AUSTIN, Texas – Did the modern version of dramatic mass shooting deaths begin here? Some of us remember when a deranged, former Marine sharpshooter murdered 16 people and wounded 32, firing from the clock tower at the University of Texas. ...

Tagged with: C. Fraser Smith gun control

Whatever else happens in this bizarre election year, Martin O’Malley will have clips of Anderson Cooper announcing him as a Democratic candidate for president of the United States. With O’Malley’s standing in the polls near zero, some had wondered if ...

Tagged with: C. Fraser Smith Martin O'Malley

So, according to my old newspaper, the state house is Larry Hogan’s to lose. Wait.  He’s barely been in office a year and already he’s a lock for a second term? Is Maryland shifting dramatically away from its Democratic predictability? ...

Tagged with: C. Fraser Smith Goucher Poll Larry Hogan

William Donald Schaefer would be shouting, “Hallelujah!” The mayor would be on the phone to Ronald J.  Daniels, president of The Johns Hopkins University, and to Ronald R. Peterson, head of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. He’d be ...

Tagged with: C. Fraser Smith

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake now faces the possibility she will be a caretaker mayor for the next 15 months. Or it could be worse. In effect, Baltimore might have a mayor in name only. She may have less power than a lame ...

Tagged with: C. Fraser Smith Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

Maryland’s favorite son presidential contender ran into a buzz saw last week on WAMU radio in Washington. Scheduled for a noontime on-air interview, Martin O’Malley got stuck in traffic, made worse he said by an accident. The host, Diane Rehm, ...

Tagged with: C. Fraser Smith Martin O'Malley

William Donald Schaefer won the mayoralty in 1971, moving into City Hall with more knowledge of the job than many mayors have when they leave it. He’d been a member of the city council. He’d been president of that body. ...

Tagged with: baltimore mayor C. Fraser Smith

Voters who live outside the political bubble of Annapolis must be wondering about the alternative universe evoked as former Gov. Marvin Mandel passes from the scene. Almost 40 years after he became the poster child of a state in the ...

Tagged with: C. Fraser Smith Marvin Mandel

Baltimore’s discredited zero tolerance arrest policy of the 1980’s draws justified condemnation, but critics forget an important factor: Neighborhood leaders and clergy, not to speak of residents, wanted it. They had zero tolerance for crime. Why should police tolerate it? ...

Tagged with: C. Fraser Smith

In Annapolis, they call it “a hard vote.” Hard, meaning your opponents could use it against you — to raise money and marshal votes. Hard, meaning you might have to vote against your own better judgment. Hard, meaning between your ...

Tagged with: C. Fraser Smith sen. ben cardin