My editorial in the Birmingham News UNEDITED

Schools around the country are normally funded through property taxes;
a steady predictable revenue which makes things easier for budgeting
and implementing programs. The Birmingham City Council is currently
debating whether or not to have a city-wide referendum to increase
property taxes for our school system.

Although this should have been done a long time ago, I applaud the
council for considering it now. Its better late than never. However I
am disgusted at how some council members do not want to stand up for
the measure until after the november elections. It is disgusting that
our elected officials do not have the testicular fortitude to stand up
for children no matter what the political cost.

Hopefully after November, voters will relieve these members of their
duties and bring in new leadership focused on better schools.

A leadership-building guide for the Republican Party

By C. Fraser Smith

Originally published June 19, 2005
Baltimore Sun

OK, NOBODY asked, but here's what Maryland Republicans should do to expand their party's paper-thin leadership.

First, keep Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele out of the race for U.S. Senate. It's an idea contemplated only because the party's ranks are so anemic, because image threatens to eclipse everything in our society and because national GOP interests are salivating.

Maybe it's understandable that the party would try to capitalize on poll standings that make Mr. Steele look competitive. But ultimately, there's no substitute for building credibility the old-fashioned way: getting elected and earning a future based on performance.

Mr. Steele announced last week that he will explore the possibility of running. Here's what a real exploration would conclude: He's not a good fit. For better or worse, the U.S. Senate is a deliberative body, a body of lawmakers. Mr. Steele doesn't have a single second of experience in such an arena.

The Ehrlich administration has been accused by Democrats of following the national playbook: an anti-government, no-new-tax, hardball-rhetoric approach designed not to attract Democrats but to expand the party's conservative base. If the Republicans force Mr. Steele into a Senate race, they'll be overplaying the playbook big-time.

The national GOP wants another vote in the U.S. Senate and thinks it has a chance of getting one in, of all places, reliably liberal and Democratic Maryland. The Republicans think that if the winner were Mr. Steele, an African-American, the political dividend would be immense.

But if Maryland Republicans want to control their own destiny, there's a far more interesting and worthy option. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s success allowed them to think about a day when they didn't have to recruit sports stars to run for statewide offices. The Michael Steele Senate idea is a variation on that tired stopgap.

Here's a far better way to rebuild GOP leadership in Maryland: Keep the winning Ehrlich-Steele ticket intact. It's an attractive team. Why dilute a winning ticket?

The party ought to think about developing talent it may have overlooked. For example, why not run James C. "Chip" DiPaula Jr. for comptroller? There are a dozen reasons why this idea would make more sense than Steele for Senate.

Mr. DiPaula is more than qualified. If there is one success in the Ehrlich administration so far, it's Mr. DiPaula's management of the numbers. He stepped up and supplied expertise no one thought he or the GOP had. The party had been out of the governor's office for 36 years.

He mastered a $23 billion spending plan overnight. The economy has helped, but he's gotten a staggering deficit into what looks like manageable proportions. The cost in starved programs might not be your cup of tea, but it's been done with efficiency and resolve.

It's passed off as a joke by the governor, but Mr. DiPaula is the star of the Ehrlich administration, eclipsing the governor himself in terms of actually running the state. If Mr. Ehrlich gets re-elected, one of his best arguments will be Mr. DiPaula and fiscal management.

In further validation of his value, the governor has taken him out of the budget office now to make him chief of staff in charge of, everyone assumes, re-election. He's the obvious choice because he's shown an ability to work with Democrats, still an important qualification in a state where most legislators and most voters are registered Democrats.

It's not going to happen, of course. Mr. DiPaula may not want to run for office. If he did, though, he'd give the GOP a chance to promote competence over fleeting, transparent opportunism.

Beyond that, there's a limit to the party's devotion to party-building. Mr. Ehrlich probably doesn't want to field a strong GOP candidate against Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, a Democrat. Mr. Schaefer has been his usually reliable partner on the Board of Public Works, where some of the governor's policies are voted.

And running a strong opponent against Mr. Schaefer might alienate Schaefer loyalists. Mr. Ehrlich - and Mr. DiPaula - may see Mr. Schaefer as essential to the governor's re-election. Party-building and getting re-elected aren't the same things.

Too bad. A candidate like Mr. DiPaula would put the GOP on the side of substance. It would be a great long-term investment - and a refreshing departure from trying to catch political lightning in a bottle.

C. Fraser Smith is news director for WYPR-FM. His column appears Sundays.

Biden wants to seek Democratic nomination for president

Monday, June 20, 2005; Posted: 10:38 a.m. EDT (14:38 GMT)

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, said Sunday he intends to run for president in 2008.

But Biden, who also sought the nomination in 1988, said he would give himself until the end of this year to determine if he really can raise enough money and attract enough support.

Going after the nomination "is a real possibility," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"My intention, as I sit here now, is, as I've proceeded since last November as if I were going to run. I'm quite frankly going out, seeing whether I can gather the kind of support," Biden said.

Biden said he was taking his "game on the road, letting people know what I think."

He added, "If, in fact, I think that I have a clear shot at winning the nomination by this November or December, then I'm going to seek the nomination."

Biden dropped out of the 1988 presidential race after a series of disclosures that he had liberally borrowed from other politicians in his stump speeches and after questions about his law school records

Two Democrats disavow Dean's jab at GOP

The Washington Post
Published on: 06/05/05

WASHINGTON — Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., distanced themselves over the weekend from remarks by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who is facing criticism for the pace of the party's fund-raising.

Dean, who inspired a passionate following when he ran for president in 2003-04 and showed the potential of Internet fund-raising, has been as unpredictable with his public remarks since becoming party chairman in mid-February as his Republican counterpart, Ken Mehlman, has been on message.

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Biden made his comment on ABC's "This Week" after the host, George Stephanopoulos, played a clip of Dean saying Thursday that perhaps Republicans can wait in line to cast ballots because a "lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives."

Asked whether Dean is doing the party any good, Biden said, "Not with that kind of rhetoric. He doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric. And I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats. ... I wish that rhetoric would change."

Edwards, the party's vice presidential nominee last year, said at an annual party fund-raising dinner Saturday in Nashville that he disagreed with Dean's comment.

Mehlman, appearing on his first Sunday talk show since becoming Republican National Committee chairman in January, said on NBC's "Meet the Press": "I'm not sure the best way to win support in the red states is to insult the folks who live there. I think that a better approach might be to talk about the issues you're for."

Dean, who portrays himself as a fighter, clarified his comment a day later to say that he was referring to the Republican leadership, not to ordinary Republicans.

Dean's aides, who have declined invitations for him to appear on television with Mehlman, said he was unavailable to comment on the reaction because he was traveling to Seattle for a Women's Leadership Forum fund-raiser and a "DNC Low Dollar Fund-Raiser." His spokeswoman, Karen Finney, said: "He is a voice of the party, not the only voice. We have different voices in our party. But we are all committed to rebuilding our party and getting our country back on track."

A recent article in Business Week was headlined, "Howard Dean's Raised Voice Isn't Raising Cash." The national Democratic Party raised about $18.6 million in the first four months of the year, compared with $42.6 million for the RNC. Finney said the Democratic Party is now raising $1 million a week.