Democratic Governors

ST. LOUIS -- Gov. Parris N. Glendening's fellow Democrats chose him yesterday to head the National Governors' Association next year, the culmination of Glendening's assiduous campaign for a job that could thrust him into the national spotlight during the 2000 presidential race.Nineteen state and territorial governors selected Glendening to become the association's vice chairman starting today, a position from which he will automatically rise to chairman next summer.The job will give Glendening something of a national stage.

LISTEN carefully to the keening in Republican ranks after this year's election, and you can hear a distinct echo of the Democratic lament during the party's darkest days of the 1980s.After the massacre of 1984, when President Reagan won 49 states in a record-setting re-election, Democrats still controlled 34 governorships, three more than Republicans do now. As they picked through the wreckage, smart Democratic governors such Arizona's Bruce Babbitt (now the Interior secretary) all asked themselves the same question: Why are my party's national leaders sinking like lead in the same states where we're golden?

MIAMI -- Fresh from victories in Virginia and New Jersey, Republican governors met in Miami over the weekend to plot strategy for 36 gubernatorial elections in 1998. They declared that education would be the next issue they would use to try to move power from Washington to the states.On top of the Republicans' education agenda is a request that Congress and the Department of Education eliminate federally required paperwork and regulations on schools."What we want Congress to do with education is exactly what it did with welfare three years ago," said South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, the incoming chairman of the Republican Governors' Association.

WASHINGTON -- Some Republican governors who earlier championed GOP proposals to overhaul welfare have signed a letter critical of the current bill that would give states more control over the money but restrict those who can receive benefits.A five-page letter from leaders of the National Governors Association -- which last month fell into partisan bickering over welfare reform -- attacks most of the bill, including the plan to deny benefits to legal immigrants and unwed teen-age mothers and their children.

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Presidential candidate Bill Clinton, bolstered by strong endorsements from fellow Democratic governors, responded punch for punch yesterday to a new Republican ad that belittles his record as governor of Arkansas.The yet-to-be-aired ad reportedly declares that Mr. Clinton is "a failed governor from a small state."Mr. Clinton, flanked by 17 Democratic colleagues who assembled here for today's start of the 84th annual meeting of the National Governors' Association, replied: "I think I'm running against a failed president of a big country."

BELLE MEAD, N.J. -- It was a "photo op" designed as a metaphor for a campaign, and one bound to produce a cliche.In this rural crossroads about 15 miles north of Princeton, on a gravel driveway between two lines of split rail fence, in the midst of lush fields of vines bent by the weight of ripening grapes, stood Bill Clinton, the Arkansas governor who would be president of the United States.The Democrat had flown into New Jersey on the eve of last weekend's annual meeting of the National Governors' Association, an organization he successfully used for more than FTC a decade to gain experience and exposure on national issues ranging from education to welfare reform.

WASHINGTON -- Several Democratic governors provoked President Bush into an angry exchange yesterday by unleashing a surprise attack on his economic growth proposals during a White House meeting at which he sought their help in lobbying the plan through Congress.In the latest sign of a White House promotional campaign gone awry, Mr. Bush was suddenly confronted on his home turf with charges that his plan was full of gimmicks and would add to the nation's "sewer of debt." He quickly fired back with a challenge to the governors to put themselves on the record for a tax increase and name what military bases they would close.

GOV. ROY ROMER of Colorado contributed a welcome whiff of reality to an otherwise sanitized, stage-managed meeting at the White House last week between President Bush and a group of governors. Mr. Romer, apparently venting feelings shared by other Democratic governors, spurned protocol and actually talked back to the president about his budget proposals."The easiest and cheapest trick in the world," complained spokesman Marlin Fitzwater on Tuesday, "is to be rude to the president to try to get into the news."

WASHINGTON -- The White House, caught off guard by attacks on President Bush's economic package, found itself on the defensive as the president was confronted by visiting Democratic governors who spurned his request that they rally behind his plan.The unexpected face-to-face ambush yesterday and a less-than-enthusiastic public response to the proposal added a new worrying note to the calculations of Bush advisers who had hoped that the unveiling of the long-awaited package would spark a rebound in the president's political fortunes.

