Fundraising Skills a Blessing and a Burden

His father, a well-known figure in Portsmouth, worked mainly as a radio disc jockey and news director who occasionally interviewed presidential aspirants.

At school, Silverman debated, served on the student council and performed in plays. Directors usually cast him in funny roles, not lead parts. Best friend James Sears remembers him on stage, belting out "There Is Nothing Like a Dame" in "South Pacific."

"He was out there and in front," recalled Sears, an actor who lives in Portsmouth.

The family wasn't poor, but Silverman had to earn his own pocket money and began washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant at 14, he said. His parents relied on a scholarship to send him to a summer academy at a prestigious private school, where he heard a speech by then-Rep. Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey Jr. (Calif.), who was challenging President Richard M. Nixon, a fellow Republican, over his handling of the war in Vietnam.

During his senior year, Silverman joined other student volunteers on McCloskey's 1972 campaign, but the candidate dropped out after finishing second in the New Hampshire GOP primary. Silverman came to Washington to attend American University in 1973.

The nation was gripped by Vietnam and the implosion of the Nixon presidency, and Silverman moved in a circle of students who planned to enter politics. But only Silverman has made a career of it, said college buddy Arthur Lerner, a federal labor-relations manager.

After AU, Silverman worked for Democratic congressional candidates across the country and ended up helping Simmons, then a progressive Republican, win a seat in the Maryland House in 1978. In the years that followed, Silverman received his law degree from George Washington University, served as Simmons's aide in Annapolis and ran Simmons's campaign for the GOP nomination for Montgomery county executive in 1982.

After his defeat by a more conservative candidate, Simmons saw a dim future as a progressive Republican and switched parties. Silverman, who said he registered in 1972 as a Democrat in New Hampshire, re-registered in Maryland in 1989.

After Simmons's primary defeat, Silverman developed a law practice representing homeowner associations, a specialty that put him in touch with community leaders and developers. At the end of the decade, he bought a split-level ranch house in White Oak with a small pool and a Jacuzzi. Friends brought Weiss to the engagement party of a mutual friend; she and Silverman married in 1990. Their son, Jordan, was born in 1992.

Weiss, a lifelong resident of Montgomery, is a communications executive for nonprofit groups and has written for The Washington Post's Health section.

Silverman's 1994 campaign for a seat in the Maryland legislature was a rough debut for a newcomer up against three incumbents. Silverman won fewer than 5,000 votes; the three incumbents each received more than 7,000.

Displaying His Feelings