Party Chairman

WASHINGTON - With Democrats preparing to select a new national chairman, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said yesterday he would not seek the presidency again in 2008 if he got the top party job. Dean, who ran unsuccessfully for this year's presidential nomination, has launched an aggressive, if unannounced, campaign for Democratic chairman. The competition for that post is likely to be the initial skirmish in a prolonged fight over the future of a party that has lost five of the past seven presidential elections.

The Maryland Republican Party is paying Michael S. Steele $5,000 a month in consulting fees under an arrangement that began shortly after his selection as gubernatorial candidate Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s running mate. Although the payments appear legal, Democrats said the GOP's contract with Steele raises ethical questions and suggests the party might be subsidizing the living expenses of a candidate for statewide office. "It looks to me like they've hired themselves a candidate," said David Paulson, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party.

DEARBORN, Mich. -- As the Reform Party seeks to revive its waning influence in presidential politics, members voted yesterday to ditch its old leadership and embrace a candidate endorsed by former wrestler turned populist sensation Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.Delegates at the third annual Reform Party convention elected former financier Jack Gargan as party chairman. Gargan, who grew up on a chicken farm and talks about government reform with a country drawl, was seen by some as a repudiation of another twangy Reform Party personality, founder Ross Perot.

At 83, George Aloysius Meyers of Govans remains a big man with a big, wry, ironic laugh that punctuates his memories like the exclamation point at the end of the Communist Manifesto."

Maryland's Republican Party embraced its base Saturday by selecting reliably conservative Alex X. Mooney as chairman, overlooking the party's more moderate recent nominee for lieutenant governor. The result ends the decade-long dominance of the Ehrlich wing of the Republican Party, a faction whose members sought to attract working-class voters and centrist Democrats. Its leader, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., said he would close the book on state politics this year after a bruising 14.5 percentage point loss to Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley in a year when the GOP made national gains.

Bethesda developer Nathan Landow, a former state Democratic Party chairman, was the third bidder in the auction of bankrupt Rosecroft Raceway in Prince George's County. Landow confirmed Monday that he lost to casino operator Penn National Gaming, which agreed to pay $10.25 million in cash. Penn National said it would seek to resume live racing and lobby for slots at the harness track. Rosecroft is not one of the five designated locations for slots under a voter-approved referendum that legalized slot-machine gambling in Maryland.

Gov. Martin O'Malley will nominate his younger brother and long-time political advisor Peter O'Malley to lead Maryland's Democratic Party, according to several top Democrats. The governor will forward his pick for chairman at a meeting set for March, the sources said, and state Democratic officials will have to vote to approve the nomination. In Maryland, the governor's nomination has typically been selected as the leader of his party. A top Democrat said the governor expects Peter O'Malley to build the party as it "prepares for the successful re-elections" of Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin and President Barack Obama in 2012.

The South Carroll Democratic Club will gather election pointers tomorrow from the party's state leader. Isiah Leggett, chairman of the state Democratic Party, will be the guest speaker at the recently revived club's monthly meeting at 7 p.m. in the Community Room of Carrolltown Center in Eldersburg. "We are hoping Leggett can help us to build up the party in Carroll County," said Nimrod Davis, who helped re-establish the Eldersburg club about six months ago. Leggett, a law professor at Howard University School of Law and a four-term Montgomery County councilman, spoke at the Carroll County Democrats' annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner this year.

Republican National Party Chairman Michael S. Steele smiled broadly as he pressed the flesh Tuesday night in the large study of businessman J.P. Bolduc's 8,077-square-foot Clarksville mansion, where he was the guest of honor for a fundraiser to benefit Dennis R. Schrader's County Council campaign. A reporter was asked to leave the premises after getting that one glimpse, though Schrader and others who attended said Wednesday that Steele's comments were ordinary campaign fare. Steele had insisted the event be private, Schrader said.