Candidate For Governor

RAYMOND SCHOENKE -- the one-time Redskins footballer and about-to-be Democratic primary candidate for governor -- showed up in Annapolis on Friday with a pungent foretaste of his campaign's main course."

CHARLES ECKER'S taking an autumn leaf of absence. He's the Howard County executive, and he's newly announced as a Republican candidate for governor of Maryland, but it's 10 o'clock last Tuesday morning when the rest of the world is racing around, and he's raking leaves in his yard when he should be out somewhere looking for votes."

When she started running for governor five years ago, only 3 percent of Marylanders knew her name. Today, she says, her name recognition is 96 percent."

THERE WAS NO ambivalence in Harford County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann's letter released yesterday: She is a candidate for governor. Given sufficient financial support and elevated visibility, the 52-year-old Democrat could pose a threat to Democratic Gov. Parris N. Glendening.Yet she starts off a long-shot. No Maryland governor has been defeated in a party primary. While the current governor is unpopular with many Democratic officeholders, the public's response is tougher to gauge. Various polls indicate a continuing high unfavorable rating, but Mr. Glendening is a relentless campaigner.

At a breakfast of business and political leaders in Baltimore last week, Maryland Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick praised some of the heroes of the state's ambitious education reform efforts.Among others, Grasmick cited former Gov. William Donald Schaefer, the "visionary" who brought her into state government, key legislators and several Baltimore education leaders.But for the governor, Parris N. Glendening, she had no warm words. Grasmick instead reiterated her opposition to some of his recent decisions in the battle over control of the Baltimore school system, finally reminding the group that she works for the state school board.

Fly the flag with respectThe writer was Republican candidate for governor in 1994.Pub Date: 7/01/96

As a candidate for governor last year, Parris N. Glendening was forced by his pricey promises to defend himself against charges that he was just another tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.Now that he is in the job, Maryland's governor sounds increasingly like the conservative Republican he defeated.In less than a year in office, Mr. Glendening has killed one big welfare program and is talking about sharp cuts in another. He has laid off dozens of state employees and says he plans to trim the work force by another 800 to 1,000 jobs a year.

CONSPICUOUSLY absent from last week's meeting of the Task Force to Review the State's Election Law was one Ellen R. Sauerbrey.Mrs. Sauerbrey, who lost the governor's race to Democrat Parris N. Glendening by just 5,993 votes last year, was long scheduled to appear.But at the last minute, she apparently decided that discretion is the better part of a political future and canceled.Instead, she sent a letter to George Beall, the Republican who chairs the task force, listing recommendations for improving the election process -- and saying that "the work of this commission should not be personalized to any one campaign."

REPUBLICANS made a big hoopla over the Oct. 4 ceremony in Annapolis unveiling the party's newest campaign strategy, called a "Contract with Maryland."The rally was intended to show a solid block of party candidates supporting the GOP's gospel of tax cuts and fiscal conservatism.While Republican officials wanted the rally to appear as a grassroots effort, a press release from Nancy Stocksdale, a GOP candidate for a District 5 House of Delegates seat in Carroll County, inadvertently revealed the degree of party orchestration.

A hard-fought and often contentious campaign for the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial nominations sweeps into its final week today with the two front-runners trying to protect seemingly comfortable leads as their rivals frantically try to close the gap.The sprint to the tape will feature a battle of the airwaves as six of the seven major candidates step up their television advertising campaigns or take their message to the tube for the first time.Even...