Party Leaders

WASHINGTON -- Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, with primary victories yesterday in New York and at least two other states, has taken a giant step toward the Democratic presidential nomination in terms of the sheer arithmetic. But the nagging questions about his character and integrity suggest he still has a distance to go in persuading fence-sitting Democratic leaders and voters that he can beat President Bush in November.By winning in New York, Kansas and Minnesota and leading in Wisconsin, the Arkansas governor now has well more than half the 2,145 national convention delegates needed to clinch the nomination -- an achievement that under ordinary circumstances this stage could be expected to bring party leaders climbing aboard his departing train.

The state Democratic Party's annual gala was no place for campaign speeches on Wednesday night.   That might seem odd to casual observers. After all, a big primary election is a month away, and the vast ballroom at Martin's Camelot in Prince George's County was filled with top elected officials, candidates and campaign donors. But the gala - a large fundraising event - was a time to talk about party unity and the need for voter turnout efforts in the primary and general elections.

Every morning about 7, G. Russell Walters puts on his favorite straw hat, climbs into his sport utility vehicle and drives out to a neighborhood in Howard County.At age 80, he's running energetically as a Democrat for county sheriff, hoping his service as county chief of police from 1969 to 1975 will impress voters."I know I have the qualifications, and I've been around sheriffs' departments all my life," says Walters, a North Laurel resident who was also a state trooper.But the county population has more than doubled since his tenure as police chief, and few seem to remember him -- not even Democratic Party leaders.

Leaders in the Maryland Republican Party are promoting the recent win in the Annapolis mayoral race as evidence the GOP can secure victories in Democratic strongholds. Upbeat party members gathered Saturday in the state capital for their fall convention. Some said upsets such as the city mayor's race could be repeated if the party is strategic and can devise ways to reach communities whose voters usually cast ballots for Democrats. "We have to be aggressive, and we may have to do some things that we're not comfortable with as a party to win," Senate Minority Leader David Brinkley of Frederick County told the crowd of 250. "We do have a bright future, and we may have to employ some strategies that we haven't looked at before.

WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and Bill Bradley appeared together for the first time in Campaign 2000 yesterday, with Bradley seeking to assure the Democratic National Committee that he did not intend to tear the party apart, while Gore tried to reassure his nervous supporters that he could be elected president.They both appeared to succeed.Hundreds of Democratic Party leaders and activists gathered in Washington last week, clearly worried about Texas Gov. George W. Bush's double-digit leads in the polls and anxiously eyeing the surge of support for Bradley, a former New Jersey senator.

State House Speaker Michael E. Busch, an Annapolis Democrat and one of several legislators being targeted for defeat by the Republican Party, is asking party leaders to raise money to help vulnerable incumbents and the party's newcomers. Busch has asked House committee chairmen to raise money for a campaign committee known as a slate - a type of multicandidate account used for years by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, and more recently by General Assembly Republicans looking to make gains.

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic National Committee has rejected the Maryland Democratic Party's plan for selecting delegates to the presidential nominating convention, forcing state party leaders to develop an acceptable alternative or risk losing delegates.Maryland's plan did not meet a new DNC requirement that delegates to the nominating convention be awarded to presidential candidates based on the candidates' popular vote totals in the March 3 primary.Maryland's plan instead rested on direct election of delegates, each committed to a particular presidential candidate.

Democratic Party leaders, fund-raisers and potential candidates are gathering privately at the sprawling Virginia country estate of fund-raiser Pamela Harriman to plot next year's presidential campaign.The two-day meeting is one of several planned for party leaders, who are trying to increase the Democratic National Committee's role in presidential elections."Democrats need to start focusing on the general election before the convention," Democratic National Chairman Ron Brown said.Usually we wait until after the convention is over and then scratch our heads and say, 'Wow, we've got a general election campaign, and we've got to have it together in the next 30 days,'" he said.

FOR 317,000 Marylanders who opted against registering as a Democrat or a Republican, primary elections are generally lonely affairs. But not this year. For the first time, registered Maryland independents can vote in Tuesday's Republican presidential election. That's a significant development in a year in which Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Texas Gov. George W. Bush are waging a heated campaign for the nomination. Independents played key roles in New Hampshire and Michigan; they have the chance to do so in Maryland -- if they vote.

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Al Gore and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, the two principal prospective rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, displayed their wares yesterday before influential party leaders.While both were warmly received, it was Gore -- despite his fund-raising-related woes -- who seemed to come out ahead, if only because that's where he started.In speeches before the fall meeting of the Democratic National Committee, the two men differed mostly in tone and emphasis, with Gephardt being more impassioned and evoking a more enthusiastic response.

