Do you know Maryland politics? Before Tuesday's election, test your knowledge with these 50 questions
1Before William Donald Schaefer, who was Maryland's last bachelor governor?
a. Millard Tawes
b. Egbert Souse
c. Albert Ritchie
2In 1978, what Maryland congressman died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving for a time an eccentric skid row candidate, Melvin Perkins, unopposed for Maryland's 6th District seat?
a. George Fallon
b. Goodloe Byron
c. Edward Garmatz
3Perkins ended up running against Byron's widow, Beverly. His campaign suffered a setback when he was arrested. "We've had plenty of congressmen who ended up in jail," Perkins told reporters. "What's wrong with one who started in jail?" Why did Perkins get locked up?
a. He slugged a female bus driver.
b. He was drunk and disorderly.
c. He stole a police officer's espantoon (night
stick).
4In the 1994 Democratic gubernatorial primary, there were four candidates in addition to Parris Glendening, who won the nomination. Who among the following was not one of his primary opponents that year?
a. American Joe Miedusiewski
b. Mickey Steinberg
c. Ellen Sauerbrey
5Arthur Bremer still resides in a Maryland prison for his attempted assassination in 1972 of presidential aspirant George Wallace at the Laurel Shopping Center. Bremer, who was sentenced to 63 years for the shooting, which left Wallace paralyzed, was heard to utter what line as he was hauled away by police and Secret Service?
a. "How much do you think I'll get for my autobiography?"
b. "The South shall rise again!"
c. "I have done something bold and dramatic, forceful and dynamic."
6The big surprise of 1978 was Harry Hughes' upset victory in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Who was his Republican opponent in the general election that year?
a. Louise Gore
b. J. Glenn Beall Jr.
c. Robert Pascal
7Which of the following was never a candidate for governor of Maryland?
a. Spear Lancaster
b. Bob Merkle
c. Ferdinand Latrobe
8Ehrlich ran for Congress in 1994, the year of the Republican Revolution, because Republican Helen Bentley gave up her 2nd District seat to run for governor. Ehrlich defeated what son of a former Democratic U.S. senator?
a. Gladden Tydings
b. Gerry Brewster
c. J. Glenn Beall Jr.
9In the footnotes of Maryland political history, what -- or who -- was Shannon Tide?
a. First woman elected to a seat in the
General Assembly
b. The name of Martin O'Malley's first pub band
c. An Irish immigrant political movement in 19th-century Baltimore
10They called him Pee Wee when he was a kid, and he grew up to serve Maryland in Congress.
a. Dutch Ruppersburger
b. Elijah Cummings
c. Kweisi Mfume
11Before Robert Ehrlich, there was Spiro Agnew -- both Republican governors. Before Agnew's election in 1966, who had been the last member of the GOP to live in Government House?
a. Theodore R. McKeldin
b. William Preston Lane
c. Herbert R. O'Conor Jr.
12Bridges are named after various Maryland governors. Which of these men has not been memorialized in a span?
a. William Preston Lane
b. Harry W. Nice
c. J. Millard Tawes
13This governor and his wife split during his time in Annapolis. She stayed in Government House while he moved his suits to an Annapolis hotel and the state yacht. Who was he?
a. Harry Hughes
b. Parris Glendening
c. Marvin Mandel
14The first woman in American history to lead a major party in the U.S. Congress attended this Baltimore all-girls school, as did Maryland's first and only female U.S. Senator.
a. Mercy High School
b. Institute of Notre Dame
c. Mount De Sales Academy
15Once one of the most conservative members of Congress, Maryland voters turned this Republican out of office in the early 1980s after he was caught trying to solicit sex from a 16-year-old male prostitute.
a. Austin Crothers
b. Oden Bowie
c. Robert Bauman
16In one of Maryland's political tragedies, this Congressman shot himself in 1973.
a. Rogers C.B. Morton
b. Harold Lloyd
c. William O. Mills
17Having defeated his opponent by more than 80,000 votes, this man was mayor of Baltimore for three years before deciding he'd rather be a judge.
a. J. Harold Grady
b. Thomas J. D'Alesandro III
c. Philip Goodman
18William Donald Schaefer, the state comptroller, had an ongoing feud with former Gov. Parris Glendening. At a Board of Public Works meeting in August 2001, Schaefer said, "That's the most chicken thing I can imagine," and clucked at Glendening. To what was Schaefer clucking?
