Democratic And Republican

Here are the candidates who filed papers by yesterday's 9 p.m. deadline to enter Baltimore's Democratic and Republican primaries for mayor, comptroller and City Council president. Mayor Democrats Phillip A. Brown Jr. Andrey Bundley Jill P. Carter Frank M. Conaway Sheila Dixon (incumbent) A. Robert Kaufman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr. Mike Schaefer Republican Elbert R. Henderson City Council President Democrats Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake (incumbent) Kenneth N. Harris Sr. Michael Sarbanes Charles Ulysses Smith Republicans none Comptroller Democrat Joan M. Pratt (incumbent)

When it comes to fixing America's ballooning debt problem, there is one policy option that both Democrats and Republicans should be rushing to embrace. It is the proposal to replace the current Consumer Price Index (CPI) with a more accurate measure of price inflation: the Chained-CPI. If this index were used to calculate cost of living increases in Social Security benefits, income tax brackets and the like, the government could realize significant savings. The current CPI's exaggerated estimates of inflation are a wasteful leak in the fiscal pipeline.

Two years before the 2002 election, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend holds a commanding lead over her prospective Democratic and Republican rivals in the governor's race, according to a poll released yesterday. The survey of registered voters, conducted Aug. 23 through Monday by Gonzales/Arscott Research & Communications Inc., shows Townsend with a 52 percent to 29 percent lead over U.S. Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who is considered a possible Republican candidate. She was favored by 49 percent of Democrats, compared with 12 percent for Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, 10 percent for Baltimore County's C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger and 8 percent for Prince George's County's Wayne K. Curry

Years ago I heard someone say that if you can write the problem on the board, it is half solved. Several times I have found it to be true. Letter writer John Brown did not correctly address the Republican's problem or the nation's ("The GOP lost because it's out of touch," Nov. 28). Too many people are jobless and living at poverty level with inadequate medical care while our nation is rapidly increasing its debt. But that is not the problem. That is the situation. And no one disagrees with it - not Democrats, not liberals, not journalists, not even Republicans.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers have closed ranks, salvaging a bipartisan coalition to challenge the state's new congressional districts before the U.S. Supreme Court.A subcommittee of the county's Democrat-controlled General Assembly delegation asked Annapolis lawyer John Greiber Monday to appeal a lower court's decision upholding the new districts."We've promised to back him with all the moral and financial support within our wherewithal," said Del. Victor Sulin, D-Severn.Del. John Gary, R-Millersville, said: "There was no question the Republicans were willing to do it. But it has more impact if the Democrats stick with us. That is very important."

Several of the county's leading environmental and social activists endorsed Democrat Theodore Sophocleus for county executive yesterday.The activists, who have formed a political action committee, said they will support Mr. Sophocleus, a state delegate and former county councilman from Linthicum, with money and volunteers.Mary Rosso, chairwoman for Anne Arundel Voters for Environmental Justice, said Mr. Sophocleus, the Democratic nominee for executive four years ago, expressed the clearest support for the group's goals and was considered the most "electable" of the six Democratic and Republican candidates.

Selecting a presidential nominee on Tuesday is only half the job for voters. They also have to choose delegates for the Democratic and Republican national conventions.On the Republican side, the task is simple: Pick three candidates from a long list of convention hopefuls. Those who are on the Buchanan or Bush slates are so indicated. The winners will be the ones with the highest vote totals in each district.The Democratic balloting is complex. Depending on your congressional district, you'll choose 5, 6 or 7 convention delegates.

In contests for the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates, Howard Countians enjoy an embarrassment of riches in the number of well-qualified candidates, Democratic and Republican.In the District 13 Senate race, two-term Democratic incumbent Thomas M. Yeager faces a spirited challenge from Guy L. Harriman of Laurel, a moderate Republican who has never held public office. In our view Yeager, a member of the Senate Ethics Committee and Judicial Proceedings Committee and a key aide to Senate President Mike Miller, is the better choice.

THE QUESTION: When are the city of Annapolis elections? Annapolis will hold primaries for mayor and city council on Sept. 20, and its general election on Nov. 8. In the mayor's race, Democratic incumbent Ellen O. Moyer and Republican George O. Kelley Sr. do not face opposition from candidates within their own party. Still, they will appear on their respective party's ballot on Sept. 20. Moyer is completing her first term as mayor, a post held by her ex-husband "Kip." Kelley is a former Annapolis police officer who switched political parties earlier this year.

WASHINGTON -- Republican lawmakers have stepped up pressure on Democrats to schedule congressional hearings into the Whitewater affair, as special counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr. wound down the initial phase of his investigation of President Clinton's role in the failed Arkansas land venture.Ending what had been the Clinton administration's first extended respite from GOP criticism over Whitewater, more than 90 House Republicans led by Rep. John T. Doolittle, R-Calif., introduced a resolution yesterday calling for concurrent hearings by five congressional committees.

Your article, "New budget to renew battles" (Feb. 12) points out the stark and perhaps unprecedented separation between our two major political parties. Democrats continue to display timidity and confusion and are often too ready to compromise, but they have generally proposed balanced approaches to solving the nation's ills. Republicans on the other hand have taken several extreme and dangerous positions. All current candidates have pledged to reverse Roe v. Wade and to forcibly evict some 12 million undocumented workers and their families.

President Barack Obama's news conference Wednesday - his first in 15 weeks - made clear his strategy for reelection is the same old clarion call for class warfare, pitting the evil rich against the saintly poor. "I think it's only fair," said the president, "to ask an oil company or a corporate jet owner that's doing so well to give up that tax break. …I don't think that's so radical. " In fact, he mentioned "corporate jet owners" half a dozen times during his appearance.

I just can't take this anymore. I am sick of the Democrats (tax the rich) and Republicans (cut programs but not defense) and their endless back and forth about who is to blame for the deficit. Guess what gang? Both of you are. A perfect example of this is the commentary on June 7 titled "Tax cuts for the rich have made us poorer" by Rion Dennis and Roger Rath. All they do is complain about the Bush tax cuts. Could we slightly increase the tax rates for the very wealthy? Yes. But they fail to address the biggest problem in this country.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a GOP presidential candidate, was on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, and, as usual, the congressman skewered at least one sacred cow of American politics.  Paul's target this time? The notion that Republicans and Democrats are diametrically opposed political parties. You know, the idea that they're bitter political opponents. They fight over everything. They hate each other.  But the truth is, Paul said, they're the same party.  "We don’t have a good democratic process," Paul said.

Bipartisanship broke out in the lame-duck Congress. Most notably, Republicans voted with Democrats for the New Start treaty with Russia and the end of a 17-year ban on openly gay soldiers. Does this signal a new era of bipartisanship in 2011? No chance. Neither of these victories had anything to do with the economy or taxes — in other words, with the central question of who gets what in America. President Barack Obama couldn't get a single Republican to agree to limit the Bush tax cuts to the first $250,000 of income.

Both candidates in the Baltimore County Council District 3 race had some confessing to do at a community forum this week, but neither man revealed the full extent of his past troubles with the law. Democrat Ben Sutley and Republican Todd Huff were asked at the end of a 90-minute forum at The Lodge in Oregon Ridge on Monday night to talk about their own past conduct. The question, submitted by a member of the audience anonymously, reflected that word of Sutley's and Huff's legal troubles has been circulating for months, but neither had been asked openly to talk about it. Neither man went into detail about the incidents, which in Sutley's case involved driving while intoxicated and drug charges, and in Huff's case a conviction for leaving the scene of an accident, charges of passing a bad check and a handgun violation.

WASHINGTON -- Colin L. Powell believes it would be difficult.Newt Gingrich says it would be a disaster.Ross Perot thinks it would be a world-class success.Politicians and historians used to debate whether a presidential candidate running as an independent could win. Now, they are mulling whether an independent candidate, having won the presidency, could govern the nation.That the topic is being debated at all testifies that, perhaps more than at any other time in the last half-century, the notion of an independent or third-party president seems, if not probable, at least possible.

WASHINGTON - Democrats are likely to vote unanimously against John R. Bolton when his nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations comes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week, according to Democratic and Republican lawmakers and aides. It would mark the first time committee Democrats have unanimously opposed a Bush diplomatic nominee and would put the nomination in peril if any Republicans defected to vote against him. But Republicans say they believe the outspoken conservative will win solid GOP backing in the committee, including from the moderate Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who has voiced reservations about Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador.

WASHINGTON -- Spurred by the public's deepening fears of deadly imports, Congress is moving to give federal health officials the added money and new police powers they have long wanted to fix a broken drug safety system. After years of criticizing the Food and Drug Administration's failures, Democratic and Republican legislators are coming together on strengthening the embattled agency. "FDA is overstretched in terms of its responsibilities and underfunded," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said at a hearing last week on the agency's troubles.

ATLANTA -- About 70 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, a striking indication of a profound malaise not seen since the days of Jimmy Carter. In 1980, Ronald Reagan not only defeated Mr. Carter in his re-election bid, but Mr. Reagan also ushered in an era of Republican dominance that lasted for a generation. President Bill Clinton had a great run, capitalizing on a heady time when the Berlin Wall was but a memory to consign budget deficits to the dustbin (temporarily)