William Donald Schaefer, 84, can quite properly be called governor and you can tell he likes the sound of it. As in “Governor, would you like some coffee?” Or “Governor, what do you think about … ?”
He calls himself the “best mayor.” And he wants to be comptroller ? again. It was “fun being mayor,” he said. “I wanted to get up early so I could go to work,” he reflected, seated at the round conference table in The Examiner publisher?s office overlooking the Inner Harbor, which he helped to turn from a dirty pit to a tourist mecca.
What are his goals now?
Electronic tax filing for senior citizens. Everyone should be able to receive their tax refund in 48 hours, said Schaefer, who never used his “why I should be comptroller” talking points, neatly tucked in a manila envelope with a white label with his name and time of his meeting.
He didn?t seem to want to talk about why he wanted to be comptroller again. He wanted to talk about leadership. His leadership. Over many, many, many years ? 51, but who?s counting ? since voters put him on the Baltimore City Council.
He ties his success in getting elected and to doing the job to which he is elected to two key strategies.
“You help people,” he said, referring to his career-long program of Schaefer Services, a branding name for what others call constituent work. He talked of walking the streets of Roland Park, where the “hoitie-toities” live, knocking on doors as mayor and asking “how can I help you?” He said he?d often get rejected on the spot but field a call a couple of days later for a request for tree pruning. His second strategy: “Get people who are smarter than you are and then don?t be jealous of them,” he said.
To nearly every question about issues and how he?d do his job in the next term, he?d turn the answer into a wayof praising his key lieutenants, noting that he kept all of the ones from his predecessor. The political tradition of “cleaning house” doesn?t work, particularly if you find competent people who have been successful, he said.
Lots of those have been “little girls” and “little ladies,” all of them “smart as a whip,” he said. He loves women and he?s hired more than anyone else in his time, he said.
Practically no one has left the comptroller?s office since Louis Goldstein, who served from 1959 to 1998, headed it, he said. That makes some of those “little girls” slightly younger than Schaefer.
His opponents? Janet Owens? “A week before she ran she was my friend,” he said, noting that she had told many she?d “never run against him.” Peter Franchot. The governor just shook his head and didn?t elaborate.
How?s your health? He said he sees his doctor quarterly and is doing fine.
Should state government workers do as well as they do as compared to the private sector? “They deserve it,” he said, smiling widely, noting that in his experience state employees worked hard and earned their keep.
He said he doesn?t trust Mayor Martin O?Malley. He noted that he campaigned hard for O?Malley?s election, citing work in Little Italy in particular, and raised “a lot of money” for him. Then, he said, O?Malley abandoned him, seeming to forget Schaefer?s work on his behalf.
He had lots of good but unspecific things to say about Gov. Robert Ehrlich, noting in particular his honesty and willingness to let people do their jobs and not pressure them to “vote” with him on everything.
Would he vote for Ehrlich?
He said he is a “100 percent Democrat” but no one knows what goes on in the privacy of the voting booth. He grinned.
Too old? “I?m not a dotty old fool,” he said, smiling but earnest. “My brain is as good as it was when I was 50 years old.” He repeats himself frequently, but notes it, maybe to remind the listener that it?s not dementia. He admits to not being able to walk as much anymore.
He sits on the state?s pension board but could not speak to the differences between defined benefit plans (what state employees receive and we the people pay for) and defined contribution plans, like the 401ks most private sector workers pay for out of their own wages.
He leaves those questions for his lieutenants. He always has. “Everyone around me was an intellectual and I wasn?t,” he said. It seems to have worked.
He wants it to work again for one more term. But he wouldn?t promise this time would be the last, if he wins, of course.
Marta Hummel is associate editorial page editor of The Baltimore Examiner. She can be reached at [email protected].
