Republican

The Democrats are using the crisis in the economy to steamroll their long-term agenda through Congress under the guise of a stimulus package. It is unconscionable for the majority party to do this at a time when we, the people, are at their mercy ("Stimulus package will touch nearly everyone," Feb. 1). Not a single Republican member of the House supported the stimulus bill, and for good reason. They know when they are being steamrolled. If Mr. Obama is truly committed to bipartisan politics and solving the economic crisis at hand, he needs to tell his fellow Democrats to back off. Dudley Thompson, Waynesboro The fact that the entire Republican delegation voted against the bailout bill in the House is clear evidence nothing has changed in Washington.

What happened to Michael S. Steele? Like many Republicans, I was heartened by the January election of the former Maryland lieutenant governor as chairman of the Republican National Committee. I had been impressed with his Senate run in 2006. Though falling short, 44 percent to 54 percent, to Democrat Benjamin L. Cardin (still a fine showing in deep-blue Maryland), Mr. Steele had garnered impressive margins among African-Americans and women, two constituencies stubbornly resistant to Republican candidates.

WASHINGTON -- Not to be "ungenerous or self-centered," said White House counselor Ed Gillespie, but he thinks some people overestimate Karl Rove's importance. After all, Gillespie pointed out, in the 2004 presidential campaign he himself headed the Republican National Committee, the heart of the party's operations. And he only talked to Rove "from time to time" Another White House official, asked what it would mean to lose the legendary strategist, whose departure was announced Monday, recalled that Rove had started the staff's "ice cream Fridays."

Senate Republican leaders said yesterday that they would not vote for the governor's slots proposal during a special session of the General Assembly, potentially jeopardizing the critical cross-party partnership that has been necessary in the past to get a divisive gambling bill through the chamber. Sen. David Brinkley, the minority leader, chided Gov. Martin O'Malley for not releasing details of his proposal to legalize slot machine gambling in Maryland before his expected call for a special session.

Washington -- Mike Huckabee, a former conservative governor from the largely Democratic state of Arkansas, will launch his bid today for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, opening an exploratory committee to raise money. Acknowledging that he will be a tough sell against better-known conservative candidates for the White House, Huckabee said yesterday that "America loves an underdog." He also pointed to his ability as a two-term governor to please liberals, noting that he raised taxes for education and poverty programs.

WASHINGTON -- A top Democrat predicted yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales would be forced from his job within a week for the Justice Department's mishandling of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York also proposed a shortlist of three Republican replacements that he said could win Senate confirmation. "The White House has a real chance to clear the air, to restore faith that the rule of law will come first and politics second in the Justice Department, not the other way around," Schumer, who is leading the Senate's inquiry into the firings, said on NBC's Meet the Press.

WASHINGTON-- --No matter who shows up at this week's Republican presidential debate in Baltimore, it's a good bet the biggest applause will go to the most conservative man onstage. He's Rep. Ron Paul, a perfect protest candidate for 2008. Trained as a physician, he's "Dr. Paul" to a small but growing base of fervent admirers - more than a few of whom could fairly be called zealots. Around the Capitol, the Texas congressman is "Dr. No," for his frequent, and often lonely, insistence on opposing any legislation that, in his view, exceeds the authority explicitly given to Congress by the framers of the Constitution.

All the big questions for 2008 are on the Democratic side: Can Hillary Rodham Clinton show her humanity? Does Barack Obama have enough experience? Will John Edwards find a cheaper barber? But there is one big question that has hardly been asked at all, mostly because it threatens to upset the narrative of the best election in decades: Do Republicans have any chance whatsoever of winning the White House in 2008? Given the extraordinary unpopularity of the Bush administration, isn't the Democratic candidate, whoever he or she ultimately is, going to be a shoo-in?

WASHINGTON -- The Republican-led Congress narrowly approved last night the first major tax cut in two decades, then went home to try to sell the sweeping $792 billion measure to their wary constituents before President Clinton can veto it.Acting within hours of each other, the House and Senate passed the bill with only a handful of votes to spare before leaving for a monthlong summer recess."

WASHINGTON -- Even as Republican members expressed misgivings, the House voted narrowly last night to back the use of U.S. troops in Kosovo to enforce any peace agreement.Ignoring Clinton administration fears about the impact that a debate or vote might have on peace talks, opponents mustered 191 votes against a nonbinding resolution to support the use of American peacekeepers.Although the resolution passed with 219 mostly Democratic votes in favor, the strong Republican opposition signaled GOP reservations about the mission amid complaints that the military already is stretched too thin.