a. Glendening's refusal to sit next to Schaefer at board meetings
b. The governor's decision to shut off a
fountain on Government House lawn
c. Schaefer's omission from the guest list of an official reception for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
19Speaking of chicken, what West Baltimore Democrat once gave away fresh broilers -- along with bread and butter -- as he campaigned for re-election to his House of Delegates seat?
a. Michael Mitchell
b. Frank Conaway
c. Larry Young
20Which Maryland governor cut the ribbon for the opening of the Baltimore Beltway?
a. J. Millard Tawes, 1959-1967
b. Theodore R. McKeldin, 1951-1959
c. Spiro T. Agnew, 1967-1969
21In 1976, who won Maryland's Democratic presidential primary?
a. Jerry Brown
b. Jimmy Carter
c. John Anderson
22James A. "Turk" Scott, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, was featured in Playboy magazine, among other publications, in the 1970s. Why?
a. He was owner of the downtown Baltimore Playboy club.
b. He was indicted as a heroin smuggler.
c. He owned a Block bookstore and defied Maryland obscenity laws.
23Who was the first woman to run for governor of Maryland?
a. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend
b. Louise Gore
c. Elisabeth Gilman
24Who was the last Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Maryland?
a. J. Glenn Beall Jr.
b. Roscoe Bartlett
c. Charles McC. Mathias
25The 1912 Democratic National Convention was held in Baltimore. Whom did the convention nominate for president?
a. Woodrow Wilson
b. William Jennings Bryan
c. Calvin Coolidge
26Who was the first black woman elected to the Maryland House of Delegates?
a. Victorine Adams
b. Verda Welcome
c. Madeline Murphy
27America's first black female state senator was elected in Maryland in 1962. Who was she?
a. Verda Welcome
b. Enolia McMillan
c. Lena Lee
28This Maryland politician took some heat for wondering publicly why so many winners of a national scholarship competition were students with "Asian names [and] Middle Eastern names," and not "normal American" names.
a. Gov. William Donald Schaefer
b. 6th District Rep. Roscoe Bartlett
c. 2nd District Rep. Helen Delich Bentley
29This Maryland politician gained brief national celebrity by smashing a Toshiba boombox with a sledgehammer on the U.S. Capitol steps.
a. 2nd District Rep. Helen Delich Bentley
b. Gov. William Donald Schaefer
c. 6th District Rep. Roscoe Bartlett
30What Democratic candidate for Maryland governor was seen as such a long shot that a Baltimore political boss dubbed him "a lost ball in high grass"?
a. Parris Glendening
b. Walter Orlinksy
c. Harry Hughes
31Baltimore was the site of the nation's first presidential nominating convention. Which party picked its nominee here in 1831, for the following year's election?
a. Anti-Masons
b. Democrats
c. Whigs
32Who were the Plug-Uglies, Rip Raps and Blood Tubs?
a. West Virginians who crossed state lines to vote illegally in Maryland
b. Baltimore gangs that intimidated rivals at polling places
c. Maryland Klansmen who formed political clubs
33In those rough-and-tumble days of Baltimore politics, what was "cooping"?
a. Forced confinement of drunkards to keep them from voting
b. Forced confinement of drunkards so they could vote multiple times
c. Ballot box stuffing, named for repeat offender Thomas Coop
34Some historians think that he was "cooped" by a Baltimore gang and forced to vote several times for Whig Party candidates.
a. Edgar Alan Poe
b. Arunah S. Abell
c. John Wilkes Booth
35What were the Blood Tubs notorious for?
a. Dunking the heads of opponents in vats of pig blood
b. "Cooping" opponents in "Blue Blood" cracker barrels
c. Wearing oversized red vests that made them look corpulent
36The Know-Nothings would probably have found political traction today. Why?
a. They believed that the influx of immigrants spelled doom for America.
b. They opposed government funding of
scientific research.
c. They opposed public schools in favor of home schooling.
