Let's get this moving again.
Lawrence A. Bell III -- LAB, as he's known on his own campaign schedule -- is working Northeast Market on a Saturday morning, shaking hands and repeating, almost mantra-like, "Need your help. Sure need your help. Tell your friends. I'd appreciate your help."
His supporters swarm around him, easily identified by the white "Team Bell" T-shirts and, for a lucky few, the white Bell polo shirts. When Bell takes too much time with a voter, or gets bogged down in a constituent's conversation, one of the white-shirted people will prod him along, or become a literal handler, grabbing him under his arm and pushing him forward.
"We've got to keep him moving," campaign aide Peter Dolkart says repeatedly. "Let's get this moving again." A full day is planned, much of it just like this: moving through crowds, shaking hands, visiting barber shops and beauty salons, going door to door. "Need your help. Sure need your help. Tell your friends. Appreciate your help."
Bell has always run his campaigns on this grassroots level, a style initially born out of necessity. When he scored his surprise victory for the District 4 council seat in 1987, he had only $10,000. He didn't have that much more when he ran for re-election in 1991, and he also was considered the underdog when he went after the City Council presidency in 1995. Three elections, three victories -- and not a one with a major media endorsement, he mentions today. Just in case you were wondering.
This time, however, Bell wasn't supposed to be an underdog. But a few campaign missteps -- embarrassing revelations about his personal finances, a disastrous protest at a rival's rally -- have dogged him this summer. Polls show it's a three-man race in the Democratic primary -- Bell, City Councilman Martin J. O'Malley and former City Councilman Carl Stokes -- and few political handicappers are ready to predict the win, place and show.
But Bell is the best-financed candidate to date, having raised a quarter of a million more than his next-closest competitor and one-time ally, O'Malley -- although the gap between what's on hand is much narrower.
In fact, the Bell campaign has spent as much clothing the candidate at Saks Fifth Avenue, $4,300, as another Democrat, A. Robert Kaufman, has raised for his entire campaign.
The money means he has already begun television and radio advertising, always an advantage. Still, Bell walks the streets, his campaign aides say, going out every night there isn't a mayoral forum. What do you call such a campaign? "A well-financed grassroots campaign," suggests aide Bill Henry.
Here in the market, Bell has taken off his suit jacket, a khaki DKNY, exposing a pale blue shirt that seems voluminous on his slight frame, puffing up in back almost like a sail.
"They say I'm too skinny to be mayor," jokes Bell, 37, who forgets to eat when he's campaigning, who will not stop to consume more than a bottle of iced tea for the next eight hours. "Would you believe I used to weigh 220 pounds?"
"I support you 100 percent," a woman in the market calls out.
Bell stops and begins a little speech that will prove to be the day's theme. Did you know, he asks this supporter, that Clarence "Du" Burns and I are the only two black men elected city council president? Did you know that, before Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke challenged Burns in the 1987 mayor's race, the city council presidency was considered a training ground for the city's mayors?
"Every mayor in my generation was once city council president," he tells the woman, even as a campaign aide gently pushes him along, hand hooked in Bell's armpit. "You hear me now?"
Yes, it's true: William Donald Schaefer, Du Burns and Tommy D'Alesandro III were city council presidents first, mayors second. But other city council presidents found the office was no guarantee of the mayorship. Mary Pat Clarke, who's working on Bell's campaign, is just one example.
And Schmoke, the first elected black mayor in Baltimore, was state's attorney before he won the office. So the precedent does not carry the historic weight of, say, winning the New Hampshire primary.
No matter. Throughout the day, the theme will grow and expand, until it is promulgated almost as if it were Bell's birthright. City council presidents grow up to be mayor. He is only the second black city council president in the city's history. To deny him the office would be -- well, let's just say the message will become more pointed as the day goes on.
12: 15 p.m., Bell headquarters, St. Paul and 23rd streets
Earlier in the summer, "Where's Lawrence?" became the Baltimore version of "Where's Waldo?"
The perception, as Bell's campaign knows, is that he hasn't been out there, hasn't been seen. They feel it's unfair, and Bell has, in fact, attended most of the seemingly unending string of mayoral forums this summer, canvassing whenever he can get away from the phones and fund-raising.
He also has to continue his City Hall duties, presiding over the Board of Estimates every week. Bell likes to say he is the Cal Ripken Jr. of City Hall, with a perfect attendance record, something the other City Council alums in the race cannot match. A perfect attendance record, yes, but also a lot of abstentions, especially since January. Especially on controversial votes -- the plan to condemn 90 homes in Wagner's Point, and the approval of a $26 million retail and office building in the Inner Harbor, just to name two.
But today has been designed for maximum "out-thereness," with much of the afternoon devoted to a 20-vehicle caravan, complete with bullhorns, ringing bells and a city trolley.
Right now, Marshall Bell, the candidate's brother and campaign manager, is fretting because the trolley is only half-full. "Take people out of the van, where they can't be seen, and put them in a trolley," he calls out.
Volunteers, who identify themselves as residents at a local drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, move obediently from van to trolley, carrying sacks of literature. Bell is to ride in a two-seater Corvette -- which means, incidentally, that he'll have to cancel the one-on-one interview he was to have given The Sun during the caravan. The interview is rescheduled for 5 p.m.
