From the College of Journalism, Capital News Service on, Wednesday, August
02, 2000.

^CNS-Maryland Notebook,740<
   ^Ellen Rocks, Ellen and Rue Face Off, and Ellen Says `Nyet' to
Kitchenettes<
   ^By CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE=
  
    PHILADELPHIA - For a party that's stressing diversity, Maryland 
Republicans chose an odd theme song for their after-session party Tuesday
night.
    Flanked by a Maryland entourage, delegation Chairman Ellen Sauerbrey
posed  for photos at the Hard Rock Cafe early Wednesday morning to the
strains of the  1970s hit, and wedding reception standard, "Play that
Funky Music White Boy."
    Party members from seven states, including Maryland, let their hair
down  at the event, which was paid for, $200 each, by the delegates
themselves. A live  band provided music, as guests danced and drank until
after 2 a.m.
BIRTHDAY CHEF
    It sounds like a great way to celebrate your birthday, cruising the 
Delaware River with friends and being fussed over by the boat staff -
until they  force you to make dessert for everyone.
    Michelle Ripple, a Republican National Convention delegate from Upper 
Marlboro, spent part of her 44th birthday Tuesday afternoon cruising on
the  Spirit of Philadelphia with 30 other delegates from the state. The
boat's staff  made a fuss over Ripple and then insisted that she come up
to the front of the  dining room and help prepare dessert - crepes with
sauce.
    They took a picture of her cooking the sauce while standing next to an
 entertainer wearing blue spangles. Ripple was a good sport about it, and
whipped  up a mean crepe sauce at the same time.
RUE TIMES TWO?
    Ellen Sauerbrey said it happened more than once as she campaigned
around  the state during her gubernatorial bids in 1994 and 1998 - people
either mistook  her for actress Rue McClanahan of "The Golden Girls" or
told the candidate how  much she looked like the actress.
    So there were more than a few doubletakes Wednesday when McClanahan 
brought the Democratic message into the heart of the Republican National 
Convention. It wasn't helped by the fact that both Sauerbrey and
McClanahan were  making the rounds of the radio and Internet outlets,
which are clustered in one  part of one media tent, at the same time.
    The two women did meet briefly Wednesday, something Sauerbrey said she
has  been meaning to do for some time. One Sauerbrey aide said the actress
looked at  the politician and said it was like looking into a mirror. But
the two women  will have to keep that mirror image in their memories -
Sauerbrey said  McClanahan was cool to the idea of having her picture
taken with the Maryland  Republican leader.
UNCONVENTIONAL CONVENTIONEER
    Gurmit Singh Aulakh is easy to spot among the mostly buttoned-down 
Republican crowd here, which doesn't get much wilder than
red-white-and-blue  clothing when it cuts loose on fashion.
    Aulakh, a Sikh, keeps his hair wrapped in a saffron turban, his long
white  beard tied in a knot and tucked under his chin, a long mustache
groomed and  twisted in two symmetric, circular shapes. He stalks the
delegation, pressing  for freedom for Sikhs in his homeland of Khalistan,
now part of northwest India.
    "There are 18 official languages in India. India is not one nation,"
said  Aulakh, a former special expert at the National Institutes of Health
and  president of the council of Khalistan.
    Aulakh, a registered Republican since 1980, is not a member of the 
delegation. But he has been coming to conventions since 1988 to press his
case.
    "They're all familiar faces, they all know me," Aulakh said of the
other  convention delegates.
    He said he will also go the Democratic convention in Los Angeles. If
he  does not get floor passes, he will stand outside the convention
handing fliers  and spreading his message.
KITCHEN NYET
    While some state delegations are being housed as far away from the 
Republican convention hall as Wilmington, Del., and suburban New Jersey, 
delegates from the Democratic stronghold of Maryland somehow scored rooms
at the  Hawthorn Suites, just two short blocks from Philadelphia's
convention center.
    While it lies a few miles from the First Union Center, where most of
the  convention business is being conducted, the downtown hotel offers
convention- goers a full complimentary breakfast each morning as well as
an afternoon  cocktail reception. Delegation Chairman Ellen Sauerbrey
denied that she chose  the hotel for its in-room kitchenettes, as some
delegates suggested, but picked  it for its location.
    "I was on the housing committee and I must have looked at twenty
different  hotels," she said. "We wanted something that was close."
                        -30- CNS 08-02-00