN THE end one is left wondering how so brilliant a man could have been so self-destructive, as though the architect of stunning victories also had to be the author of his own downfall.I am thinking not only of the Watergate cover-ups and the missteps that led Richard Nixon to hang himself politically with his own Oval Office tape.I am thinking also, and more personally, about the idiotic "enemies list" and the wiretap lists and, in my case, the FBI investigation that ended up as an item in the House of Representatives' bill of impeachment.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke ushered in a new style of politics at Baltimore City Hall yesterday, promising to abandon his low-key approach and aggressively challenge his chief rival.Three days after Council President Mary Pat Clarke celebrated the opening of her campaign headquarters downtown, the mayor said he must consider her an outright adversary."This is simply me recognizing that I have a political opponent," Mr. Schmoke said yesterday. "She is going around town explaining to people the differences she has with me. Well, I have some differences with her, and from now on I intend to make them clear."

WASHINGTON -- If anyone ever doubted the corrupting influence of money in American politics, the latest Ross Perot caper should be the ultimate answer.Perot's ability to force both President Bush and Democratic nominee Bill Clinton to kowtow to him is clearly related to the fact that the Texas businessman has some $2 billion in his kick and threatens to spend large amounts of it on television advancing his political candidacy. Surely no one imagines the candidates would have dispatched their leading operatives -- and in the president's case, even the national security adviser -- to Dallas except for craven fear about what Perot might do in the final five weeks of the campaign.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Paul Sullivan, a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns going back to George McGovern's in 1972, looked around the old Arkansas Gazette newsroom that is now a beehive of activity as Bill Clinton's national headquarters. Earnest young men and women manned telephones and pecked at desk computers with a sense of purpose and order that is more often associated with button-down Republican campaigns.Mr. Sullivan, reflecting on the difference from the usually chaotic and untidy Democratic campaign headquarters in which he has toiled over the past 20 years, said with a grin: "This even looks Republican.

WASHINGTON -- If rattling the opposition is half the battle, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton may be halfway to the White House.The Republican Party has worked itself into a frenzy of finger-pointing, hand-wringing and rumor-mongering that grows in proportion to Mr. Clinton's 2-to-1 lead over President Bush in the polls.Bush supporters in the White House, at his campaign headquarters, on Capitol Hill and in the field are desperate to begin some kind of counteroffensive powerful enough to bring their candidate back into the contest.

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.

POTCHEFSTROOM, South Africa -- Sometimes a simple act can define a place and its people.In this case it was a handshake, or more accurately one that was refused in this conservative enclave that pushed South Africa into today's all-important referendum on political reform.It happened at Conservative Party headquarters, a beehive of white right-wing activity before a special election last month that the CP subsequently won, driving President F. W. de Klerk's more progressive white National Party government to call the referendum.

CONCORD, N.H. -- In the 15 days before Christmas, New Hampshire received an unexpected federal windfall of more than $240 million, a boon that lawmakers from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Ore., portray as a partisan effort by the Bush administration to influence the nation's first presidential primary.The money, which comes as the president braces for a pivotal Republican showdown in New Hampshire against conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, will, among other things, obliterate the state's $200 million budget deficit, create as many as 400 federal jobs and save countless small businesses from the vagaries of the state's troubled economy, according to Gov. Judd Gregg and other party leaders who announced the allocations.

If there were a First Rule of Politics, it would probably be this: Never answer the telephone at your campaign headquarters on the first ring.If you do, it indicates that the people there have a little too much time on their hands and that they are answering calls a little too eagerly."