National Convention

The president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP says it looks as if the city is a good bet to host the civil rights organization's national convention in 2012, which happens to be the 100th anniversary of the local branch. "It looks favorable," Marvin L. "Doc" Cheatham said Wednesday, a day after he, Mayor Sheila Dixon and representatives of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association and the Baltimore Convention Center made a 20-minute pitch to an NAACP panel considering proposals for that year's gathering.

WASHINGTON - Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will become the secretary of the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday, giving her a prominent role in national politics. The appointment, which has not been formally announced, will give Rawlings-Blake a voice in the party's national political apparatus at a time when President Barack Obama is beginning his second term and several Democrats - including Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley - are thought to be jockeying for the 2016 nomination.

NEW YORK - "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future," as Yogi Berra once said. Nevertheless, an intriguing glimpse at the next generation of GOP leadership could be found this week on the streets and in the saloons of midtown Manhattan during the Republican National Convention. At one elegant spot, optimistically called the Windfall Bar and Grill, the state chairmen of the College Republican National Committee held a happy-hour gathering with no less of a featured attraction than one of their own alumni, Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist.

National men's lacrosse runner-up Maryland had a conference-high five players picked to the Preseason All-Atlantic Coast Conference team in Inside Lacrosse's Face-Off Yearbook. The Terps selections were midfielder John Haus , short-stick defensive midfielder Landon Carr , long-stick midfielder Jesse Bernhardt , defenseman Goran Murray and goalie Niko Amato . North Carolina attackman Marcus Holman (Gilman) and faceoff specialist R.G. Keenan (Boys' Latin)

The US Lacrosse national convention returns to Baltimore for three years in 2009 - to a city known as the capital of lacrosse and home to its museum and National Hall of Fame. The winter convention, which features clinics for coaches and officials of both men's and women's lacrosse, was last held in Baltimore in 2003 and is now booked for the Baltimore Convention Center from 2009 to 2011. In recent years, it has been held in Philadelphia. "We were working on this for a long time," Ronnie L. Burt, interim president and chief executive officer of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association, said yesterday.

NEW YORK - Thousands of abortion-rights supporters marched over the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday in what organizers called the largest demonstration devoted to that issue in New York in three decades. The protest, which opened a third day of demonstrations aimed at the Republican National Convention, occurred as hundreds of bicycle-riding protesters who were arrested a night earlier were arraigned in a Manhattan court, many having been held on minor charges for many hours before being released.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Fearful of celebratory images as a hurricane headed for the Gulf Coast, Republicans scrapped an opening night convention program that was to have featured speeches by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. "This is a time when we do away with our party politics," the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, said yesterday, shortly after Bush announced he would not travel to Minnesota for his planned convention address tonight. The national convention would open on schedule with an "abbreviated" session of routine business but no prime-time speeches, McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, said.

Jim Foster, 55, a founder of the gay movement in the United States, died Wednesday in San Francisco of complications from AIDS. A longtime Democratic Party organizer, he became the first openly gay person to address a national political gathering at the party's 1972 national convention in Miami.

Howard women go to VFW auxiliary national convention Sandra Kriebel of Ellicott City, a member of Yingling-Ridgely Auxiliary No. 7472, participated in the 89th national convention of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Veteran of Foreign Wars from Aug. 24-30 in Nashville, Tenn. The convention marked the beginning of her 2002-2003 term as chairwoman for the 12 states in the Eastern Conference on the Americanism program. Carole Betro of Elkridge also attended. She is national extension director/chief of staff for 2002-2003.

Southern Baptists will go back to the future when they begin their national convention in Houston tomorrow.Fourteen years ago in Houston, the Baptists began a "holy war" that divided the nation's largest Protestant group into fundamentalist and moderate camps.The fundamentalists stunned moderates at the 1979 gathering when the Rev. Adrian Rogers of Memphis, Tenn., won the presidency from moderate candidates, who had had a hammerlock on leadership for more than a decade.It was the beginning of a series of fundamentalist victories that have left that faction in sole control of the 15.5 million-member national convention.

