Maryland Republican Party

Playing host to about 250 Republican activists from around the Northeast, Maryland GOP officials said yesterday that they are beginning to generate renewed enthusiasm after the party suffered disastrous election results last year."

ALL IN ALL, IT WAS A good week for the Maryland Republican Party, which is still trying to erase nightmarish memories of the 1998 election.The party's legislative caucus struck an aggressive tone when it vowed to raise $1 million to help GOP candidates for the General Assembly in 2002 -- an unheard-of sum for the party.And the state's Republicans played host to more than 200 activists who went to Annapolis for the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference.But the party was dogged by rumors of high-level defections.

In a significant blow to the Maryland Republican Party, widely respected state Sen. Robert R. Neall plans to announce his switch to the Democratic Party tomorrow, according to several sources.Neall, a fiscal moderate who served as Anne Arundel County executive and was often mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate, has told friends he has grown uncomfortable in a Republican Party that has moved increasingly to the right.Neall declined to discuss his plans, saying he would issue a statement tomorrow.

After losing a spirited five-year quest that shook up Maryland politics, Ellen R. Sauerbrey said yesterday that she is giving up her ambition to become the state's first female governor.Sauerbrey expressed interest in taking over the leadership of the Maryland Republican Party, which she has helped transform into a credible force in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1. The state party chairwoman, Joyce Lyons Terhes, is retiring in December, and Sauerbrey acknowledged that she is considering whether she wants to take Terhes' place.

Ellen R. Sauerbrey, the defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate, said yesterday she will not attempt to become chairwoman of the Maryland Republican Party and threw her support to Richard D. Bennett, who ran with her this year for lieutenant governor."

HAVRE DE GRACE -- County Executive Chuck Ecker stirs like a sleepy bear out there in his Howard County den, blinking in the winter sunshine and making some vaguely gubernatorial noises. And from the Ellen Sauerbrey wing of the Maryland Republican Party there arises a squeaky, panic-stricken ''Eek!''Instantly, there is talk to the effect that if he becomes a candidate, Mr. Ecker will shatter the party's imagined unity, and make difficult if not impossible the task of ousting Parris Glendening from the governor's digs next year and replacing him with the first Republican chief executive in 30 years.

An unlikely pair will be appearing on the state's political stage soon.Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., the Republican from Maryland's 2nd District, has signed up a new political director -- Paul E. Schurick, a Democratic operative whose name is virtually synonymous with that of his former boss, William Donald Schaefer.Schurick, 41, who had worked for Schaefer since Schaefer was mayor of Baltimore, first as a bureaucrat in the city's job training program and later as Governor Schaefer's chief of staff, will start with Ehrlich's campaign organization Dec. 1."

Democrats joined Republicans and a citizens watchdog group yesterday to decry a fund-raising party held for Gov. Parris Glendening by a New Jersey firm during a time when the firm was seeking a multimillion-dollar health services contract for Maryland state employees.Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr., both Democrats, said accounts of the $1,000-a-ticket New York City reception on July 23 will redouble their commitment to tightening campaign fund-raising laws, including more frequent reporting.

Now it's Maryland's turn.After a month of fickle primary and caucus voting in far-flung states, voters in Maryland go to the polls today to help resolve the question of which Republican presidential candidate will take on President Clinton in November. The state also holds the distinction of being is the first in the nation this year to hold congressional primaries. Quiet contests are expected in all of the eight congressional districts except the 7th, where 32 candidates are battling to succeed former Rep. Kweisi Mfume.

Although the presidential campaign of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm stumbled badly in Louisiana, the head of his Maryland organization vowed yesterday to keep marching toward the March 5 primary here."

The Maryland Republican Party and the state elections board reached an agreement Friday that requires the strapped GOP to repay at least $2,000 a month to Michael S. Steele's campaign account, which state officials contend made an improper contribution. The parties had planned to finalize an agreement last week, but Jared DeMarinis, director of campaign finance at the State Board of Elections, said 11th-hour revisions proposed by the party were "unacceptable." Lawyers for both sides spent the past week in negotiations.