37Thomas Holliday Hicks, son of an Eastern Shore farmer, was elected governor of Maryland in 1858. With what party was Hicks affiliated?
a. Free Soilers
b. Know-Nothing
c. Republican
38What is the meaning of the number 50 in regard to the Baltimore mayoral election of 1856?
a. The margin of victory for Mayor Thomas W. Swann
b. Approximate number of people injured in a riot
c. The number of times a man named Grover Winstead voted
39What measure was taken to maintain order in Baltimore on presidential election day 1856?
a. Someone fired a cannon into a crowd.
b. Ballot boxes were taken by police door to door.
c. Voting took place by postal ballot only.
40Frederick Douglass was nominated to run for vice president of the United States in 1872. What party nominated him?
a. Abolitionist
b. Republican
c. Equal Rights
41Who was the youngest man to be elected governor of Maryland?
a. Robert Ehrlich in 2002
b. Herbert R. O'Conor in 1938
c. Spiro T. Agnew in 1966
42Who was the first woman elected to the Maryland House of Delegates?
a. Verda Welcome in 1959
b. Mary Risteau in 1921
c. Lillian Holt in 1918
43Which of these presidential candidates took Maryland in the 1948 election?
a. Strom Thurmond
b. Harry Truman
c. Thomas Dewey
44How did George P. Mahoney, a wealthy Baltimore County contractor, win Maryland's Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1966?
a. With a cynical campaign against civil rights
b. By promising to abolish the state sales tax
c. With a pledge to build a second span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
45Before moving to Richard Nixon's camp and accepting an invitation to be his vice presidential running mate, which Republican presidential candidate had Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew backed in 1968?
a. Nelson Rockefeller
b. George Romney
c. Ronald Reagan
46Who was the first U.S. governor to visit China after the normalization of American-Chinese relations?
a. William Donald Schaefer
b. Harry Hughes
c. Marvin Mandel
47When Gov. Harry Hughes ran for re-election in 1982, what did he and his two Democratic primary opponents have in common?
a. All were from the Eastern Shore.
b. All were married to women named Patricia.
c. All were named Harry.
48During the Baltimore mayoral campaign of 1983, why was a live televised debate between William Donald Schaefer and Billy Murphy declared a fiasco?
a. A summer storm knocked out the telecast for most viewers.
b. Schaefer stuck his tongue out repeatedly at Murphy.
c. Fringe candidate Monroe Cornish declared what Schaefer said "a bunch of junk."
49As a football player at Baltimore's Gilman School in the 1970s, what positions did Gov. Robert Ehrlich play?
a. Quarterback and punter
b. Fullback and linebacker
c. Receiver and cornerback
50In 1990, in his first bid for public office, he ran for a state Senate seat once held by his future father-in-law. Name him.
a. Robert Ehrlich
b. Martin O'Malley
c. Michael Steele
ANSWERS
1, c; before becoming governor, Ritchie divorced, never remarried and lived with his mother. 2, b. 3, a. 4, c; 5, a. 6, b. 7, c; Latrobe was mayor of Baltimore, serving seven -- count 'em, seven! -- terms in the 19th century. Terms were only two years back then. 8, b; son of former Sen. Daniel Brewster. 9, b; before O'Malley's March, there was Shannon Tide. 10, c; before adopting his Swahili name, Mfume was Frizzell "Pee Wee" Gray. 11, a; McKeldin served as governor from 1951 until 1959. 12, c; Tawes has other stuff named after him, buildings mainly. 13, c; in 1973, Mandel announced he was in love with another woman. His wife, Barbara, refused to leave the governor's mansion and Mandel went packing. 14, b; both Rep. Nancy Pelosi, House minority leader, and U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski are alumni of IND. 15, c; Bauman, who represented the Eastern Shore and was a founder of conservative political organizations in the late 1970s, later revealed that he was homosexual. 16, c; Mills served two years in office before his death; he was succeeded by Bauman. 17, a; Grady was elected in 1959 and resigned in 1962 to become a judge. "He felt very comfortable with the law and very uncomfortable as mayor," said D'Alesandro. 18, b; the ornate fountain had been commissioned by Schaefer's longtime companion, the late Hilda Mae Snoops. "You turn off the fountain just to spite me," the former governor fumed to a silent, unmoved Glendening. 19, b; Conaway, who lost his House of Delegate seat in the early 1980s, has been Clerk of Courts for Baltimore since 1998. 20, a; the Baltimore Beltway opened in the summer of 1962, and we've lived happily ever after. 