Party Politics

WASHINGTON -- House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt escorted President Clinton yesterday through his St. Louis district, where the two men attended a $10,000-a-couple Democratic fund-raiser, visited a welfare retraining center and then rode home together on Air Force One.It was hardly an unusual day for two 50-something pols who have spent their adult lives in party politics -- except for one thing: Gephardt, a standard-bearer for liberal Democrats, wants...

As he prepares for his second legislative session, Gov. Parris N. Glendening says he plans to make the politically divisive issue of gun control a top priority.This afternoon an administration gun violence task force will meet at Howard County Community College for the first of four public hearings on the issue. The group will recommend gun control and related measures to the governor in November.Although the issue is a contentious one, political analysts see it as helping a new governor who won a narrow victory in November.

The Constitution assigns no tasks to presidential candidates who lose. Their only obligation, required by the workings of democracy, is to admit that someone else has won. The losers of recent contests have promised to remain active in politics, but then almost disappeared from view (Michael S. Dukakis); or pledged to "sit back," but then stayed involved in party politics (Bob Dole). Their predictions for themselves have proved notoriously unreliable. No candidate in the past 125 years has been required to wait as long as Vice President Al Gore to learn an unfavorable outcome - 35 days - without a victory to make up for the long wait.

In the wake of any presidential election, there is always the requisite talk of healing the wounds, closing the divides, of the necessity of coming together for the good of the nation. Sometimes, it even happens. Herbert C. Smith, a political scientist at McDaniel College, recalls that John F. Kennedy - coming off a squeaker win over Richard Nixon in 1960 - put Republicans in his Cabinet, notably Robert McNamara as secretary of defense and Douglas Dillon as secretary of the treasury. That was then, this is now. Though there are clearly opportunities in this political season for President Bush to move to the center, there is little likelihood that that will happen.

A Maryland organization says it has found hundreds of dead people listed on voter registration rolls in Baltimore and Prince George's counties, as well as residents who have registered in multiple places and some who have addresses that turn out to be vacant lots. This November, the group says it plans to fan out to polls to watch for problems - but critics say the effort is a smoke screen for a political agenda. Election Integrity Maryland, which is part of a network of volunteers digging through registration lists across the country, says its mission is to ensure the accuracy of voter registration rolls and encourage citizens to participate in the process.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland is, like many federal trial courts, under-judged. The authorized strength is 10 judges, but there are three vacancies. If it were not for semi-retired senior judges available to pitch in, the court would be unable to do its job.Nominations have been sent to the Senate by the president and Justice Department to fill two of the three vacancies, but they may not be approved this year. This has nothing to do with the qualifications of the nominees.

When Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. delivered a stunning vote of no confidence in the state's voting system last week, he raised the specter of this fall's election ending in disarray. To some Democrats, he also began to lay the foundation to challenge the outcome - if he winds up losing. "That's the first thing I thought about," said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Baltimore Democrat who served with Ehrlich in Congress. "I don't put anything past my good friend." Ehrlich's questions about election safety cast a cloud over the coming vote in a state that a dozen years ago experienced one of the closest gubernatorial elections in U.S. history.

The two Republicans on the County Council, tired of being snookered by their three Democratic counterparts, said Monday they plan a little devilment of their own.Charles C. Feaga, R-5th, and Darrel Drown, R-2nd, said they will be "looking more carefully at the political background" of the county executive's nominees to citizens commissions. They also said they hope to "make (County Executive Charles I. Ecker) a little more careful in the names he is sending in.""You haven't seen more Republicans than Democrats being appointed" to boards and commissions, "but you will now," Feaga predicted.

WASHINGTON -- LEADING Democrats are playing a cynical game on the question of the 1992 presidential election. On the one hand, the party's most prominent spokesmen are telling both Democratic activists and the voters at large that President Bush has been a dAmerican children are at risk, the health care system is in collapse, the infrastructure is deteriorating, the streets are overrun with drugs and the homeless, and the gulf between the rich and poor...