'Happy Warrior' Campaigns to Unseat Md. Comptroller

It had been a long day on the campaign trail -- two news conferences, a television interview and a stop at a hospital -- but if there is any time for Peter Franchot (D) to play the "happy warrior," his favorite term for describing his campaign for Maryland comptroller, this stop at a Prince George's County mall was it.

He's a wealthy, veteran state delegate from Montgomery County, and the shoppers at the Boulevard at the Capital Centre in Largo are middle-class teachers and service workers. He's 58, and they're in their thirties. He's white, and they are black. Undaunted, Franchot rolled up the sleeves of his light blue herringbone dress shirt and exited Five Guys Famous Burger and Fries, confident that he could earn some votes.

"Do you vote in Maryland?" he asked a few dozen people he walked past. "Hi, I'm Peter Franchot, and I'm running for comptroller."

A blank look flashed across their faces, and their eyes seemed to say: "What is a comptroller? Who is this guy?" But they listened to his pitch; Franchot has a kind of earnest charisma that doesn't let people politely walk away.

Sometimes he would explain that the comptroller is one of the most important offices in Maryland, serving as a kind of chief financial officer for the state government. But the comptroller also belongs to a powerful committee called the Board of Public Works, where, together with the governor and treasurer, he helps decide whether public projects get funding.

But Franchot wasn't there to give a civics lesson; he needed to make connections. So he moved to something shoppers likely would be familiar with: "William Donald Schaefer -- have you heard of him?"

Ah! Mentioning the incumbent's name works almost every time. Franchot describes the comptroller race as "an obscure election wrapped in obscurity." But Schaefer, the 84-year-old Democratic titan of Maryland politics, is known everywhere for his blunt and increasingly eccentric remarks.

Schaefer gained national notoriety in February when he ogled a young aide to the governor at a public meeting. At another meeting, he made a connection between the North Korean government's missile launch and South Korean immigrants learning English in the United States.

The sense that Schaefer is ready for retirement after 50 years in office has prompted six challengers to take to the field. The two Democratic candidates are Franchot, a 20-year veteran of the House of Delegates, and Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens.

Baltimore City Paper summed up their campaign mantras cruelly but simply in a recent headline: "Vote for Me, I'm Not Old and Crazy."

The bad publicity has shattered Schaefer's hopes of an easy march to victory. A Baltimore Sun poll of 604 likely Democratic voters in July found that 31 percent of those polled planned to vote for Schaefer Close behind are Owens with 22 percent and Franchot with 11 percent of the vote; 36 percent of those polled were undecided. A Washington Post poll of 453 registered voters in June showed that Schaefer was more popular with Republicans than his fellow Democrats.

Nearly everyone Franchot encounters appears to be fed up with Schaefer's antics.

"That's the old guy," one woman said of Schaefer while talking with Franchot at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

"Good luck," another woman wished Franchot in his bid to unseat the incumbent.

"Schaefer's a Republican, right?" a man at the mall asked.

These responses energized Franchot. "Schaefer is collapsing, and nobody can put Humpty Dumpty together again," he said. "Schaefer's going to lead in the polls till the very last day, and then he's going to lose."

For Democrats tired of Schaefer, Franchot presents himself as the liberal alternative -- "the only Democrat for comptroller," as his campaign literature puts it. Schaefer, he said, "is joined at the hip with Ehrlich."

Franchot doesn't give much credence to Owens's liberal credentials, either. Prompted by an open letter from Owens defending her record and taking a few jabs at Franchot, he wrote back describing her as "pro-sprawl, pro-slots and pro-Bob Ehrlich." If Owens were to win, Franchot says, she'd be just as reliable an ally to Ehrlich as Schaefer is.

But dismissing Schaefer and Owens still defines Franchot by who he isn't rather than who he is.

Franchot has promised to represent "the little fellers, not the Rockefellers," despite having a blue-blooded background. The son of a corporate lawyer, he was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and Amherst College (as well as the less aristocratic Northeastern University School of Law, he'll remind you). He owns an 1896 Victorian farmhouse in Takoma Park as well as a condominium on Cape Cod, and he hits the campaign trail in a Lexus RX330 sport-utility vehicle. He has helped finance his own campaign to the tune of $750,000.

"I was lucky to grow up in a family that had resources," he said on the way to a campaign stop. "I'm not independently wealthy, but I've been very successful. . . . I'm very fortunate to be able to support my family and be able to involve myself in public service. I really hope that when people review my career they'll be able to say, 'He gave back as much as he got.' "

Franchot is affiliated with Cassidy & Associates, a D.C. lobbying firm that, his critics point out, has represented Wal-Mart and gambling interests. Franchot said he serves as a business development consultant to the firm, advising not-for-profit health-care institutions. "I'm not a lobbyist," he said. "Since 1986, I've visited Capitol Hill maybe five times."

His background hasn't kept him from receiving endorsements from labor groups. Teachers, police and government workers unions are all backing Franchot. So are a number of Democratic politicians from Prince George's and Montgomery counties. That number grew by one with a telephone call late in the day.

"Here are the pieces that I'm missing: Conway, Exum, Middleton," he told the caller, rattling off a list of Maryland politicians who hadn't endorsed him yet. "Conway and Middleton. Those are the two. . . . Absolutely. I would love one. How much can you give me? . . . Great. Thank you. Thank you. Make it out to 'Friends of Peter Franchot.' Hey, Parris, thanks. Parris, thank you so much. Thanks."

He was talking to Parris N. Glendening, a former Maryland governor and a confirmed Schaefer foe.

"He's sending me a check for $2,500," Franchot said. "I really appreciate the support."

Arriving at a labor rally at the end of the day, he parked his Lexus well out of sight and walked up to the throng of supporters.

"I'm a happy warrior, I've got the money, I've got the message, I got labor and it's on to victory," he said, closing his speech to the crowd's applause and cheers.

He used that term -- "happy warrior" -- four or five times that day. It is clearly important to him, but what does it mean?

It is an allusion to the poem "Character of the Happy Warrior" by William Wordsworth. He writes that the happy warrior is someone:

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth

For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,

Or he must fall to sleep without his fame,

And leave a dead unprofitable name,

Finds comfort in himself and in his cause.