Democratic Congressional Campaign

Emboldened by recent victories in districts across the country that had long been safe bets for Republicans, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced yesterday that it would throw its financial and staffing resources behind Maryland candidate Frank Kratovil Jr. The national support bolsters the hopes of local Democrats that they have a shot at winning in Maryland's 1st Congressional District, which has been held by Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest...

Washington -Rep. Chris Van Hollen figured his mission was complete after Democrats bulked up their majority in Congress last fall. Letting someone else lead the House campaign committee would free him to advance on the leadership ladder. And he'd avoid blame if the party lost ground in the next election. It's been more than a century since a party added seats in the situation Democrats find themselves in now. "We have our work cut out for us," says the Maryland congressman in an interview.

WASHINGTON -- John Huang and his wife, Jane, gave several thousand dollars to congressional candidates in the last election, including a $5,000 donation to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to Federal Election Commission records.Among the handful of candidates receiving checks from Huang and his wife in the 1995-1996 election cycle were Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, an Illinois Democrat, who received $2,000, and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., another Illinois Democrat, who received $1,000.

Voters in Maryland's 1st Congressional District were urged to vote against Democrat Frank M. Kratovil Jr. because he agreed to a plea bargain involving a child molester. The assumption: Voters would see the two-term Queen Anne's County prosecutor as soft on crime, a hopeless liberal Democrat. It didn't work. Mr. Kratovil's accuser, Republican state Sen. Andy Harris, lost to Mr. Kratovil in a race almost everyone thought Mr. Harris would win. Across the nation, at many levels, negative campaigning was in full stride during the last election.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Baltimore lost a long-shot bid yesterday for the No. 3 position in the House Democratic hierarchy as the election-battered Democrats chose to stand by their current leaders.In balloting behind closed doors, Mr. Mfume lost by nearly a 3-to-1 margin to Rep. Vic Fazio of California, who will move up to become chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, from his current post as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The tally was 149-57.The vote totals were nearly identical to those cast in races for the two top leadership posts, which were retained by Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Rep. David E. Bonior of Michigan.

WASHINGTON -- House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt announced yesterday a new Democratic leadership structure, describing it as "the largest, the most diverse and the most inclusive in the history" of the House.The four chief deputies to Minority Whip David E. Bonior of Michigan will be Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Chet Edwards of Texas, John Lewis of Georgia and Bill Richardson of New Mexico.They also will join Missouri's Mr. Gephardt on a newly formed Democratic Policy Committee, which in turn will have three "special teams" of vice chairmen.

Democrat Connie Galiazzo DeJuliis, who is challenging Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. in the 2nd Congressional District, faces a widening financial gap -- with no relief in sight from national Democratic party and labor groups.Federal campaign finance reports due yesterday show that Republican Ehrlich, a freshman, collected nearly four times the money DeJuliis did during the first 16 days of October. DeJuliis raised $27,163 in the period, compared with $105,281 for Ehrlich.He had $236,000 left to spend, compared with her $32,700.

Republican Rep. Wayne Gilchrest charged in a TV debate last night that his Democratic opponent, Rep. Tom McMillen, has engaged in a negative campaign."

It has been 134 years since a speaker of the House of Representatives lost a re-election bid. After last Tuesday's voting in the state of Washington, some political analysts believe it may happen again this year.Washington has an open primary in which all candidates from both parties run against each other. The highest finisher from each party gets the nominations. Speaker Tom Foley was the only Democrat, and got 35 percent of the vote. A Republican won a four-way race with 30 percent. Considering that in 1992 Mr. Foley increased his primary vote by only 2 percentage points in the general election, Democrats are apprehensive.

WASHINGTON -- As congressional Democrats move to force President Bush to veto a war spending bill that would start a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, they are simultaneously pursuing a carefully crafted offensive aimed at another target: Republican lawmakers. In the charged debate over the war, the strategy aims to achieve Democratic objectives on both policy and political fronts, according to party leaders and aides. Convinced that Bush will never listen to their calls to bring troops home, senior Democrats have concluded that they must force Republicans to vote again and again in defense of the unpopular war until enough plead with the president to change course.

WASHINGTON - After leading his party to a gain of at least 19 seats in the House, Rep. Chris Van Hollen has agreed to another two-year term as chairman of the committee that works to elect more Democrats to the chamber. The challenge now confronting the Montgomery County Democrat is holding on to all the seats his party picked up in 2006 and 2008. Democrats rode public anger about the war in Iraq, the financial crisis and President Bush to an 81-seat majority over the past two elections, but many won in Republican districts that will likely prove difficult to defend.

