Candidates

WASHINGTON - There was a time when presidents seeking re-election adopted a strategy of staying home and above the political fray, seldom even acknowledging their opposition, and certainly not by name or inference. No more. With about eight months to go before the 2004 election, President Bush has jumped with both feet into the race, hammering Sen. John Kerry on the stump and in hard-hitting television commercials. His decision to do so suggests a new urgency among his strategists to throw Mr. Kerry on the defensive, possibly at the risk of diminishing somewhat his own greatest advantage - his incumbency and stature as the national leader too engaged running the country to "stoop" to partisan politics.

It's beginning to sound a lot like gaffe season in American politics. That's the time when the candidates become so exhausted from endless campaigning that their brains lose contact with the words flowing out of their mouths. Did somebody say "Joe Biden"? The Delaware senator and Democratic presidential hopeful stumbled last week when he compared the performance of District of Columbia schools with Iowa's education successes. "There's less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African-American," he said.

Eight candidates for clerk of the Circuit Court of Baltimore were asked to identify the problems with court administration and solutions at a forum yesterday for courthouse employees. The answers?"I don't know," former state Del. Frank M. Conaway, 65, told the crowd of 70 at the Clarence M. Mitchell Courthouse. "I'm never going to tell you 'I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that,' because it is simply not true."Candidate Pamela Carter-Goodwin said she knows, but she wasn't talking.

Most of the seven candidates for Havre de Grace City Council see twomain issues facing the waterfront community in this year's election -- generating new revenue and encouraging a steady pace of development.Most of the candidates, six Democrats and one independent, saidin separate interviews that Havre de Grace must develop new revenue sources to continue providing public services in lean economic times.One way to acquire more revenue, some candidates say, is to strengthen the city's tax base by encouraging the steady pace of development under way along the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay waterfronts.

WASHINGTON -- In this era of wealthy candidates who wave their millions and scare off would-be challengers with their ready bankrolls, help for the less-endowed at last is on the way. But it's not likely to make a dent in the fat-cat candidate phenomenon of recent years. The Federal Election Commission, by a 5-1 vote, has approved a regulation in which candidates of modest personal means, especially non-incumbents, can pay themselves salaries out of their campaign treasuries, enabling them to run without having to mortgage their homes or sell their first-born.

Baltimore's mayoral candidates will appear tonight in the first of three televised campaign events.Maryland Public Television will present a question-and-answer session with the four best-known Democratic primary candidates. The show will be broadcast from 7 p.m. to 7: 30 p.m. on Channel 22.The program will be a warm-up for two-hour prime-time debates. WBAL-TV 11 will hold a debate Monday night. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume will be the host. WMAR-TV 2 will hold its debate Sept. 7, one week before the primary Sept.

LANSING, Mich. -- In the existing public climate of dissatisfaction with both major political parties, the phenomenon fringe-party candidacies has blossomed this fall. Would-be Ross Perots are popping up all over the country, and they are proving harder to ignore by the news media as voters look sympathetically, if not supportively, on those willing to offer an alternative.Their insistent presence poses a dilemma for the major-party candidates, and especially for sponsors of candidate debates including radio and television stations.

Even the most ardent fan of local politics would have come away stuffed yesterday at the candidates' forum at the Florence Bain Senior Center in Columbia.Those who stayed the whole two hours and 30 minutes witnessed a political marathon shared by nearly 40 candidates and their surrogates in every race from governor to school board to party central committee member. It didn't matter that candidates outnumbered the hosts, the Senior Advocates, by nearly two to one. Seniors vote and the candidates know it.Twice as many candidates might have shown up had they known about the forum.

With the approach of tomorrow's election, Howard County's voters appear to be split into two camps -- and they aren't the partisan kind.On one side, there are those undaunted by the confusing cavalcade of candidates, offices, districts and ballot referendum questions facing county voters tomorrow.On the other, there are those who are overwhelmed.Columbia resident John Rogers, a former newspaper reporter who is starting a new information service, and Lois Jewell, a senior citizen who describes herself as a "dyed-in-the-wool" Republican, say they've got everything straight.

Defining a candidate's position on abortion used to be so easy -- a matter of "pro-life" or "pro-choice." But in this political year, some candidates are staking out a new middle ground, a place for politicians who say their opinions are too complex for labels.Candidates who a few years ago would have categorized themselves as "anti-abortion" or "pro-life" now say they'd prefer not to be described with the same words used for staunch opponents of abortion."I don't think anyone wins when you begin using labels, because it encourages single-issue voting," said Christopher McCabe, the Republican Senate candidate in District 14, Howard and Montgomery counties.