An agreement the Maryland Republican Party struck with the State Board of Elections unraveled in recent days, leaving uncertain how it will resolve what state officials contend was a violation of campaign finance laws. According to elections officials, former Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's campaign account made an improper $75,000 contribution to the Republican State Central Committee by covering legal fees the party incurred during a redistricting fight several years ago. The party, which has run into financial difficulties, agreed last week to incrementally repay the money to Steele, now the national GOP chairman.

The Maryland Republican Party faces its latest rebuilding effort after its chairman announced this week he is stepping down amid the organization's struggles to pay its bills and maintain relevance in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. Chairman James Pelura's announcement came about a year before the 2010 primary elections, when the GOP will select candidates to run against Democratic incumbents such as Gov. Martin O'Malley and Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski. Pelura will stay on through the party's convention Nov. 14. Pelura had repeatedly told executive board members that he did not plan to step down, even after receiving a vote of no confidence in July, so his resignation Monday night was "a little surprising," said Chris Cavey of Baltimore County, the party's first vice chairman.

Severn crash injures 10 in 2 vehicles Ten people, four of them children, were involved in a two-vehicle crash Sunday night in Severn. One of the adults, a 22-year-old man, was transported by helicopter to Maryland Shock Trauma, with what Anne Arundel Fire Department Battalion Chief Matt Tobia called "life-threatening injuries." Two other men, ages 21 and 28, were taken there with "serious" but not life-threatening injuries, Tobia said. Two of the children, a 9-year-old boy and a 3-year-old boy, were taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital for further evaluation, also with serious but not life-threatening injuries.

The Maryland Republican Party, reeling from the loss of the governor's mansion, is nearly broke, according to a copy of its financial statement obtained by The Sun. The state GOP treasurer's report from July 31 shows the party had $4,615 in cash and $50,500 in debt. Because of lackluster fundraising, the party operated at a $103,536 deficit in the first six months of the year. A report from the party's accountants shows that funding from major donors has dried up, and that the party's major annual fundraising event, the Red, White and Blue Dinner, netted $15,572, less than 10 percent of the amount the party had been counting on. The poor fundraising comes at a time when conservative and moderate wings of the party are fighting over whether the party should take sides in state Sen. Andrew P. Harris' primary challenge to Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest, a stark contrast to the unity and strength that the party displayed during former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s term.

The Maryland Republican Party selected an Anne Arundel County veterinarian as its new chairman yesterday as members work to rebuild after a poor showing in November's election. Jim Pelura, a longtime Republican activist, was the state chairman for President Bush's re-election campaign and the Anne Arundel chairman for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s campaign this year. He replaces Montgomery County businessman John Kane, who led the GOP for the past four years. Pelura was selected at an annual convention in Annapolis.

Their party reeling from the loss of the governorship and seats in the legislature, several Republicans in the House of Delegates are pushing for new leadership and a move away from the confrontational tactics that defined relations between the GOP and Democratic General Assembly leaders for the past four years. The drive for more cooperation is the first move in what is expecting to be a post-election retrenching for the state GOP. Top party posts in the state Senate are also up for grabs, and the Maryland Republican Party is likely to select a new chairman to oversee operations.

Among those washed away by the Democratic tide on Tuesday were some African-American Republicans who were put forward by national party bigwigs as the new, changing face of the GOP. The most prominent - Michael S. Steele, who ran for the U.S. Senate from Maryland, and J. Kenneth Blackwell and Lynn Swann, gubernatorial candidates from Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively - offer lessons in defeat to which Republicans should pay careful attention. There's nothing wrong with trying to remind black voters, one of the Democrats' most loyal groups, that they should not be taken for granted.

Eight weeks after a botched primary brought national attention to the state - and thrust the act of voting to the forefront of several statewide races - Maryland officials and thousands of poll workers pulled together an election yesterday that was nearly glitch free. But while the electronic voting system hummed along smoothly inside the polling places - shouldering what appeared to be a higher-than-expected number of voters - a raucous political battle was taking place just outside, with Democrats crying foul over literature distributed for the state's two top Republicans.

With Maryland's close gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races likely to hinge on voter turnout, political parties and interest groups are orchestrating what might be the state's most extensive get-out-the-vote efforts in a midterm election. From church-organized precinct walks in West Baltimore to elaborate suburban phone bank operations, thousands of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been poured into Maryland's vote-flushing armies, each fighting for the same elusive - and potentially decisive - prize: the voter who needs a push to make it to the polls tomorrow.