WASHINGTON - Between them, Andy Harris and Frank Kratovil have raised more than $4 million in pursuit of the seat now held by Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest. Add to that the outside money now flooding the 1st District, and Maryland's most competitive House race this year could be the state's most expensive ever. So what does the anti-tax Club for Growth want in return for the $1.8 million it has sent Harris' way for the Republican primary and the general election this year?

In the closing weeks of their run for Congress, Andy Harris and Frank Kratovil have claimed a wish to get away from negative campaigning. But it seems they just can't help themselves. With the election in just four days - a period when campaign professionals advise office-seekers to drop attacks and send voters to the polls with a positive message - the state's most competitive race is ending pretty much as it began: With the candidates tearing into each other. Harris, a Republican state senator from Baltimore County who has cast Kratovil in recent advertisements as a "Martin O'Malley, tax-and-spend liberal," has opened a new line of attack this week: questioning the Democrat's handling of a pair of cases as the state's attorney in Queen Anne's County.

Democrats are expected to expand their majorities in the House and Senate this year. While Maryland has long seemed an unlikely place for the party to make gains, national Democratic leaders believe that the current political climate has improved their prospects here. Democratic prosecutor Frank Kratovil is mounting a strong challenge to GOP state Sen. Andy Harris in the Eastern Shore-based district left open by the Republican primary defeat of longtime Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest. National analysts have called the race a toss-up.

Maryland, we have ourselves a race. In a district that covers some of the most conservative terrain in the state, Republican Andy Harris is fighting off surging Democrat Frank Kratovil in a race shaped by aggressive advertising, a steep drop in fortunes for Harris' party nationwide and lots of outside money. The Eastern Shore-based district, which sent Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest to Washington nine times, was considered safe for the Republicans as recently as February. But Democrats now see a shot at picking up their seventh of Maryland's eight House seats.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen feels history peering over his shoulder. Tapped by Rep. Nancy Pelosi after she ascended to the House speaker's office to succeed Rep. Rahm Emanuel as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2007-2008 election cycle, the third-term congressman from Maryland's 8th District is tasked with protecting - or better, expanding - the speaker's thin majority in the House of Representatives. Ms. Pelosi's majority and speakership were won on the strength of 30 seats Democrats flipped in 2006.

NEWT! NEWT! NEWT! Remember this cry from exultant House Republicans as they proclaimed their speaker in the early days of the Gingrich revolution? It is heard no more, and for good reasons.A series of dumb remarks, which led this paper on Nov. 28 to counsel "the speaker to stop speaking so much," came just one day before the non-partisan Federal Elections Committee charged there was "an appearance of corruption" in the failure of GOPAC, a political action committee controlled by Mr. Gingrich, to register and report its support for the Georgia congressman's 1990 campaign for re-election.

Has Maryland ever exercised more power in Congress than it does right now? In the 110th Congress, the state's two Democratic senators and six Democratic representatives enjoy a degree of influence that may exceed any of the 109 previous sessions. Only 13 states have as many House Democrats as Maryland's six - and just eight of those states also boast two majority-party senators, as Maryland does in Barbara A. Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin. Even Wayne T. Gilchrest, one of the delegation's two House Republicans, frequently crosses the aisle to vote with the majority.

Emboldened by recent victories in districts across the country that had long been safe bets for Republicans, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced yesterday that it would throw its financial and staffing resources behind Maryland candidate Frank Kratovil Jr. The national support bolsters the hopes of local Democrats that they have a shot at winning in Maryland's 1st Congressional District, which has been held by Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest...

Still angry about this winter's bitter GOP primary, the chief fundraiser for Republican Congressman Wayne T. Gilchrest announced yesterday she will join the campaign of the Democratic challenger for Maryland's open 1st District. Lynn Caligiuri, who has been raising money for Gilchrest for the past decade, will now work against state Sen. Andy Harris, who unseated the nine-term incumbent by more than 10 points. She is also the wife of Gilchrest's chief of staff, who has appeared at an event for Republicans supporting Queen Anne's County State's Attorney Frank Kratovil Jr. Kratovil's campaign -- which faces an uphill battle in a district where voting patterns tilt toward the GOP -- is also set to gain help from the House's second-ranking Democrat, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer.