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Schaefer goes home; Simms goes on attack

Friday, Sept. 8, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette Comptroller William Donald Schaefer exchanges words with Dr. Frank Katz (right) during a campaign rally at Lexington Market in Baltimore at lunchtime Wednesday. Schaefer pointed to Katz and told the crowd of journalists and onlookers, ‘‘This man hates me!” He then said to Katz, ‘‘Why are you so mean?” As Schaefer supporters chanted ‘‘Four more years!” Katz responded, ‘‘He doesn’t need four more years, what he needs is four more minutes.” Katz then walked away.

Surrounded by chanting well-wishers, Schaefer (D) strolled among the lunchtime crowds, television cameras recording the handshakes and hugs.

Similar scenes are playing out across Maryland as Tuesday’s primary election nears with competitors for attorney general and U.S. Senate seeking last-minute endorsements, conducting last-minute meet-and-greets and trying to grab last-minute headlines.

Former Baltimore city prosecutor Stuart O. Simms (D) tried to boost his bid for attorney general by attacking Montgomery County State’s Attorney Douglas F. Gansler (D) over a 3-year-old reprimand. The Senate race continued to plod along with U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin and former congressman Kweisi Mfume working to shore up their bases and appeal to undecided voters.

In the comptroller’s race, the Schaefer campaign clearly focused on the base on Wednesday by having the state’s most irascible politician wander around, unscripted, at a location jammed with people who fondly remember Schaefer’s four terms as mayor.

He frequently stopped to take questions from reporters. And frequently the questions revolved around the latest flap with one of his Democratic rivals, Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens.

Over the weekend, Schaefer castigated her fashion sense, saying she looked like Mother Hubbard.

But only days earlier, he had released a radio ad in which he apologized for past remarks that offended people. This week, Schaefer seemed a lot less remorseful and a lot more rebellious.

‘‘An apology? An apology for what? ... I can’t help it how she looks. It’s not my fault,” he said. ‘‘What does she look like? Old-fashioned hairdo. Long dress. After I win or whatever I do, I’m going to send her some style magazines.”

Schaefer was in high dudgeon over a comment Owens made comparing a run against Schaefer to taking the car keys from your grandfather. ‘‘She didn’t have anything on my ability. She never had anything on how I ran my office. But she said ‘grandfather.’ That’s what you call dirty politics. That’s hitting below the belt,” he said.

His other opponent, Del. Peter V.R. Franchot (D-Dist. 20) of Takoma Park, received similar dismissive treatment. ‘‘I’ve never heard of him before,” Schaefer said. ‘‘What’s his name? Franch Clop?” Then later: ‘‘Franchot is a nice little fella. He’s a young boy, trying to make a name for himself. He’s been around 16 years and never did anything.”

With Schaefer’s history of outrageous statements, the recent radio ad appeared as if the campaign was trying to deflect the focus away from Schaefer’s mouth and toward Schaefer’s record.

Campaign coordinator Laslo Boyd pointed out the comptroller’s office does not run itself. The tax-collecting arm of government operates well because of the knowledgeable people Schaefer has hired, he said.

‘‘The election is going to be decided on whether voters focus more on the comments that both have made or Don Schaefer’s record in office,” Boyd said.

If the campaign wanted the Lexington Market trip to turn the attention away from what Schaefer says, it could hardly be scored as a success.

‘‘You know apologies, they’re nice,” Schaefer mused on the radio ad. ‘‘They’re good for the press. I say what I’m going to say. I mean most of what I say. And if people don’t like it, OK. I’m me. I’m not going to change. I have done nothing to apologize for.”

A reporter then asked whether the apology in the radio ads was sincere. Schaefer declined to give a yes or a no, but instead broke into song: ‘‘Are you sincere? I’m sincere!”

Regardless of the sincerity serenade, Schaefer’s opponents say voters should reject the comptroller’s request for a third term.

Karen White, national political director of EMILY’s List, sent out an e-mail Thursday, saying: ‘‘William Donald Schaefer is an affront to women and he must go.”

The e-mail calls Schaefer a ‘‘sexist dinosaur” and asks recipients to condemn the comptroller’s ‘‘misogynistic rhetoric.”

From Franchot: ‘‘My observation of the last few days is Don Schaefer is clearly not up to the job.”

But the delegate doesn’t think Owens is up to the job, either.

‘‘Both my primary opponents are pro-slots, pro-sprawl and pro-Ehrlich. They’re fighting among themselves, rather than fighting Bob Ehrlich,” Franchot said.

Polls show Franchot comes in third, with Schaefer and Owens close. Franchot on Thursday picked up the endorsement of Thomas E. Perez, the Democratic Montgomery County councilman from Takoma Park, who was banned from running for attorney general.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., an Owens supporter, had predicted that Schaefer would win because Owens and Franchot would split the anti-Schaefer vote.

He revised that prediction Thursday.

‘‘No one could have predicted that William Donald Schaefer would self-destruct as bad as he has,” said Miller (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach.

Miller expects Owens to win more than 40 percent of the vote compared with Schaefer’s mid-30s and Franchot’s mid-20s tallies.

