The campaign for Anne Arundel County executive is a struggle between two men who want to inherit the mantle of fiscal conservatism from incumbent Robert R. Neall.
The race pits a better-known Democrat who nearly upset Mr. Neall four years ago against what most observers say is a paler shade of the popular Republican.
Democrat Theodore J. Sophocleus, a pharmacist, and Republican John G. Gary, a custom draper, each sells himself as the one to continue the reinvention of government begun under the Neall administration. Mr. Neall, prompted by taxpayer angst and the recession, created what he calls "plain vanilla" government, scaling back county services, reorganizing and eliminating whole departments and shunting some responsibilities onto the private sector.
Mr. Sophocleus and Mr. Neall sounded similar themes in 1990. Mr. Sophocleus, a former two-term county councilman who adopted the teddy bear as his campaign mascot, promised a lean, but warm-and-friendly government. Mr. Neall, a former minority leader of the House of Delegates, warned that government reforms would be painful and hammered away at his opponent as unable to make the necessary decisions.
Again, as in 1990, Mr. Sophocleus and his opponent often echo one another on fundamental issues.
"We need tough management," Mr. Sophocleus told a gathering at Odenton Volunteer Fire Hall last week. "We can't give you everything because we can't afford it."
Moments later, Mr. Gary sounded a similar theme: "Someone has to make tough decisions, the right decisions for the taxpayer. . . . You can't just promise everything to everybody."
Unlike four years ago, Mr. Sophocleus' opponent does not have Mr. Neall's reputation for slicing and dicing government budgets. But after 12 years in the state House of Delegates, including eight on the powerful Appropriations Committee, Mr. Gary is recognized as a fiscal conservative with a good grasp of government spending.
Nor does Mr. Sophocleus face an uphill struggle for voter recognition as he did in 1990. A five-month advertising blitz on cable television, unprecedented in Anne Arundel politics, propelled the Democrat from the near obscurity of his Linthicum district into a dead heat with Mr. Neall by Election Day.
This time, Mr. Sophocleus, who was appointed last year to a vacancy in the House of Delegates, probably is the best-known politician in the county, excepting Mr. Neall.
Mr. Gary has the endorsement of Mr. Neall and the Anne Arundel County Taxpayers Association, the group that sponsored a 1992 referendum that limits the annual growth in the county's property tax revenues. But some observers wonder if Mr. Gary has done enough to distinguish himself from Mr. Sophocleus.
"The quieter and the calmer the campaign, the more it helps Ted," said one Democratic observer. "The more he [Ted] can prevent a clear distinction the better, because he has the name recognition."
Mr. Gary has tried to draw contrasts. He has attempted to link Mr. Sophocleus' eight years on the council with the administration of former executive O. James Lighthizer, which he has described as an era of big government spending.
During a televised debate two weeks ago, the Republican assailed Mr. Sophocleus for accepting extravagant "perks," including a county car and car phone and expense-paid trips to government conferences in Ocean City, while he was a councilman. In newspaper ads, he has criticized the Democrat for approving a 1989 law that allowed 52 appointed and elected officials to retire at age 50 and sweetened their pension benefits. a result of that law, Mr. Sophocleus, 55, and his wife, Alice, who was his council aide, will receive about $900 a month in retirement benefits from the county for the rest of their lives.
Mr. Sophocleus has answered that Anne Arundel needed the pension changes, which county actuaries approved, to prevent department heads from abandoning a lame-duck administration.
Regarding the growing spending of those years, Mr. Sophocleus says the 1980s were a different era and that he has no intention of trying to relive them.
"Yes, we bought things, and yes, we built Quiet Waters Park [an $18 million showplace near Annapolis] and we built schools and upgraded the sewage treatment plants," Mr. Sophocleus told a business group at Anne Arundel Community College recently. "I'm not going to apologize for these things. The money was there and we used it because people wanted these things."
Mr. Sophocleus has counterattacked Mr. Gary, noting that the Republican's wife, Ruthanne, was appointed by Mr. Neall to a $65,000-a-year job and given a county car to supervise one employee in the Office of Community Services. He also noted that Mr. Gary voted for a state pension law that allowed many of Mr. Neall's political appointees to transfer from the state pension program into the county's without contributing any money, a policy that contributed to a multi-million dollar deficit in the county program. Mr. Gary has since sponsored legislation to end the practice. But the bill did not pass the General Assembly.
The candidates sound similar on popular issues, such as crime and education.
Both have proposed hiring more than 40 police officers over the next two years, shrinking patrol areas and bringing back a school for juvenile delinquents cut by Mr. Neall.
On issues where they differ, the county executive often has little control. Mr. Gary said he wants to be directly accountable as executive for public education and wants voters to have the power to recall lenient judges and parole board members. But both ideas would require action by the state legislature; the latter may require a constitutional amendment.
"To say you are going to do that [give voters the recall] as county executive is meaningless," Mr. Sophocleus said. "It's virtually impossible to do. I think you've got to make your plan something you can do within a specified time frame."
Mr. Sophocleus was a corporate manager with the 104-outlet Read's Drug Store chain in the 1970s, and ran Ted's Pharmacy in Linthicum in the 1980s.
Mr. Gary managed 70 employees in a Baltimore interior design company's custom drapery division in the 1960s before starting his drapery business in Millersville a decade later. In the end, most believe the election will turn on how well Mr. Gary can differentiate the two candidates' management styles.
"Everybody is talking about education and police and crime, but what it all boils down to is money," said Alfred H. M. Shehab, a community activist and Republican from Odenton. "I think he [Mr. Sophocleus] would find it more difficult to make the hard money decisions than John would."
Mr. Sophocleus -- who has received the endorsement of the Sierra Club, teachers' and county employee unions as well as paid and volunteer firefighters -- often talks about giving government back to the citizens. He says that Mr. Neall has excluded county employees and concerned residents from the decision-making process.
"I think Ted is going [to create] a lean, kind government," said Edie Segree, an Arnold resident and Democratic candidate for judge of the Orphans' Court. "I just sense that Ted would be more inclusive."
Mr. Neall agrees, but he does not believe that Mr. Sophocleus' style would be good for the county.
"I haven't seen any indication that he's willing to step forward and act as an individual, and that's what it takes to be county executive," Mr. Neall said of the $78,000-a-year job. "If you look at the charter, the decision is yours."