William Donald Schaefer's closest advisers meet once a week in a quiet corner of a favored Little Italy restaurant. They order plates of clams marinara and spa chicken with rice -- fortification for a skull session with a famously mercurial political heavyweight.

"At those meetings, we strategize and he decides," said Gene Raynor, manager of the former governor's campaign for state comptroller. "He has yelled at all of us at one time or other."

For Raynor and the other longtime friends of Schaefer, organizing this political campaign stirs their competitive juices even as it rekindles their devotion to one of the state's most storied politicians.

The demanding Don Schaefer, long ago shed of any need or desire to sugarcoat an opinion or sit on an idea, is back for his first campaign in eight years. And so are his handlers, who wouldn't have him any other way.

"The thing about Schaefer is you know exactly what you're getting," said Nelson J. Sabatini, former secretary of the state health department and a member of the Schaefer campaign's steering committee.

"He was never satisfied with what he accomplished. He was that way in the city, and he was that way in Annapolis."

Four years after leaving the governor's mansion for a restless retirement, Schaefer is running to succeed longtime comptroller Louis L. Goldstein, who died in July. It is a political comeback that none of his advisers expected, but for which all of them were prepared.

"It would be like quickly calling together an old sports team, in that everybody generally knows who plays shortstop, who's on first, who's the pitcher," said Robert C. Douglas, Schaefer's former press secretary.

Mark L. Wasserman, secretary of economic development when Schaefer was governor, added, "Even though we were shaking off a few cobwebs, we had a cadre of people who could raise money, deal with scheduling, deal with other political organizations and fall into it kind of naturally."

These advisers talk of loyalty that runs both ways, of being

motivated to strive for greatness.

They apologize for sounding corny, and then they say something like this, from Douglas: "People have felt as though their work with the governor -- and their work in the government under him -- was, if you will, a patriotic, selfless effort.

"People felt good about that, good about him, so they stuck with him."

To his Republican opponent, Larry M. Epstein, Schaefer's run for comptroller is anything but selfless. "He likes being in the public eye. But his heart is not in the job," Epstein said. "I'm not running because I'm bored."

Schaefer insists that he knows plenty about preserving the state's Triple A bond rating and other duties of the comptroller's job. He has been briefed by the interim comptroller and has found no need for an overhaul of the office.

He said his heart is in the race -- one he knows he could not be running without the Schaefer stable of counselors.

"Let's say my name was Bill Smith, and I decided in July I was going to run for comptroller. There is no way I could have mounted a campaign like we have unless I had a group like I have," he said. "I did a lot for them. They did a lot for me."

Some of these supporters go back to Schaefer's days as mayor of Baltimore. Many followed him to the governor's mansion. But his reign as governor ended before he or his advisers were ready.

"It was so final," said Lainy M. Lebow-Sachs, an adviser during Schaefer's days as mayor and governor. "It was done, finished, over."

While Parris N. Glendening was taking the oath as governor in January 1995, Schaefer was in Baltimore, upbeat but nostalgic during a quiet lunch at Dalesio's restaurant in Little Italy.

Schaefer's Cabinet and staff kept in touch at twice-yearly reunions, holiday parties and crab feasts at Sandy Point Park. Still, they never dreamed they would be gathering at Dalesio's to plot campaign strategy.

The group includes Lebow-Sachs, now an official at the Kennedy Krieger Institute; Zelig Robinson, the former governor's attorney; former state prisons chief and Baltimore police commissioner Bishop L. Robinson; and baking mogul and political fund-raiser John Paterakis. Also Douglas, now a lawyer at Piper & Marbury; and Wasserman and Sabatini, who are vice presidents at the University of Maryland Medical System.

Banker Edwin F. Hale is raising money for the campaign.

Orchestrating all this is Raynor, a Schaefer confidant who was the state's election chief.

Raynor and Schaefer frequently start the day by meeting for breakfast at Jimmy's Restaurant in Fells Point. When he's not at the Highlandtown campaign headquarters, Raynor can often be seen with piles of campaign paper at his favorite table at the Waterfront Hotel Restaurant. Meanwhile, the others spend their days in their offices, until they come together once a week at Dalesio's.

Lebow-Sachs said: "We're talking politics and talking radio ads and putting stickers on people. I'll be saying words I never thought I'd be saying again, like, 'Vote for Schaefer, vote for Schaefer.'

"Sometimes I'll just burst out laughing. I can't believe it's happening."

She was on an African safari when the Schaefer comeback suddenly became a reality in July. Goldstein, a colorful and popular politician during his nearly four decades as comptroller, died unexpectedly at the age of 85.

Nearly as suddenly, Schaefer's phone starting ringing with supporters urging him to run. He will turn 77 the day before Election Day.

The very idea of Comptroller Schaefer is nothing less than destiny, his advisers say. In the wake of Goldstein's death, they ask: What makes more sense than for one venerable, widely popular politician to succeed another?

"Maybe this was just meant to be," Wasserman said.

First Schaefer stared down Gov. Parris N. Glendening, who initially backed a former congressman for the comptroller's post.

Within days, Glendening was pledging his support for Schaefer at an Annapolis news conference -- and Schaefer was hurrying out of the state capital to make a previously scheduled appearance at a charity golf tournament in Western Maryland.

Riding west on Interstate 70 in Wasserman's Jeep Cherokee, Schaefer phoned Baltimore County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger and Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan -- "inventing the beginnings of this campaign as we drove in my car to Frostburg," Wasserman said. "He was clearly enjoying the moment."

What followed has been a prudent campaign that seems designed not to squander Schaefer's enormous advantage in name recognition over Epstein, an Owings Mills accountant.

Schaefer has no intention of meeting Epstein's challenge to a debate. He says he's never met Epstein, seems in no hurry to do so.

The campaign's theme is Schaefer as statesman. His campaign literature touts his "integrity, experience, independence" and 11 proclaims: "His honesty is legendary."

Schaefer's supporters say the dip in Schaefer's popularity during his second term as governor -- fueled in part by strange phone calls and letters to Maryland citizens -- is a dim memory.

"The shallow criticism fades away and people remember the substantive achievements," Douglas said.

Along the way, Schaefer has gathered support from former political enemies such as Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and former mayoral candidate William H. Murphy Jr.

He has campaigned at Baltimore's traditional hand-shaking venues, such as Lexington Market and the city's Columbus Day parade. He also has campaigned in Cecil County and Landover and is planning swings in Western Maryland and on the Eastern Shore.

In Fells Point, Schaefer ambled the cobblestones of Thames Street, slowing to field greetings and stopping to strike a pose in a vendor's wide-brimmed hat.

Many people wanted to know the status of Schaefer's strained relationship with the current governor. Schaefer told one woman, "I'm with Glendening. He tries my patience, though."

In the end, Schaefer's advisers can do only so much to script his campaign.

At an interview with Sun editorial writers, he floated a proposal to invest more state pension money in relatively risky venture capital for fledgling high-tech Maryland companies.

A good idea, perhaps, but almost surely controversial. His advisers cringed, and then shrugged.

"He's his own man," Douglas said. "He's not going to sit there in an editorial board meeting and cover up his ideas or play a shell game with you.

"He's going to tell you what he's thinking."

Pub Date: 10/16/98