A surge of Republican campaign cash in August, the month that conservatives stormed Democrats' town hall meetings on health care, is generating upbeat media coverage for the party and its national chairman, Michael S. Steele. The latest fundraising numbers follow recent predictions that Republicans could score significant gains in the 2010 elections. New polling also shows the potential for Republican victories in governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey this fall. When Maryland's former lieutenant governor became RNC chairman, one of the questions was whether his committee would maintain its fundraising edge.

NEW YORK -- Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele stopped by the NAACP convention Tuesday to press the civil rights organization to consider his party an ally. The NAACP's relationship with the GOP has been strained for many years. Steele, the first African-American to lead the Republican Party, said he wanted his presence to signal to its members that they have options beyond the Democratic Party. Reminding people of his membership in the Prince George's County NAACP branch, Steele said he intends to depart from the "complete Republican's guide to speaking to African-Americans."

Isn't it time Maryland seceded from the South? Should we finally ratify the coup set in motion by Abraham Lincoln, John W. Garrett and Samuel Gompers? The state's legislative leaders seem to think we should. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch have asked a government trade group to remove Maryland from the company of Tennessee and Oklahoma in its Southern region and place it with New York and Vermont in the Eastern division. "Maryland in its policy decisions and economy has gotten more in line with New England and the Middle Atlantic states than it is with the Southern states," says Busch.

WASHINGTON -- Rush Limbaugh called her a "reverse racist." The conservative Judicial Confirmation Network said she carried a "personal political agenda" and should be blocked from the Supreme Court. But underneath the bombast that has become a predictable part of Washington's court fights, the nomination Tuesday of Sonia Sotomayor to the high court brought a surprising development: The Republican senators who will actually vote on her were not following the activists' script. Instead, GOP senators offered muted, sometimes admiring, responses, and seemed to be taking their cues from quieter voices within the party who cautioned that opposing the country's first Latina Supreme Court nominee would amount to political suicide.

Oxon Hill -- National Republican Chairman Michael Steele, in an effort to move beyond the woes of his party and his own gaffe-prone leadership, declared in a speech Tuesday that Republicans have turned a corner and are ready to step up their attacks on President Barack Obama. The "era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over," Steele said. Those mistakes could include missteps of his own that have led to much negative publicity and internecine bickering in his first four months in office.

BOSTON - As if the Republicans weren't having enough trouble with defectors, they've gone on a purge. There was Dick Cheney on Face the Nation. Asked to pick between a GOP like Rush Limbaugh or Colin Powell, the former Veep not only chose Rush but snarkily crossed the general off the party list, saying, "I didn't know he was still a Republican." This was less than two weeks after Arlen Specter assessed the odds of winning a Republican primary in Pennsylvania at exactly zip. The not-so-fond farewells that pursued Mr. Specter were nothing compared to the GOP un-eulogies for David Souter.

Comparing recessions nearly two decades apart can be dicey, but there are a few things about how Howard County government handled the downturns of 1991 and 2009 that titillate the political imagination. Republicans often rail against tax increases, but Republican County Executive Charles I. Ecker's first budget of $270.3 million proposed in April, 1991, included a 14-cent increase in the county property tax rate, a 5.6 percent spending cut, plus 40 layoffs. What's more, the two County Council Republicans at the time voted for that budget, and there was no taxpayer backlash.

Mike Pappas has embarked on what many would call a quixotic campaign for Maryland governor. Even one of his close advisers likened a win in November 2010 to lightning striking. The 39-year-old Republican is running in a solidly Democratic state that has elected just one other member of the GOP to the governor's mansion since Spiro T. Agnew left the office in 1969. He has no experience as a public official, and he has never been a candidate for elected office. The construction attorney from Perry Hall also might have irritated some in his own party for jumping into the race ahead of former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., the presumptive favorite in a primary, who has left open the possibility of a rematch with Gov. Martin O'Malley.

Washington -Even before Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic side, Republican leaders were warning that their national party was in danger of becoming a regional one. Specter's departure, part of a larger Republican shift away from the Northeast, has left a hole on the political map. For the first time since the founding of the Republican Party in the 1850s, there is not a single Republican senator from Maryland or any of the four...

The idea that a huge partisan divide separates Democrats from Republicans in the Maryland General Assembly seemed absurd at the Howard County Chamber of Commerce's annual legislative wrap-up discussion last week. The Senate's majority and minority leaders - Republican Allan H. Kittleman and Democrat Edward J. Kasemeyer - blew rhetorical kisses at each other, and Del. James E. Malone Jr., a Democrat, spoke of his close relations with at least one conservative county Republican. "Warren Miller is one of my best friends in Annapolis," Malone said at the breakfast event at the Sheraton Hotel in Columbia, noting that conservative and moderate Democrats often work together with the vastly outnumbered Republicans.