John McCain's guy in Maryland was up early yesterday, sticking signs in the frozen ground - for Mike Huckabee.

Former Del. Don Murphy, McCain's Maryland campaign coordinator, also arranged for Huckabee's wife, Janet, to have lunch with the Arbutus Roundtable on Monday.

Traitor in the McCain camp? Murphy, an Annapolis lobbyist who's been campaigning for the Arizona senator for eight years, admits he's sleeping with the enemy. His wife, Gloria, a preschool teacher, is co-chair of Huckabee's Baltimore County campaign.

In some ways, the Murphys are like any other married couple who part ways at the top of the ticket. Out front at their Catonsville house sit his-and-hers campaign signs - a blue-and-white McCain placard beside the red, white, blue and yellow Huckabee variety.

But the Murphys were also on the ballot, as delegates for their respective candidates. (So was their daughter, Kendall, 19, running as an alternate delegate for McCain. Sorry, Mom.)

Yesterday, Dad and daughter waved at commuters at the park-and-ride lot at Rolling Road and I-195. Across the street, Mom was doing the same thing with her Huckabee crew.

"We're on the same side of the aisle, but different sides of the road," Don Murphy said.

Gloria Murphy acknowledged that her side got fewer cheers. "If I'm totally being honest, they got a lot more positive feedback than I did."

Which is perhaps why Don Murphy feels comfortable helping out his wife's team a bit.

"At best, I got two terms with John McCain," Don Murphy said. "I think I've got six, seven, eight terms with Gloria, so I have to be helpful. I just put up two dozen signs today. Half of them were hers.

"If it was close," he added, "I'm not sure how much of this I'd be doing."

You paid for the show; now buy the furniture

Any TV show that casts Leonard Hamm as a cop asleep on the job is having way too much fun blurring fact and fiction.

Baltimore's ex-police chief recently made that all-too-true cameo on The Wire, which for five seasons has been repackaging real Baltimore into something worth $85.90 a month. Now, finally, somebody besides Comcast stands to make money on all that very, very verisimilitude.

Second Chance, an architectural salvage and antiques emporium near M&T; Bank Stadium, is selling brass light fixtures, bookcases, wooden schoolhouse doors, and other odds and ends from the show.

Set designers for The Wire found some of that stuff at Second Chance in the first place, bought it, and then donated it back to the store after filming wrapped up. That's given Second Chance, a nonprofit that trains the unemployed, the opportunity to sell the pieces again - at a premium.

Lynn Fingles, a Second Chance manager, couldn't say exactly how much the items had been marked up. But she was certain the $189 light sconces and $7,000 bookcase-fireplace combo could have been had for less before they went Hollywood.

If he's a dancing fool, we may never know

The Greater Maryland Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association has lined up some "dancing stars" to entertain at its April 5 Memory Ball.

Some of them, like skater Dorothy Hamill and ex-Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck, are widely known for their dance moves. Some, like McCormick CEO Bob Lawless, are not.

Can the spice honcho really cut a rug, or is he just willing to humiliate himself for charity? I don't know if Lawless has two left feet, but I suspect they just turned cold.

After I inquired about Lawless' participation, company spokesman John McCormick e-mailed me: "Unfortunately Bob Lawless had to bow out due to scheduling conflicts."

Connect the dots

WYPR is confident that listeners will warm up to post-Marc Steiner programming - eventually. "My Dearest Volunteers," Deborah Davis, the station's marketing and volunteer coordinator, said in an e-mail. "I am sure that this will not come as a surprise ... but we will be canceling the February drive and rescheduling for some time in April." ... Sign near the registers at Second Chance: "Unattended Children will be given an espresso and a free puppy." ... Baltimore City police dispatcher overheard on the scanner the other day, exasperated by cops all talking at once: "We can all sing together, but we all can't talk together." ... Call the Baltimore City Hall press office and you get this message: "Sorry, mailbox belonging to Anthony McCarthy has an extended absence greeting in place and will not accept new messages." McCarthy has been on his mysterious leave since November.