With the 1998 campaign season in something of a midsummer lull, there is a surprising amount of talk these days about Senate races in 2000, when 19 Republican and 14 Democratic seats will be up for grabs, including potentially explosive races immediately to the north and south of the nation's capital.
In Maryland, Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes' seat will be up, and it remains unclear whether the 65-year-old incumbent will seek a fifth term. Sarbanes is one of the few people who had to beat two senators to get elected: former Sen. Joseph Tydings in a Democratic primary, then GOP Sen. J. Glenn Beall Jr. in the 1976 general election. Beall's father had won the seat in 1952, but lost to Tydings in 1964. Then in 1970, Tydings lost re-election after allegations of influence-peddling arose, with the younger Beall winning. Thus in 1976, Sarbanes had to first stop Tydings' comeback and then defeat Beall.
That was the last difficult race Sarbanes has faced. Quiet, intellectual and the polar opposite of Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D- Md., in everything except ideology, party
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