Candidate For President

Eight years ago, I won a seat on the Baltimore City Council along with a host of other new faces. There was a new mayor, Kurt L. Schmoke, and a new president of the City Council, Mary Pat Clarke.The 1989 elections were a watershed in Baltimore. That election marked the beginning of a new spirit in Baltimore politics.That new spirit quickly evaporated in an adversarial confrontation between Mary Pat Clarke and some members of the council. That acrimony split the council and, in many ways, we have never recovered.

WASHINGTON -- The press is facing a quadrennial dilemma -- how to decide who qualifies as a "serious" candidate for president.The civics textbooks tell us anyone can run, but the reality is that there are always self-anointed candidates who have no realistic chance of being nominated. So the question is how much attention they should receive from newspapers and broadcasters who don't want to mislead their readers and viewers.The classic example this year is Alan L. Keyes, whose political resume consists entirely of landslide defeats in two Senate campaigns in Maryland.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate's approval of the line-item veto bill is being viewed widely here as an important triumph for Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. As a candidate for president, the conventional wisdom holds, he could not afford another defeat in the Senate.In fact, however, political history suggests that this kind of inside baseball on Capitol Hill has little or nothing to do with presidential politics. The voters simply don't pay that much attention to every turn of the road here.This fact of political life was demonstrated most starkly 15 years ago in the case of another Republican leader of the Senate, Howard H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee.

An article in yesterday's Today section about campaign advertising on cable television incorrectly identified a candidate for president of the Harford County Council. The candidate is Joanne S. Parrott.The Sun regrets the error.

WASHINGTON -- Whenever a major political figure is stricken by serious illness or death, there is always a temptation to gloss over his shortcomings and gild the lily. In the case of former President Richard M. Nixon, the historical record demands that he be chronicled before all else as the first occupant of the Oval Office ever to have resigned, in the face of impeachment over his role in covering up the Watergate scandal.That said, it must be observed that Mr. Nixon has been the most tenacious and resilient of presidents and politicians, managing over a span of nearly half a century to remain on the center stage of American public life.

WASHINGTON -- Whenever a major political figure is struck with serious illness or death, there is always a temptation to gloss over his shortcomings and gild the lily. In the case of former President Richard M. Nixon, the historical record demands that he be chronicled before all else as the first occupant of the Oval Office ever to have resigned, in the face of impeachment over his role in covering up the Watergate scandal.Having said that, it must be observed that Nixon has been the most tenacious and resilient of presidents and politicians, managing over a span of nearly half a century to remain on the center stage of American public life.

Saddam Hussein created another tense moment last week FTC when he deployed surface-to-air missiles in the area of Iraq patrolled by American and allied warplanes. No one was quite certain of his intentions. Was he planning to attack a U.S. plane in retaliation for the MiG Americans shot down a few days earlier? Was he trying to discourage future attempts to enforce the no-fly zone? Was he once again challenging the restrictions imposed after the Gulf War -- to see if anyone was watching?''Saddam Hussein is testing something,'' still-President Bush commented.

"It's finally over," said Slats Grobnik. "And they did it again."Did what again?"They didn't level with me. Not one of the three did it. But I'm not surprised. It never happened before, so why should it happen now?"Level with you about what?"About what I can expect from them."And what is it that you expect?"Not much. And that's what I wish they'd tell me, so I don't get my hopes up."You want a candidate for president to tell you not to expect much? What kind of political campaign would that be?

On a Sunday evening at American Joe's Bar in East Baltimore, corner of South Luzerne and Foster, the 1992 campaign for president came down to a game of 8-ball.Bill Clinton arrived with his entourage of Secret Service men, reporters and the bar's proprietor, state Sen. American Joe Miedusiewski. For a moment, John Beam, Larry Sullivan and a handful of others stood in for The American Electorate.No television camera or newspaper reporter intervened between them and this candidate's effort to connect, to seem fit for high office, to appear to be a person of warmth and ability.