In mid-July, Lt. Gov. Melvin A. Steinberg huddled with his family around the dining table in Pikesville, his political life in the balance.
With his campaign to become Maryland's next governor unraveling fast, he had only two real options -- quit the race or spend family money to keep his chances alive.
Daughter Barbara spoke for everyone. She urged her father to stay with the fight -- to "go out with principle and integrity."
"And that's what I'm doing," Mr. Steinberg says now.
In the past month, Mr. Steinberg has pumped $150,000 into television ads that will keep his message before voters through the Sept. 13 Democratic primary.
He seems convinced that if Democratic voters are reminded of his record, they will see him as the only candidate qualified to be governor.
"If people can get to know me and check what my qualifications are, I'm a winner going away," Mr. Steinberg says.
His televised pitch to voters appears to be having some success, if modest. Mr. Steinberg moved into second place in poll results released yesterday, but he is still running far behind the Democratic front-runner, Parris N. Glendening.
Mr. Steinberg's credentials include a successful investment career and 28 years in Annapolis, including four as Senate president and eight as lieutenant governor. Mr. Steinberg says that, although he has little executive experience, his work in the private sector and the State House is the right combination for guiding Maryland through a looming budget crunch without more taxes.
The ultimate Annapolis insider, Mr. Steinberg has come up with an astonishingly negative slogan: "Save Our State." Save it, that is, from his opponents.
He dismisses the rest of the Democratic field -- Mr. Glendening, the Prince George's executive, and state Sens. Mary H. Boergers and American Joe Miedusiewski -- with blunt disdain.
"I am not going to leave it to mediocrity, to people with mediocre credentials," Mr. Steinberg says.
"Who out there who's running is better than me?"
Mr. Steinberg balances a mainly liberal agenda on social issues with a moderate approach to the budget. He would expand abortion rights and gun control, for example, and look for alternatives to prison for nonviolent criminals. Unlike much of the field, Mr. Steinberg has not proposed toughening the state's parole laws.
But along with his conservative running mate, state Sen. James C. Simpson of Charles County, Mr. Steinberg says he would comb through government, agency by agency, to make cuts to balance the state budget.
Specifically, Mr. Steinberg says he would close one of the state's three mental hospitals, cut back on Medicaid benefits, privatize more of Baltimore-Washington International Airport and close the state Department of Personnel.
He would increase some social spending by establishing "full-service" schools that would offer education for both youngsters and adults, as well as social services, in an effort to curb problems such as teen pregnancy and illiteracy.
Mr. Steinberg also talks about possibly increasing education spending for students in poorer areas of the state, though he stops short of a commitment.
His message, he says, boils down to a simple theme.
"My father worked in a shoe factory and here I'm the lieutenant governor of the state. I want that opportunity for every person. When we walk out, Maryland will be a better place."
Mr. Steinberg's life has, indeed, been an American success story.
He grew up in a home above his father's grocery store near the corner of Lanvale and Bruce streets in West Baltimore, not far from the childhood home of Gov. William Donald Schaefer.
The son of a Russian immigrant father and a Baltimore-born mother, Mr. Steinberg had earned his law degree at the University of Baltimore by the age of 21.
He served two years in the U.S. Navy, started doing legal work for unions and stumbled into politics with an unsuccessful run for the House of Delegates in 1962.
Four years later, he challenged the state senatorial candidate backed by the Baltimore County political machine and scored a surprise victory. He hasn't lost since.
Investments successful
In his private life, Mr. Steinberg made a series of successful investments in businesses and real estate. He owns parts of several apartment complexes around the country, for example, and is the controlling partner in a Baltimore pension fund company.
His worth today exceeds $4 million, according to his financial disclosure statements.
While he quietly built his fortune at home, "Mickey" Steinberg was known as the clown prince of Annapolis, the guy who always broke the tedium with humor.
He once had the three delegates from his district angling for the one spot on a junket to China. The trip turned out to be an elaborate Steinberg practical joke.
Jokes notwithstanding, he played dead-serious politics. Time and again he abandoned alliances to further his career, such as in 1982, when he led a bitter coup to grab the Senate presidency from James Clark.
As president of the Senate, Mr. Steinberg was at the center of state affairs. He ushered in pension reform that infuriated state teachers. He helped extricate the state from the savings and loan crisis and passed major legislation to preserve the Chesapeake Bay.
The image of No. 2
In 1986, he joined Mr. Schaefer in a landslide victory and become the governor's liaison to the legislature.
