GOD, WE'RE going to miss the guy. That stern Dutch-uncle glower, the paterfamilias populist, the there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I touchy-feely everyman, the master builder, the nasty letter writer, the chronic bellyacher and Kaptain Keno all rolled into an idiosyncratic bundle of contradictions named William Donald Schaefer.
He's the very same king of kitsch who once appeared for his state of the state address wearing googly-eyed, dime-store novelty glasses. Give him a funny hat and he's in hog heaven.
For there are really two William Donald Schaefers, the planner who sees the big picture and the petty sourpuss who on occasion displays a remarkably thin skin. And that's pretty much the way history will judge Mr. Schaefer: one for the books and one for laughs.
But grieve not for Mr. Schaefer. He's had a heck of a run -- City Council member and president, four terms as mayor, two as governor -- a full slate for any lawyer-politician. Mr. Schaefer is one person of whom it can truly be said that he devoted his life to public service.
Mr. Schaefer's autobiography is written, more than anything else, in bricks and mortar. Thirty public monuments across the state bear his name.
They laughed at Harborplace but it outdraws Disneyland. They snickered, even tried to block, Orioles Park at Camden Yards, but it has become a national treasure. And Mr. Schaefer's Toonerville Trolley light rail line was a laughing stock until it connected the suburbs with the downtown ball yard and ferried the sell-out crowds.
There have been some notable failures, too. Mr. Schaefer, as mayor, misjudged on the harbor's Power Plant and Fish Market -- both entertainment centers. And Market Place itself is a smudged urban disaster area.
In his first years as governor, Mr. Schaefer inherited a pile of money because of tax law changes; he spent freely and quickly, "like a drunken sailor," in the view at the time of State Senate President Thomas V. "Mike" Miller.
During his first term, he got most of what he wanted despite his heavy-handed dealings and protocol standoffs with the General
Assembly as well as his public outbursts. But there were losses, too, such as the school for math and science that he touted.
But Mr. Schaefer's present term has been beset by recessionary pressures as well as public temper tantrums. And for awhile his administration seemed to come apart in a very public way. He sulked for nearly a year after winning his second term in 1990 by only 60 percent of the vote and losing 13 counties to boot.
There were three successive years of budget cuts and the largest package of tax increases ($800 million) in Maryland history. All of which proves that governing is easy when there's money and it's tough going when the tambourine is empty. But overshadowing Mr. Schaefer's governance was his dark side.
The most celebrated ostracism since the Know-Nothings occurred when Mr. Schaefer virtually placed his understudy, Lt. Gov. Melvin "Mickey" Steinberg, under house arrest. Mr. Steinberg, the governor said, had double-crossed him by going public with his opposition to the Linowes commission tax proposal. He stripped Mr. Steinberg of his epaulets, his staff, virtually all duties and in part helped cost Mr. Steinberg the governorship for which he yearned.
The second term also saw Mr. Schaefer intensify his irritability quotient. Begin with his scatological crack about the Eastern Shore, his celebrated nasty notes to reporters and constituents alike, his personal attacks on citizens who disagreed with him, his state police guards tracking down the license numbers of offending motorists who gave him a Bronx cheer. The list is as endless as it is amusing and/or frightening.
These days, as the constitutional end of his administration arrives, there's a softer side to Mr. Schaefer. He talks wistfully about the past and hopefully about the future. He'd like his political tombstone to read, "He cared."
When Mr. Schaefer turns over the keys to the executive limo and the State House office on Jan. 18, he will leave behind nearly 40 years of public service, many of them effective, some of them stormy and bittersweet. Now he'd like to package the sum total of his wisdom and experience and try to accomplish what he couldn't as governor.
His boardroom pals are trying to scrape up $2.5 million to endow a "William Donald Schaefer Chair of Public Policy." The chair, if you will, would be divvied up among three institutions -- the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Baltimore and the University of Maryland College Park.
Mr. Schaefer doesn't envision himself so much as a do-it-now professor in the classroom, but rather a consultant and intellectual-in-residence, working not only within the framework of academia but also with the business community.
Like a brooding Banquo, Mr. Schaefer laments his failure to get Maryland's geographic regions to be more cooperative rather than competitive when trying to attract business. He feels he has a better shot at the daunting task working from the outside as a roving ambassador than from within the pressure-cooker brackets of government.
Some might view such a role for Mr. Schaefer as a lifeline to the business community, but officialdom might consider his posturing as little more than a redundant pain-in-the-neck without power or portfolio -- kind of a government in exile. In politics, as in love, it's tough letting go of yesterday.
So good luck. Reporting on government and politics will never be the same wild and unpredictable experience.
Frank A. DeFilippo writes on Maryland politics from Owings Mills.