Candidacy

Although former Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. is still officially pondering a race for his old office, Gov. Martin O'Malley is eager for the battle he thinks is coming, according to the governor's campaign manager, Tom Russell. Russell had harsh words for the former governor, a Republican, but was also frank about the problems Democrats face in the heated national political atmosphere this year. He spoke to about 30 members of the Columbia Democratic Club in a small community center meeting room in the planned town Wednesday night.

The Democratic president of the Maryland Senate wants Sen. Andrew P. Harris to fire his chief of staff - a directive characterized Wednesday by the Republican lawmaker as "Chicago-style" bare-knuckle politics. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, in turn, accused Harris, an outspoken Baltimore County doctor who is running for Congress, of "politicizing a personnel matter." Miller said Kathy Szeliga must stop working for Harris or stop running for the House of Delegates. A letter Miller sent Harris on Tuesday states that Szeliga must resign or be terminated by Friday because she is "in violation of the personnel policy's prohibition against employees of the legislature running for state legislative office."

It seems to be a tradition in Maryland for Republicans to say they are planning to run for governor - but would happily bow out if Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. gets in the race. Audrey E. Scott, now the state Republican chairwoman, and businessman John M. Kane stepped forward nearly a decade ago as admitted backup candidates before Ehrlich, then in Congress, announced his candidacy for governor and eventually won. This year, Del. Patrick L. McDonough, a Baltimore County Republican, says he's thinking of running but is willing to step aside if Ehrlich jumps in this winter.

They got up early, joined long lines, withstood inclement weather. Some skipped school, others took off from work, more waited in record numbers for hours to make history and elect Sen. Barack Obama president, a first for an African-American in a decisive victory with the potential to transform the country. The first-term senator from Illinois overcame Sen. John McCain with a new coalition of first-time voters, women, young people, African-Americans and Hispanics, giving him the mandate to help him reform the culture in Washington and bring about changes to respond to the 85 percent of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track.

Lisa Oquist would probably have voted Republican in November. But Sen. John McCain's surprise choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate "reinforced" that inclination. "She's just very convincing," said Oquist, 44, a stay-at-home mother and Republican, picking up her daughter at Centerville Elementary School in Urbana. "Here's this mom with five kids, and she's very successful. I think that's a real positive for women." A few miles north on Urbana Pike, Patti Burch, a mother of three, dismissed the Palin pick as "demeaning" and said it only heightened the 57-year-old Democrat's enthusiasm for Sen. Barack Obama.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - "Mac is back" chanted John McCain's supporters when the Republican candidate staged his seemingly impossible comeback in this year's primaries. Last night, the old Johnny Mac was back on display, claiming his party's nomination in a setting meant to evoke his anything-goes town hall events. Standing on a narrow stage amid a sea of supporters, he reprised trademark lines and themes from his stump speech and, in a way that convention planners did not always intend, recreated the spirit and excitement of his campaign rallies.

WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton's name will be placed into nomination at the Democratic National Convention later this month, ending months of speculation about how her candidacy -- and supporters - would be represented there. "I am convinced that honoring Sen. Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong, united fashion," Barack Obama said in a statement issued jointly by their two press offices.

CINCINNATI - The barrier-shattering candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama is cause for pride and praise, but it does not diminish the need for bold civil rights activism, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said during a speech launching the organization's 99th annual convention. By clinching the Democratic nomination for president, Obama embodies the aspirations of the civil rights movement, but his candidacy does not "herald a post-civil rights America any more than his victory in November will mean that race as an issue has been vanquished in America," Bond told a crowd of more than 1,000 people last night at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati.

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. may have been Sen. Barack Obama's pastor for 20 years, but this week he was more intent on promoting his angry vision of race relations than supporting the candidacy of a man with a good chance of becoming the first African-American president. The senator's outraged retort to the minister's incendiary remarks at the National Press Club said what had to be said: They "contradict everything that I am about." We believe the candidate when he says with some emotion that his goal is to bring Americans together, not divide them, as Pastor Wright's rhetoric would.

AMES, Iowa -- In his angry campaign speeches, John Edwards vows to fight as president for millions of ordinary Americans whose futures are threatened by "corporate greed." But it's his own future that is in jeopardy right now. Edwards has his back to the wall in tomorrow night's Iowa caucuses, the first voter test of the 2008 campaign. Unlike Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, his rivals in a three-way battle for first place, he's pouring almost everything into this state. Without an Iowa victory, Edwards advisers have privately acknowledged, his chances of winning the Democratic nomination could all but disappear.