Democratic Nomination

WASHINGTON -- Bill Richardson, the avuncular governor of New Mexico, an internationalist with a gold-plated resume, announced yesterday his intention to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, making history as the first Latino to have a credible chance to lead a national ticket. On paper, Richardson's credentials are unassailable. He has served as a member of Congress, ambassador to the United Nations, energy secretary and, since, 2002, the governor of a state in the heart of the rapidly growing Sun Belt.

Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin held a substantial lead over friend and former colleague Kweisi Mfume in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate early this morning, leaving Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele waiting to learn who his opponent would be in one of the most closely watched general election races in the nation. As expected, Steele easily won the Republican nomination for the seat now occupied by Democratic Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes. Sarbanes announced last year that he would not seek a sixth term, giving Maryland its first open Senate seat in 20 years.

It was early in the campaign, as Kweisi Mfume remembers it, a private moment shortly after Benjamin L. Cardin joined him in the race for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. It would be the first time in their long political careers that the old friends and collaborators would be running against each other. "I said to him and Myrna [Cardin's wife], `This is probably the most awkward thing you and I are going to do,'" Mfume recalled. "`But we've got to do it, now that you're in.'" They entered Congress together, the black City Council member from West Baltimore and the Jewish former speaker of the House of Delegates from Baltimore County.

In his four years in the state Senate, Democrat John A. Giannetti Jr. has made a name for himself by sponsoring lots of bills, churning out a steady stream of news releases and sometimes siding on high-profile votes with Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. His brash, gregarious manner has distinguished the 42-year-old lawyer in the General Assembly, but it has also put off many of his fellow Democrats, who have sometimes questioned his party allegiance and...

Settling in behind the podium at the Keswick Multi-Care Center, Kweisi Mfume thanked the elderly residents for their applause. Then he expressed gratitude for the lives they had lived. "I would be remiss ... if I didn't first take time simply to thank all of you in this room," he told the 50 men and women, most of them in wheelchairs, who gathered in a community room at the skilled nursing and adult care facility in North Baltimore yesterday. "I want to thank you for your contributions to our country," said Mfume, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

Kweisi Mfume stepped onto the shop floor of the English American Tailoring Co. yesterday and looked at the women cutting pieces of fabric, working sewing machines and pressing new suits. "I used to work in a place like this," he observed, and described his three years at an auto parts plant in West Baltimore. Having made the connection, he started to work the room. The visit to the Westminster shop was Mfume's latest foray from Baltimore, where the former congressman and chief of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has been a public figure for more than 30 years, to a corner of the state where he is far less familiar.

Carroll County's Democratic Central Committee nominated seven candidates for county and state elected office by yesterday's deadline for naming party members to fill vacancies on the ballot. Democratic candidates face an arduous battle in Carroll, where the majority of registered voters are Republicans. The only Democrat who had filed to run for the county Board of Commissioners by the original July 3 filing deadline withdrew last week. The three Democratic commissioner candidates, who all live in Sykesville, are Dennis E. Beard, 60, a retired Howard County firefighter; Vincent F. DiPietro, 67, a retired electrical engineer from the Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt; and Richard F. Solomon, 53, a senior planner at First Data, a credit-card-transaction company.

Bethesda -- With a populist message and a few digs at the front-runners, politics professor and commentator Allan J. Lichtman entered the race for the U.S. Senate yesterday. Though he has never run for office, Lichtman told a crowd of supporters gathered at the North Bethesda Middle School that he will capture the Democratic nomination and win the general election by waging a grass-roots campaign against corporate interests and the Washington establishment. "I am running to change what is wrong in Washington," he said.

WASHINGTON - Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen announced yesterday that he would not run for Maryland's vacant U.S. Senate seat next year, ending months of speculation over whether the second-term congressman would join the race to replace retiring Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes. His demurral leaves Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin of Baltimore and Kweisi Mfume, former head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, as the main contestants for the Democratic nomination - at least for now. A political analyst said Cardin was more likely to benefit from Van Hollen's decision, the theory being that if both congressmen were in the race, there was the potential for a split in the white vote that would have worked to Mfume's advantage.

WASHINGTON - Top Democrats fell in line behind incoming party Chairman Howard Dean yesterday, muting any doubts they might harbor about his re-emergence on the national scene and what that could mean for their struggling party. The Democratic leaders of Congress, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, joined a pair of prospective '08 presidential contenders in praising Dean to members of the Democratic National Committee at the start of their annual gathering here.