Former Prince George’s county executive Wayne K. Curry (D) is featured on a robo-call to more than 100,000 households in Prince George’s endorsing Owens’ comptroller campaign.

‘‘I am supporting Janet Owens because when I was county executive she stood with me and she led the fight for more funding for our schools,” Curry said in the recording made available by the Owens campaign on Thursday.

Attorney general

The contest to succeed retiring Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. (D) is perhaps Tuesday’s most unpredictable race because it has flown under the radar to most voters.

Polls have shown that neither Simms nor Gansler has the primary locked up because of the large number of undecided voters and the candidates’ lack of statewide recognition. Against that backdrop, Simms has ramped up his attacks on Gansler.

On Wednesday, he held a news conference in Annapolis to question Gansler’s fitness for the office because the Maryland Court of Appeals reprimanded the Montgomery prosecutor for talking to reporters about two murder cases.

Michael Morrill, a Gansler campaign spokesman, chalked up Simms’ actions on Wednesday to negative campaigning. ‘‘It is beneath the dignity of the Attorney General’s Office or a candidate for that office to imply that someone is breaking the rules when he knows that is not the case,” he said.

Simms’ campaign is staying in attack mode with a mailing that hit mailboxes this week.

An 8.5- by 11-inch mailer with the headline: ‘‘The verdict is in. UNFIT FOR OFFICE.” On the flip side, the mailer raps Gansler for the 2003 reprimand. The graphic includes a photo of Gansler set inside a cartoon television. ‘‘Gansler’s gift of gab could have put murderers back on the street,” the mailer claims. ‘‘Vote no on Doug Gansler.”

The mailer never mentions any issue in the campaign. In fact, the only reference to Simms is the small-print authority line.

House Majority Leader Kumar P. Barve, a Gansler supporter, called the Simms attack mail as ‘‘over the top.”

‘‘It looks like he’s getting desperate,” said Barve (D-Dist. 17) of Gaithersburg.

Larry Gibson, campaign manager for Simms, showed reporters another mailing to be distributed in Montgomery County with pictures of Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) and other county leaders endorsing Simms.

Simms’ attacks aside, conventional wisdom among insiders is that Gansler — fueled by a $2 million war chest that has allowed him to saturate the television airwaves with ads — will outpace Simms’ campaign of yard signs and machine-style politics.

Simms, the Baltimore establishment candidate, is expected to do well in the city and in its suburbs. The Black Caucus in the General Assembly has endorsed him, which means Simms will be on the sample ballots in key jurisdictions such as Prince George’s and Baltimore counties on Election Day.

‘‘The entire election officialdom is for Stu Simms,” said Miller, who along with U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Dist. 5) of Mechanicsville has been pushing elected leaders around the state to back the Simms campaign. ‘‘If [Simms] had a long race instead of just a short abrupt campaign, there wouldn’t be any question about it.”

Simms got into the attorney general’s race only after Duncan dropped out of the governor’s race in June. Simms was Duncan’s running mate.

Gansler supporters said their wall-to-wall advertising and the many months he has been running for the job will end in victory on Tuesday.

Gansler counters the Miller and Hoyer endorsements with two of his own — from U.S. Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D-Dist. 4) of Mitchellville and Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D), two of the county’s powerhouses.

Gansler also picked up endorsements from environmental groups while Simms picked up support from former Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D). Simms was a member of Glendening’s Cabinet.

U.S. Senate

In the U.S. Senate race, a debate Thursday on WTOP radio featured Cardin, Mfume, Potomac businessman Joshua B. Rales and history professor Allan J. Lichtman of Bethesda. They discussed health care, the Iraq War, Senate confirmations and campaign finances.

The race to succeed U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D) has been congenial compared with Senate races elsewhere. Cardin and Mfume, the two front-runners according to several polls, have done little to distinguish themselves from each other over the course of the campaign.

Mfume, a former NAACP president, is more fiery than Cardin on the war in Iraq and against President Bush’s policies, which has earned him supporters on the left flank of the Democratic Party.

Cardin, a former speaker of the House of Delegates and 10-term member of Congress, is running on his record in Washington with the support of much of the Democratic Party’s elected leadership behind him.

Cardin’s hefty fundraising lead has allowed him to outpace Mfume in television advertising — a trend that will continue through Tuesday. Mfume, however, has a virtual lock on the African-American vote, a bloc that could account for more than 30 percent of the Democratic Party electorate on Tuesday.

Cardin picked up the endorsements of several Prince George’s County elected officials on Tuesday, including one from Sen. Ulysses Currie (D-Dist. 25) of Mitchellville, chairman of the influential Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. Mfume has the support of Wynn and Johnson in Prince George’s County.

Currie said he considered the issues facing his district: cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and underfunded education programs — before endorsing Cardin. ‘‘Our greatest need in our district is money, resources,” he said. ‘‘I think there’s no one better in the country who understands these issues.”

Most of the press for Lichtman, meanwhile, has revolved around his arrest for trespassing outside Maryland Public Television studios in Owings Mills last week. Lichtman protested because MPT and the League of Women Voters allowed only Cardin and Mfume to participate in a debate.