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Some see acts as partisans going awry

Baltimore Sun

By David Nitkin and Larry Carson

TENSIONS OVER next month's presidential election might have reached a boiling point in an unlikely place: polite, prosperous Howard County.

There, lawn-sign swipings and other mundane tactics might have given way to more violent political expressions. Early Wednesday, a bullet was fired through a window of the Ellicott City home of Anthony McGuffin, 51, an active Democrat and former candidate for Congress and the state House of Delegates.

McGuffin's house sports a Kerry-Edwards campaign sign, along with one for U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings on the front lawn.

Howard county police are investigating the shooting, and no one knows the motive of the shooter, who directed a bullet into a lighted second-floor window about 2 a.m.

But the incident follows the burning of a large Bush/Cheney sign in western Howard last month - one of a series of Republican signs destroyed or vandalized that prompted the arrest of an Ellicott City man who was accused of destroying one. Democratic Party leader Wendy Fiedler said the man charged has no party affiliations.

McGuffin said he saw a man pouring red paint on a Bush sign recently and stopped to persuade him to quit.

Kerry/Edwards signs have disappeared along Centennial Lane too, he said.

"It's crazy. There's no doubt about it," McGuffin said about the sign destruction.

McGuffin, a teacher and musician, said he had just left his desk at his Main Street home when he heard a loud noise. He couldn't find the source after a quick investigation, so he went to bed. The next morning, he found a .45-caliber bullet on the stairs and saw a hole in the staircase wall. He lifted the shade in the front room and found broken glass and a damaged frame.

The incident has shaken him, he said. But his political leanings are unchanged.

"Nothing scares me more than four more years of Bush," he said.