National Party

A 2002 BAN on unregulated donations to national political parties has curtailed spending on television advertising by state committees, a study released last week concluded. An analysis by the Center for Public Integrity in Washington found that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as the McCain-Feingold law, has reduced the amount of money national parties transfer to states for political activities. State parties raised $725 million in the 2003-2004 election cycle, down from $821 million in the 2001-2002 cycle, the report said.

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.

WASHINGTON - If you thought the presidential contest was a heavyweight battle, get ready for a real brawl: the one for the future of the Democratic Party. The man who led Democrats to their fifth defeat in the past seven elections, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, is probably finished as a party leader. But a defeated primary rival might not be. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean could emerge as a major contender to become the party's new national chairman, Democrats say. The tussle for that job will likely be the opening skirmish in a prolonged struggle to redefine what it means to be a Democrat.

NEW YORK - Maryland Republicans return home today energized for the final two-month push to Election Day but aware that they"re on their own in an uphill effort to deliver the state's electoral votes to President Bush. State GOP delegates spent much of the week here trying to convince themselves and others that Maryland is winnable for the president and that a 12-point lead Democratic nominee John Kerry held in the most recent statewide poll could quickly be erased. "This is the Maryland that voted for Bob Ehrlich.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa's New National Party, the political force that ran a dictatorship during four decades of apartheid and then ceded power peacefully in democratic elections in 1994, announced Saturday that it was folding for lack of voter support. The leaders and members of parliament from the party will be offered immediate membership in the African National Congress, the majority black party that trounced it in 1994 elections, said NNP spokeswoman Carol Johnson.

The Republican Women's Club of Carroll County and a few male guests who gathered last week in Eldersburg talked politics, sipped punch and munched on star-shaped cookies coated with red, white and blue sprinkles. But the main item on their agenda was an imminent phone call. First lady Laura Bush would be "calling with a personal message," announced Gerrye Johnston, party hostess and the club's membership committee chairwoman. "This is a phenomenal blessing for us," Johnston said. That the one small party with about 15 guests was among 7,000 other groups sharing in the conversation did not dampen their enthusiasm.

The Republican Women's Club of Carroll County and a few male guests who gathered last week in Eldersburg talked politics, sipped punch and munched on star-shaped cookies coated with red, white and blue sprinkles. But the main item on their agenda was an imminent phone call. First lady Laura Bush would be "calling with a personal message," announced Gerrye Johnston, party hostess and the club's membership committee chairwoman. "This is a phenomenal blessing for us," Johnston said. That the one small party with about 15 guests was among 7,000 other groups sharing in the conversation did not dampen their enthusiasm.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Election results showed the African National Congress headed yesterday for a sweeping victory that would give it a two-thirds majority in Parliament and the power to unilaterally change the constitution. Nearly complete returns from Wednesday's voting showed the ANC winning seven of the country's nine provinces and leading in the remaining two, and enjoying even greater support than it did in the historic 1994 vote that ended white-minority rule and brought Nelson Mandela to power.

The Townsend campaign's not-so-secret weapon sat on the beach last week with her husband and two small children in Ocean City, savoring her last days of relative freedom before the war begins. Karen White, 36, probably looked like a lot of other young mothers out there on the sand. But she was likely the only one trying hard not to think about Maryland's Democratic Party - and indeed the national party - banking on her competence. In any case, it wouldn't be the first time. White was snatched up last week to help lead Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's campaign precisely because she parachuted in to save Gov. Parris N. Glendening's flagging campaign in 1998.