National Party

Washington - Seconds before he won the title of national Republican chairman, Michael S. Steele turned to his sister, Monica, who was standing at his side in the crowded Capital Hilton ballroom, and grinned. "We're going to have some fun," he told her. A sunny, magnetic personality helped Steele capture the job, and that upbeat image may be his most potent weapon in motivating a beleaguered party organization. Steele brings badly needed diversity to a national party that, according to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, just had its worst showing among minority voters in 150 years.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The ruling African National Congress failed by a single seat to win the two-thirds parliamentary majority it sought in last week's election, according to final vote results released last night.Voters effectively handed the party, led by president-in-waiting Thabo Mbeki, an overwhelming victory, with 66.5 percent of the vote, while barely withholding the ultimate veto-proof, constitution-amending legislative power.This relaxed opposition parties, which feared ANC might tinker with the constitution, and international markets, which worried about a possible threat to the independence of the South African reserve bank.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The African National Congress, under its new leader, Thabo Mbeki, won a bigger victory in elections this week than five years ago and was headed for a commanding two-thirds majority in Parliament."

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South Africa is gearing up for its second democratic election since the apartheid era, but lack of funding, a court challenge over identification requirements and low voter registration threaten the success of the ballot in this fledgling democracy.The watershed election, marking a transfer of power from President Nelson Mandela to his heir-apparent, Thabo Mbeki, is widely predicted for May. It must be held by July.The campaign will be markedly different from that of 1994, which celebrated the nation's liberation from apartheid by electing the first black-majority government.

WASHINGTON -- Democrats who only days ago feared that the White House sex scandal would cripple their candidates in a midterm election year now say that, to their amazement, the crisis might be galvanizing party loyalists and bolstering efforts to raise money.In interviews over the past few days, dozens of Democratic politicians, strategists and fund-raising consultants here and across the country said that the accusations against President Clinton, at first glance, could not have come at a worse time: The party faces $9 million in debt just as it is trying to advance an agenda in Congress and as candidates are gearing up for the November elections.

PRETORIA, South Africa -- After two years of national heart-searching, soul-baring and conscience-clearing, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission yesterday delivered a 3,500-page indictment of the apartheid era, blaming both whites and blacks for gross human rights violations."

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?

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The National Party, the party of apartheid, is on the political ropes on the 50th anniversary of its infamous introduction of white supremacy here.Three disastrous local election results in previous National Party strongholds and the defection of half a dozen die-hard councilors and a member of Parliament over recent days have stunned the party that is trying to put its whites-only past behind it and broaden its appeal to blacks and voters of mixed color."It looks pretty grim for them," said Hermann Giliomee, professor of political studies at the University of Cape Town.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- President Nelson Mandela's ruling African National Congress is increasingly facing charges of racism as opposition leaders take issue with affirmative action proposals ranging from the workplace to the playing field.The government, trying to overcome the legacy of almost half a century of apartheid, is dedicated to improving the lives of the 35 million "historically disadvantaged" blacks in this country, at the expense, where necessary, of white privilege.Leaders of the white minority see the programs as a form of reverse apartheid.

NEW ORLEANS -- The ouster of Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House of Representatives, the strongest voice of the Republican Party for the past four years, has turned the political spotlight on GOP governors meeting here and their demands as a group for more of a party leadership role.Governors here make little effort to hide an I-told-you-so attitude toward some of their Washington colleagues' past insistence on waging ideological battles and slipping into a defensive mode. They point to their own success in pragmatically demonstrating what works in such fields as welfare and education reform.

The following is a selection of reader comments on The Baltimore Sun's talk boards and blogs about two of Monday's biggest topics (and subjects of Tuesday's Sun editorials): The future of Maryland's Republican Party and questions about the success of this year's Preakness. Readers commented on Republican lawyer Michael Pappas' formation of an exploratory committee for governor and the drama over whether Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird would run the second leg of the Triple Crown. GOP in Maryland Omar: The thing I really like about Pappas is he's out there hustling.

Washington - Seconds before he won the title of national Republican chairman, Michael S. Steele turned to his sister, Monica, who was standing at his side in the crowded Capital Hilton ballroom, and grinned. "We're going to have some fun," he told her. A sunny, magnetic personality helped Steele capture the job, and that upbeat image may be his most potent weapon in motivating a beleaguered party organization. Steele brings badly needed diversity to a national party that, according to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, just had its worst showing among minority voters in 150 years.

Washington - Think of Barack Obama's political organization as a Maserati, a luxury, high-performance vehicle that lapped the competition this year. The president-elect hasn't indicated precisely what he'll do with his baby, which he's called, perhaps accurately, the best ever built. One thing he's unlikely to do is put it away in the garage for the next four years. Modern presidents typically shut their campaigns down, bring their political advisers into the government and run their political operations out of the White House and national party headquarters in Washington.

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic National Committee voted yesterday to strip Florida of all its presidential convention delegates, threatening to leave the state without a vote for the party's 2008 nominee unless it delays the date of its presidential primary election. The ultimatum marks the most drastic attempt yet by party leaders to impose order among squabbling states that have sought to elbow their balloting closer to the front of the traditional election cycle. The DNC rules and bylaws committee voted overwhelmingly to give Florida's state party 30 days to push back its primary contest by at least a week from Jan. 29, 2008, or risk losing accreditation for its 210 delegates to the party's nominating convention next summer in Denver.

After the recent election, Maryland's Republican Party heads for familiar territory: the political wilderness. The results are bad news for the two-party system. They are difficult to interpret any other way. The GOP's only two stars of statewide potential were trounced. Instead of gaining seats in the General Assembly, Republicans merely held their own in the state Senate and lost six seats in the House of Delegates. Leaders of the party's legislative caucus are being asked to abandon their shrill partisanship in favor of a more conciliatory posture.

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.

WASHINGTON -- In the past week, the Bush and Clinton camps have traded nasty words and asides in a series of exchanges that had the faint echoes of their open warfare during the 1992 presidential campaign. On the surface, the skirmishing seemed to stem from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's assertion that Republicans were running Congress like a plantation, and that the Bush administration is one of the "worst in history." But strategists in both parties say the hostilities were more likely the opening shots of the 2008 presidential campaign season.

David Lange, 63, a former New Zealand prime minister and architect of the nation's anti-nuclear policy that strained relations with the United States, died Saturday of complications from kidney failure at a hospital in the northern city of Auckland, his family said. Mr. Lange, a Labor prime minister from 1984 to 1989, defied the United States and other Western allies in 1985 by banning nuclear arms and nuclear-powered ships from New Zealand territory and waters. The ban is still in effect.

WITH COSTLY, contested Democratic primaries for governor and U.S. Senate looming next year, party leaders are considering a change in the date of the primary election to give nominees more time to raise money. State Democratic Party Chairman Terry Lierman said most of the party's top elected officials, including its members of Congress and county executives, support the proposal to move the 2006 primary from September to June. "It is one option we are looking at," Lierman said. "There is a lot of support among the state advisory council for doing this," he added, referring to a group made up of the two U.S. senators, six members of Congress, county executives, legislative presiding officers, Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley and the comptroller and attorney general, who have been meeting regularly to plan election strategy.

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.