21, a; Brown, the California governor -- "Governor Moonbeam" -- entered the race late that year, in an effort to stop Carter from getting the nomination. 22, b; Scott was indicted on charges of attempting to move millions of dollars in heroin into Baltimore. He was gunned down in a parking garage as he awaited trial. His death was chronicled in Playboy's history of organized crime in America. 23, c; Gilman ran on the Socialist ticket in 1930. She also ran for U.S. Senate in 1934 and 1938, and for Baltimore mayor in 1935. She was the daughter of Daniel Coit Gilman, first president of the Johns Hopkins University. 24, c; Mathias served in the Senate from 1969 to 1987. He was last elected in 1980. 25, a; Wilson got the nomination on the 46th ballot. 26, b; in 1959, Welcome, a Democrat, was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates to represent a Baltimore district, the first black woman to achieve that distinction. 27, a; Welcome was elected to the Maryland Senate in 1962 and served for 20 years. 28, b; Bartlett, who is up for re-election this year, later apologized for his remarks, saying, "No matter where we came from, no matter what our ancestry, we are all Americans." 29, a; While in Congress in 1987, Bentley said she took hammer to boombox to protest Toshiba's sale of high-technology machinery to the Soviet Union. 30, c; Hughes surprised South Baltimore's Harry McGuirk and just about everyone else by upsetting Blair Lee III, the acting governor, and Ted Venetoulis, the Baltimore County executive, in the 1978 gubernatorial primary. 31, a; the Anti-Masonic Party was opposed to President Andrew Jackson because of his association with Freemasonry. The Anti-Masons nominated a Marylander named William Wirt. 32, b; the Plug-Uglies and Blood Tubs, along with other gangs, terrorized voters in mid-19th-century Baltimore. 33, b; gangs of thugs roamed the city, rounded up drunkards and vagrants, gave them liquor and food, confined them to basements or backrooms, then forced them to vote, repeatedly, for the gang's favored candidates. 34, a; "cooping" is mentioned in some theories about how Poe came to die in Baltimore in October 1849. 35, a; gangs like the Blood Tubs were affiliated with the Native American Party, better known as the Know-Nothings. 36, a; the Know-Nothings were nativists, mostly middle-class Protestants, who blamed Irish Catholic and Jewish immigrants for social and economic problems. They were eventually absorbed by the Republican Party in the North. 37, b; in addition to being a nativist, Hicks, according to Robert Brugger's history of Maryland, "had gained a reputation in the state for talking seriously now and again of Eastern Shore secession." Hicks was opposed to abolition, too. 38, b; a "most terrible and fatal riot" occurred near Lexington Market, with Rip Raps and Plug Uglies fighting for hours against Irish Democrats and a major gunbattle breaking out in Mount Vernon Square. Four died, and 50 were injured. 39, a; militia units were placed on alert, and when riots again broke out, someone started firing a cannon. Ten people were killed and more than 250 wounded. 40, c; without his knowledge, Douglass was named to an Equal Rights Party ticket that included the first woman nominated for president, Victoria Woodhull. Douglass chose not to run and supported President Grant in his re-election. 41, b; at 42, O'Conor was not only the youngest governor but the first of Irish-Catholic descent. 42, b; after serving three terms in the House of Delegates, Risteau was elected to the Maryland Senate in 1935. 43, c; Maryland gave Republican Dewey 49 percent of the vote to Truman's 48 percent. Progressive Henry Wallace received 1.7 percent, and Dixiecrat Thurmond less than 1 percent. 44, a; Mahoney's campaign theme was "Your Home is Your Castle -- Protect It," an appeal to opponents of open housing and other anti-discrimination measures. He got the nomination with 31 percent of the vote and left his partly badly splintered. 45, a; Spiro T. supported Rockefeller until the New York governor suddenly withdrew (without telling Agnew). 46, b; Hughes beat all other governors to China, visiting in 1980, according to the new book, My Unexpected Journey, by Hughes and John W. Frece. 47, c; Hughes' opponents were state Sen. Harry McGuirk and Ocean City Mayor Harry Kelley. 48, c; Cornish also told the moderator to shut up and used his time to spout theories about the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. 49, b; Ehrlich was captain of the Gilman varsity and won all-state honors. 50, b; O'Malley ran for Baltimore's 43rd District state Senate seat, once held by J. Joseph Curran Jr., "Katie's dad."