But then someone decides that Bell will look better on the back of the trolley, waving.
"He's too short to to ride on the trolley," Marshall Bell says of his brother.
"He's not too short," campaign director Tammy Hawley says, with a quick glance at the reporter standing nearby.
"He's too short," Marshall Bell insists. "I'm too short."
"He's NOT too short. It's too boxed-in."
"Yeah," his brother says. "Because of the handicap lift."
Finally, a decision is reached: Bell is tall enough to stand on the back of the trolley. His shoulders just clear the top of the lift for disabled passengers, which is pretty high. His Maryland driver's license lists Bell as 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds; both stats seem slightly generous. But, as he said, he loses weight when he campaigns. His soft, wispy posture may diminish his stature by an inch or two.
12: 30 p.m., the streets of Baltimore
The caravan lurches slowly east, then north on Greenmount Avenue, where it proceeds to snarl and tangle traffic all the way to Cold Spring Lane. Some cars honk their support, but just as many honk in frustration and anger, with some drivers gesturing obscenely at the caravan.
But it's hard to tell the difference between honks of anger and honks of support from the trolley. Bell waves benignly, gets out and walks a few blocks at one point. When the caravan stops at Northwood Shopping Center, he is surrounded by his white-shirted supporters, shouting his name, leafletting the busy shopping center.
He stops at the Haven Lounge, asks what band is playing that night and then inquires as to whether he can hang a campaign sign here. The Bell campaign is very big on sign parity. Earlier in the day, on Monument Street, they asked a man with a Stokes sign if he would hang one of theirs, too. Two aides also spend several minutes pondering how a green-and-white O'Malley sign had made its way to the 2nd District.
Later, after the caravan has stopped at a football game at Merganthaler Vocational Technical High School, a campaign worker is asked: Have you ever calculated how much ill will you might generate by tying up traffic on a Saturday afternoon?
"That kind of person is the voter you could lose for any reason. Who knows what will happen to him on the way to the polls on Sept. 14?" Bill Henry says. "The important thing about this is that Lawrence Bell's out there. People keep saying he's not. But it's going good, it's going good."
En route to Druid Hill Park, Henry notices the boarded-up Roy Rogers restaurant on 29th Street has an O'Malley sign. He wonders aloud how a closed restaurant ends up with a campaign sign.
2: 45 p.m., Druid Hill Park, the Stone Soul Picnic
The white-shirted Bell volunteers -- they insist they don't get paid for this, although one does ask plaintively "Is Lawrence going to feed us today?" -- seem to be multiplying. There are now 100 of them spreading across Druid Hill Park, giving out fliers, while others form a boisterous entourage around the candidate.
There's even a dog on a skateboard, wearing a "Bell for Mayor" hat and blue sunglasses. Another worker has a ferret riding her shoulder.
The volunteers are told they have 30,000 pieces of literature to distribute before they return at 5 p.m. They fan out. They swarm into the tent where a straw poll is being taken, chanting "Bell! Bell! Bell!" Volunteers for other candidates try to shout back, but they're no match for this crowd.
Bell stops by a table where City Councilwoman Agnes Welch is working on her own re-election campaign. He goes to embrace her, but his colleague puts up her hands and steps back. Bell is clearly heard to say: "You're breaking my heart." Welch's comments are inaudible, however, and when asked later what transpired, she says she merely told Bell that she was working hard on her own re-election effort.
Welch may not want to embrace Bell today, but Cathy Hughes of Radio One, whose FM station is a sponsor of the Stone Soul Picnic, is happy to do so. She then leads him on stage, where he reads a City Council proclamation in her honor. Next time, he promises, it will be a mayoral proclamation.
"If I sing, I'm going to lose votes," Bell jokes, and the audience laughs politely. He then adds: "No matter what you read in the newspapers or see on television, you're looking at a man who looks like you, who is qualified."
Hughes then runs with Bell's favorite theme, the line of succession from city council president to mayor. "Once it's time for a brother, then the rules are going to change," she says, and the audience laughs knowingly.
Of course, Carl Stokes looks like people in the audience, too. The fact is, there are even a few people in Druid Hill Park who look more like O'Malley than they do like Bell or Stokes. And half the people in the park, if they're going to vote the "looks-like-me" ticket, will have to think about Mary W. Conaway or the other women running for the nomination.
But the Bell campaign is moving too fast to quibble over such small distinctions. The candidate continues to work the crowd. "Need your help. Tell your friends." Encountering a woman with a Stokes sticker on her blouse, the candidate takes the time to persuade her to let him place a Bell sticker over it.
Back at the caravan, it turns out Bell will not be able to meet at headquarters for an interview; he had promised a Remington supporter to canvass that neighborhood and is already running late. Bell agrees to sit down at a later time, an appointment that also will be canceled.
"I'm hoarse by day's end," he says apologetically. "But I don't like to have any dead spots."
Meanwhile, before the sun goes down, and long before Bell has finished campaigning for the day, a Bell sign has sprouted at the boarded-up Roy Rogers on 29th Street.