With the state awash in money, the administration gained legislative approval for not one but two stadiums in Baltimore, a light rail line through the region, and a politically thorny reorganization of the state's higher education system.
Mr. Steinberg got much of the credit.
But his many legislative successes may scarcely register with voters, eclipsed by the image of Mr. Steinberg sitting idly in the State House the past few years, thanks to a feud with Mr. Schaefer over taxes.
Mr. Steinberg says he couldn't go along with Mr. Schaefer's 1991 proposal to raise taxes by $800 million.
By other accounts, however, Mr. Steinberg carefully planned a break to distance himself from the governor to prepare for the 1994 election.
Friends told him he should make it a clean break -- resign as lieutenant governor -- or else find a way to patch relations with Mr. Schaefer. Staying on in a job that carried no duties was a mistake, they said.
Typically, Mr. Steinberg made his own decision -- to simply stay put.
"Having achieved a great deal on the basis of his own instincts, Mickey has a great deal of confidence in his own judgment over everyone else's," says David S. Iannucci, a former lobbyist for Mr. Schaefer.
"He is not the best listener Maryland has ever seen. He talks sometimes when it would be far more productive to listen."
Moments with a nonvoter
In Ellicott City the other day, Mr. Steinberg took precious minutes to talk to everybody he saw on Main Street, even out-of-staters. He dawdled, for example, to talk with Beverly Gregory, the owner of a framing shop. She told Mr. Steinberg that her son, a state police officer, knew him and spoke highly of him.
The encounter buoyed Mr. Steinberg, who didn't know that two of his Democratic rivals had already campaigned in the store. Or that Mrs. Gregory is not even registered to vote.
Mr. Steinberg's advisers have tried with only modest success to smooth his rough edges, urging him to stick to an issue, drop his trademark patter and answer questions concisely.
But he still tends to meander around answers and sometimes interrupts serious discussions with throw-away quips.
Some personnel mistakes
His candidacy for months was hampered by staff changes and " defections that left the impression he could not run a small campaign operation, much less a sprawling state government with a dozen major agencies and a $13 billion budget.
Mr. Steinberg admits to some personnel mistakes, but shrugs off the staffing controversy as normal campaign turnover that was overblown by the press.
"My campaign has not been in decline," he says. "We have simply had some personnel changes."
Whatever one calls the problems, they seem to have stopped and the campaign is finally showing signs of stability -- although it still lags the smooth efficiency of the Glendening juggernaut.
Mr. Steinberg promises to put more of his own money into the race if needed.
He is trying to remain philosophical about losing, which would likely mark the end of his political career. After all, he says, he has a strong family and could retire comfortably tomorrow. But there's an edge of bitterness about his effort -- a resentment perhaps that he was not simply swept into office.
He has even threatened to support the Republican nominee for the general election if he loses the Democratic primary.
Again and again, he returns to the campaign's basic mantra.
"People ask me, do you realize the headaches you're getting into?" he says. "I said, if I don't run, who's going to be governor?"
3' Tomorrow: American Joe Miedusiewski
CANDIDATE PROFILE
MELVIN A. STEINBERG
Age: 60
Home: Pikesville, Baltimore County.
Family: Wife, Anita, three children.
Education: B.A., J.D., University of Baltimore.
Experience: Maryland Senate, 1967-1987. Senate Finance Committee chairman, 1979-1983. Senate president, 1983-1986. Lieutenant governor, 1987-present.
POSITIONS ON ISSUES:
Taxes/budget: Says he has no plans to raise taxes and would do so only as a last resort. Would review state government agency by agency to make cuts and privatize certain functions. Also would close one of three state mental hospitals, eliminate the Department of Personnel and cut Medicaid expenditures.
Economic development: Proposes incentives for emerging technology businesses to make state an "intellectual haven." Would increase use of state pension funds for venture capital and would offer tax incentives for private venture capital investment.
Crime: Supports death penalty. Would expand alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders. Supports job-training, educational and substance-abuse programs in prisons to reduce repeat offenses. Wants to emphasize community policing and increase patrols around schools while children are there.
Gun control: Supports proposal to require the licensing of anyone purchasing a handgun and to limit the number of handguns that can be purchased in a year.
Abortion: Supports abortion rights. Would lift restrictions on government-funded abortions for poor women.
Schools: Proposes "full-service schools" combining education, medical and social services. Calls for incentive grants for inner-city and rural schools. Talks of possibly changing state school aid formula, but stops short of commitment. Supports teacher recertification and state takeover of troubled schools.