This weekend Maryland Republican central committee members, elected officials, candidates, activists and hangers on will gather in Annapolis for the semi-annual convention of the Maryland Republican Party. The event will be held at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Annapolis, Maryland. There are plenty of details about the convention at the Maryland Republican Party's website .  Friday night is highlighted by campaign training, a meeting of the state party's executive board and, most importantly, hospitality suites and parties thrown by a wide array of Republican candidates and organizations.

A source in Maryland Republican Party circles provided the Maryland Politics blog with the following memo being distributed by party leaders. It seems curious that an organization that struggles to get media attention in a Democratic-dominated state would try to limit coverage in any way, but, hey, those bloggers are in some cases renegade Republicans who have the temerity to think the party could be run a bit better. Anyway, here's the memo. We'll leave it to readers to specualte on the psychology behind the all-caps in each reference to the MARYLAND REPUBLICAN PARTY.

Maybe the party is finally over. Meaning not simply the Grand Old Party, but more specifically the bacchanal of the bizarre and carnival of crazy to which it has lately devolved. So obvious has this devolution become that even Republican stalwarts have been heard to decry the parody of a party the GOP has become. Except now we see signs suggesting maybe a corner has been turned. There was, for example, that surprising bipartisan consensus on immigration reform, which one would have thought about as likely as a Ted Nugent concert on the White House lawn.

John LaFerla, who lost a close Democratic primary in the 1 st Congressional District to Wendy Rosen, said Tuesday that he is available to challenge Republican Rep. Andy Harris as a write-in candidate. Rosen withdrew from the race Monday amid allegations that she was registered and had voted in both Maryland and Florida. The Maryland Democratic Party has referred the matter to state prosecutors; elections officials in Florida say they are doing the same there. Under state law, it is too late for Rosen to remove her name from the ballot, so Democrats now are looking for someone to support as a write-in candidate.

Enough is enough. Partisan politics in Maryland has hit an all-time low. As Maryland is hurling headlong into financial ruin, the working, legal resident taxpayers are being taxed to the hilt. Both parties have their collective heads in the sand or at least their party leaders can't see the reality we face every day. Democrats and Republicans refuse to budge or do the dance of moderation only to swing back when the party leaders pull their puppet strings in time to cast their pre-arranged vote in a well orchestrated sham for television.

For months, John Delaney ran his campaign for Congress as an outsider. But the day after he crushed his competition for the Democratic nomination in Maryland's 6th District, the Potomac businessman found himself lunching with two of the most powerful party leaders in the state. What's more, his campaign was fielding dozens of calls of support from top state Democrats and labor groups — many of whom had backed his leading opponent, state Sen. Rob Garagiola. Democrats moved rapidly Wednesday to coalesce around the first-time candidate, signaling the beginning of a general election fight for the state's westernmost district that will dominate the political landscape this year and help decide control of the House of Representatives.

Enough is enough. Partisan politics in Maryland has hit an all-time low. As Maryland is hurling headlong into financial ruin, the working, legal resident taxpayers are being taxed to the hilt. Both parties have their collective heads in the sand or at least their party leaders can't see the reality we face every day. Democrats and Republicans refuse to budge or do the dance of moderation only to swing back when the party leaders pull their puppet strings in time to cast their pre-arranged vote in a well orchestrated sham for television.

VOTERS in Michigan delivered an uncomfortable message on Tuesday to the conservative core of the Republican Party: The front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, doesn't fare well with independents and Democrats. Mr. Bush got hammered by both groups. Only his popularity with the party's dominant conservative wing got him within seven percentage points of Arizona Sen. John McCain in the Michigan primary. This leaves Republican voters in upcoming primaries -- including Maryland's -- with a dilemma.

Congressional Republicans used to enjoy the luxury of ignoring Ron Paul's cantankerous objections to the political premises they shared with their counterparts across the aisle. The question now is whether in the new Congress to be seated in January the longtime Texas representative will be allowed to chair the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology on the House Financial Services Committee. Mr. Paul is the ranking minority member now, so the job would seem to be his after the GOP sweep in the midterm election, but the Republican leadership will decide whether to give the leading critic of the Federal Reserve Bank a prominent role in overseeing the Fed itself as well as the U.S. Mint and the U.S. relationship with the World Bank.

Simmering tensions among Maryland Republicans have boiled over into a public brawl with leading GOP officers and members of the General Assembly openly clashing with Chairman James Pelura over the party's future. The disagreements - dubbed Pelurapalooza by the popular conservative blog Red Maryland - escalated this week when state party officers called for a meeting with Pelura to explain his actions, including why he sought the resignation of the party's executive director, Justin Ready, on Monday.