IT IS already an overworn cliche that the voters are angry, alienated and demanding "change" in 1992. But what are they angry about specifically?The people who voted for Pat Buchanan or "uncommitted" in the Republican primaries last winter were probably angry at George Bush. But whether they embraced Buchanan's "America First" platform is doubtful.The people who voted for Paul Tsongas in the Democratic primaries were arguably angry at traditional liberal Democrats. But their anger at seemingly perpetual Democratic losses of the White House bore little resemblance to Republican anger at George Bush.

The nation's governors are caught between the crisis of growing numbers of uninsured residents and proposed federal health care solutions that could make a significant dent in their own battered budgets. States received an indication this week of the price they might pay for health care overhaul. The Congressional Budget Office estimated state spending on Medicaid would increase by about $33 billion over a decade under a leading proposal set for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee next Tuesday.

Dan Rodricks debuts his weekly, online-only column. (His print column still appears twice a week.) Today, read about how Republican Robert Ehrlich stands out from recent Democratic governors in criminal justice matters.

With congressional action on a fiscal stimulus package by year's end far from certain, Gov. Martin O'Malley and other state leaders are pinning their hopes for the economy and besieged state budgets on an Obama administration that takes over in January. Barack Obama, in the full swing of his transition to the White House, pledged yesterday that a "big" stimulus package to "jolt the economy back into shape" is a top priority. Already, O'Malley and Democratic governors around the nation are compiling wish lists that include more federal support for health care and infrastructure and more resources for National Guard units stretched thin by Iraq deployments.

WASHINGTON - Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to appear tomorrow at a Barack Obama event designed to portray unity among Democratic governors and to illustrate an economy that party leaders say has weakened during a Republican administration. Obama has invited Democratic governors to Chicago for an "economic discussion." The campaign has not disclosed a full list of attendees, but O'Malley's office confirmed his participation. O'Malley was an early backer of Sen. Hillary Clinton, and he is among a group of Democratic governors who are now pivoting to show support for Obama.

Maybe it's just the early jockeying for position, but the special legislative session set for Oct. 29 will test some home truths. Democratic governors of Maryland almost always have their way with the legislature. The governor has immense power that he is almost always ready to use to push his agenda. This year may illustrate that dynamic yet again, but there are differences that threaten the governor's effort to solve the state's budget dilemma: a $1.7 billion deficit that will grow if more revenue is not provided.

Now and then, Maryland legislators go off on their own and run the show. Over the last decade or two, mini-revolts have been triggered by various crises: a failing savings and loan industry and public employee pension reform, for example. Both involved bread-and-butter issues and powerful groups of votes. This year, it was rapidly rising energy prices that drew lawmakers to fix something they had helped to create by deregulating electricity prices. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. suffered the political equivalent of a brownout.

Partisanship clear in account of state firings Whether one agrees with them or not, columnists are understood to offer their opinions. But the alleged news reports of reporter David Nitkin increasingly are cover for opinion columns. For instance, Mr. Nitkin's article "Ehrlich denies wholesale firing of Democrats" (Feb. 12), which notes that Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. denied "his administration employed a roving band of loyalists to purge state agencies of Democrats deep in the bureaucracy," is a cleverly disguised editorial.

WASHINGTON - Still licking their wounds after the defeat of their 2004 presidential nominee, the Democrats are turning to the task of finding a new leader, or at least a new spokesman, to put their party back on track. In a preliminary audition in Orlando, Fla., last weekend, eight prospective candidates for Democratic national chairman offered their prescriptions at a meeting of the Association of State Democratic Chairs. Previously, Democratic governors had let it be known they intend to have a say in the direction of the party.

Still reeling from the party's gubernatorial defeat, Maryland Democrats are groping to find a unifying message to counter Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s mantra of no new taxes and smaller government. Party leaders concede that since Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's loss in November, they have yet to find a cohesive strategy or the person to take charge of executing it. "We don't have the bully pulpit. We don't speak with one voice. We're on the outs," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, one of the state's most seasoned Democratic politicians.

WASHINGTON - The nation's Democratic governors, who fell short in November of achieving a majority of seats in the country, made the most of the situation here the other day in mapping plans for teamwork in the year ahead. With the Republicans still holding a 26-24 edge in governorships, Gov. Gary Locke of Washington, the Democratic Governors' Association chairman, did some quick arithmetic. He announced the Democratic governors will represent 53 percent of the nation's population when the party's new winners in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin are sworn in. By holding a majority of the largest states, he reasoned, "we're now the leaders of this great country," a contention that surely would be challenged by a Republican Party that not only still claims more governors but also the White House and both houses of Congress.