From the College of Journalism, Capital News Service on, Tuesday, August 01, 2000. ^CNS-Maryland Notebook,975< ^Wyoming meets Maryland, the NEA meets the GOP, the NRA takes a potshot< ^By CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE= PHILADELPHIA - Maryland House Speaker Casper Taylor call Philadelphia. The National Rifle Association has a message for you. Members of the Maryland delegation to the Republican National Convention were treated to two hours of dining and dancing Tuesday during a boat ride sponsored by the NRA and AEGON USA Inc. a Baltimore-based insurance company. In case the source of the donations was lost on any of the delegates, the sponsors were listed on table tents on all the tables on the Spirit of Philadelphia. Greg Costa, Maryland liaison for the NRA, said the organization contributed money to the state Republican Party as "natural course of business" and that the party determined how to spend it. But Costa said the NRA also wanted to use the Republican donation to send a message - to a Democrat. Taylor, an Allegany County Democrat, is speaker of the House that passed legislation this year that will eventually require the trigger locks be built into all guns sold in Maryland. "Anything we can do to make Cas Taylor know we are there.to remind him of his base. He has apparently forgotten," said Costa. BALTIMORE, WYOMING? When former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney arrived at the Republican National Convention on Monday afternoon, the man who would be George Bush's running mate waved and pointed to delegates from his home state of Wyoming on the convention floor. The problem was, the people standing by the Wyoming sign were actually from Maryland. When Cheney entered the convention hall to address the delegates, Wyoming's space on the floor was empty, so Maryland delegates were herded into their space for the sake of decorum. Audrey Scott, a convention delegate from Maryland's 5th Congressional District, said that Cheney was actually picking people out on the floor as if he recognized them. She lauded the Maryland delegates for being great Wyoming delegates. Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer, the state's delegation chairman, said "what happened was, all the (Wyoming) delegates were up sitting with Mr. Cheney " on the podium. Geringer said that his delegation had received a special invitation to sit closer to Cheney. Geringer described the delegate shuffling as "spontaneous enthusiasm" rather than an orchestrated event. But Scott noted that there were lots of empty spaces on the convention floor including the Virginia area. Maryland's National Committeewoman Ellen Sauerbrey reminded the delegates, at their Tuesday morning meeting, to utilize guest passes to fill as many seats as possible. TEACHERS' PET Rep. Connie Morella is unlike most other Republicans. The Bethesda Republican's voting record says so. Most of her fellow Republicans say so. Now, the National Education Association says so, too. The NRA has endorsed Morella for the second straight election, making her one of only 12 Republicans the teachers union has enndorsed this year Morella was one of only 20 members of the GOP in 1988. She was not backed by the union in 1996, when the NEA endorsed only one Republican. Morella returned the favor by speaking Tuesday at an event hosted by the NEA and the Republican Main Street Partnership, an organization of moderate Republican elected officials, including 58 members of the House and Senate, committed to promoting pro-public education policies. In her speech, Morella discussed the need for more women in high-tech jobs, citing figures that show there are more women ministers than women electrical engineers, and addressed the need for greater high-tech training to "help teachers get the kind of education they need to utilize technology." BASH BUSH BUS Republicans are not the only party trying to grab the spotlight in Philadelphia this week. Democratic Party officials have held daily news conferences across town to unveil the party's latest television ads and to attack the Republican platform and soon-to-be GOP nominee Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Gov. Parris N. Glendening spoke Monday, while Carroll County resident Carol Price, the Maryland coordinator for May's Million Mom March, spoke Tuesday to blast Bush and the GOP for not taking a stricter stance on gun control. "It's important to me to make people aware of [Bush's] record," said Price, whose 12-year old son, John Joseph, was killed in a shooting accident two years ago. The Democrats are driving home their points with "the rolling donkey," a chartered media bus painted with a spewing oil refinery and a large picture of Bush with the slogans "Deception with a purpose," and "Texas is a big state and George W. Bush has made a big mess." Reporters were even given "rose-colored Bush glasses." The party's attacks are meant to shake up a GOP National Convention that Democratic National Committee chairman Joe Andrew has called an "illusionary lounge act." TIMMERMAN'S RETURN Kenneth Timmerman lost the Republican primary for U.S. Senate last fall to Paul Rappaport. But a guy's still got to put food on the table, so Tuesday found Timmerman, a free-lance journalist, at the Republican National Convention hawking his new book, "Selling Out America." The book, Timmerman said, "is a chronicle of the Clinton sell-out to communist China . It's a story of what they did, how they did it and why they did it." He said he hopes his book "will get people interested to make sure it does not happen again." Timmerman's book display stood outside a conference room where Virginia Republican Gov. James S. Gilmore III was to address the Maryland delegation on Texas Gov. George W. Bush's national security policy, should Bush be elected president. Timmerman displayed his book, at a special price of $15, along with two other books: "Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq" and a book he wrote in French, "La Grande Fauche." And Timmerman has no hard feelings over the primary race. The Kensington resident said he now endorses Rappaport's campaign for Senate. -30- CNS 08-01-00