US Lacrosse and Major League Lacrosse announced today that the 2013 Major League Lacrosse Collegiate Draft will take place Friday, Jan. 11, in Philadelphia as part of the US Lacrosse National Convention. Coming off their league championship last season, the Chesapeake Bayhawks will have the eighth overall selection. The draft begins at 8:30 p.m. in the Liberty Ballroom of the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. The draft is open to the public, and admission is free. Tickets to the convention can be purchased here . Former Philadelphia Eagles, St. Louis Rams and Kansas City Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil will deliver the keynote address at 7 p.m. “We'd like to thank US Lacrosse for working to include our collegiate draft into an impressive lineup of activities at the US Lacrosse National Convention,” said David Gross, commissioner of Major League Lacrosse.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley offered pointed criticism of Republicans in an address to the Democratic convention on Tuesday, arguing that President Barack Obama is best suited to right the U.S. economy while GOP nominee Mitt Romney's policies would only move the nation backward. The Democrat said Obama's policies have helped the middle class despite recession and stubbornly high unemployment - to a crowd that chanted with him, "forward, not back. " Though he never mentioned President George W. Bush by name, the address was clearly an attempt to tie Romney and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan to the former GOP administration that ended a second term with low approval ratings.

When Gov. Martin O'Malley takes the stage at the Democratic convention to give the most important speech of his political career, he'll have to deliver on one deceptively simple goal: He'll need to make people want to hear more. As an increasingly polished speaker and in-demand message man for his party, O'Malley will have an opportunity in Charlotte to solidify his standing as a possible presidential candidate in 2016. He'll also get the chance to redeem himself from the last time he stood on a convention stage eight years ago and flubbed it with a speech criticized as pretentious.

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulskiwill have a speaking role at the Democratic National Convention, aides said Wednesday. The Maryland Democrat, who this year became the longest-serving woman in congressional history, will lead a program highlighting the record 12 women running this year for Senate. “In this historic election, with more Democratic women running for Senate at one time than ever before, we have a tremendous opportunity to elect women and hold the Senate for Democrats,” Mikulski said in a statement.

With the presidential convention season upon us, political and campaign junkies will most likely find Stan Haynes' recently published book, "The First American Political Conventions: Transforming Presidential Nominations, 1832-1872," a fascinating and entertaining look at the way these quadrennial gatherings used to be — before primaries and caucuses took all the drama and fun out of them. The years covered by Haynes, a Semmes, Bowen & Semmes attorney and Ellicott City resident, marked a critical time in the nation, with issues that included the Panic of 1837, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Julie Minch has 60 daffodils cooling their petals in her refrigerator — and her fingers crossed. Wouldn't you know it? The Maryland Daffodil Society, the oldest in the nation, is the host of the national show and convention next weekend, and a strangely warm winter means the flower's season has come and nearly gone. "It is a little scary," said Minch of Baltimore and the convention chair. "But the Mid-Atlantic is such a perfect place to grow daffodils — and we have them coming in from other pockets of the country — so we are still hoping to get 2,000 blooms.

WASHINGTON - Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will become the secretary of the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday, giving her a prominent role in national politics. The appointment, which has not been formally announced, will give Rawlings-Blake a voice in the party's national political apparatus at a time when President Barack Obama is beginning his second term and several Democrats - including Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley - are thought to be jockeying for the 2016 nomination.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The NAACP national convention held an unprecedented presentation on crime yesterday, but more than half the delegates walked out early, saying they wanted some ideas for solutions, not a repetition of already known statistics.Under increasing criticism that it is not spending enough attention to inner-city streets, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People organized the workshop to demonstrate its commitment to grass-roots concerns.Statistics on crime were gathered for the last several months.

The president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP says it looks as if the city is a good bet to host the civil rights organization's national convention in 2012, which happens to be the 100th anniversary of the local branch. "It looks favorable," Marvin L. "Doc" Cheatham said Wednesday, a day after he, Mayor Sheila Dixon and representatives of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association and the Baltimore Convention Center made a 20-minute pitch to an NAACP panel considering proposals for that year's gathering.

ST. PAUL, MINN. - A self-assured Sarah Palin passed a huge test this week by skillfully executing the biggest speech of her career. Now comes another question: What's next? Palin won high marks from both parties for her delivery of an address that attracted a record-breaking audience for a vice presidential nominee and buttressed her worth as the first woman on a Republican ticket. But the role she will play as the campaign enters its most critical phase remains uncertain. Poll numbers released in the days ahead will show how well Palin has been received by a voting public that split, largely along party lines, over the content of the message she delivered Wednesday.