Run For Governor

It'll be the first Super Bowl with two underdogs. In theory, neither can win. At last, a first lady-elect who not only reads but actually likes books. Do we really need an attorney general who proposes rewriting the Constitution and champions a symbol for the violent dismemberment of the United States? Hizzoner is so popular he could run for governor! Unless he is averse to being run over.

Puerto Rico 1, Navy 0. There is no place left on Earth safe and feasible for war exercises, though many are available for actual wars. Ben Cardin will run for governor when Townsend, Duncan, Ruppersberger, Curry, OMalley and Schaefer beg him, not before. Terre Haute, Ind., is famous as the birthplace of Eugene V. Debs and where Larry Bird played his college ball, and ought to stay that way.

Don Schaefer wants to run for governor again, and he is old enough to be a senator. George found Europe hard going, just full of Democrats. If the Navy can't find another Caribbean isle for practice invasions, it could try the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Cal knows there is life after baseball. Baltimore has to decide if there is life after Cal. Some things must be said twice. Others are anyway.

The Secret Service can shoot to disable nonfatally. Police in Maryland don't do that. The only way to stop Kathleen would be for Bill to move here and run for governor, with Martin on his ticket. Ariel is a sprite, all light and spirit, symbol of creativity, imprisoned by a witch, freed by a magician. Ariel Sharon is not. Pity the two of five astronauts aboard the Atlantis who are not Baltimoreans, putting up with all that Ravenscrow.

Ross Z. Pierpont, a hardy perennial of Maryland Republican politics, said yesterday that he has filed candidacy papers with the state election board to run for governor next year. The 84-year-old Pierpont - the first candidate of any party to make his candidacy official - is a familiar name to longtime Maryland voters. He said he has run for office - governor, U.S. senator, U.S. representative and mayor of Baltimore - about 15 times since 1964. The Timonium resident has never won a general election, though he has won the Republican nomination on several occasions.

House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr., a six-term Eastern Shore delegate from one of the smallest counties in the state, said yesterday that friends and fellow legislators are encouraging him to run for governor in 1994.Mr. Mitchell, however, said he has not decided whether to run, and that he will not do so until after the current General Assembly session adjourns in mid-April.The 56-year-old Kent County Democrat said he would not be surprised if other public officials, such as Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., were similarly being encouraged to get into the governor's race.

If Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's supporters were disappointed by his decision not to run for governor next year, it was not evident in the size of the crowd that turned out yesterday to fete him at a $500-a-ticket fund-raiser.More than 800 business people, politicians and high-level city officials showed up at the Omni Inner Harbor Hotel for the affair, which organizers said grossed more than $400,000."I think people are pleased that I made my intentions known and that I plan to run for re-election," said Mr. Schmoke, a Democrat.

EDGEWOOD -- Harford County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann raised an estimated $60,000 last night at a fund-raiser that could mark the beginning of a 1998 Democratic primary challenge against Gov. Parris N. Glendening.Most of the state's top Democrats, from U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski to Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, attended the event in Edgewood, joined by more than 500 Rehrmann supporters.Tickets were $50 for the main event and $250 for a VIP reception beforehand.Rehrmann, 52, a Democrat from Bel Air, said she had not decided whether to run for governor.

County Executive Robert R. Neall has raised $80,681 in campaign funds during the last year -- a lot of money to the average citizen, but not very much to a man widely expected to run for governor.Neall's campaign finance report, filed Tuesday, shows he raised most of themoney -- about $43,175 -- at a Feb. 27, 1991 fund-raiser. The remaining money came mostly from individual contributions.Neall has $50,529 remaining in the bank after paying off expenses. Some of those were left over from his 1990 campaign for county executive, during which he spent a record $460,000.