WASHINGTON - Two Baltimore Democrats joined the House of Representatives on the same day in 1987. For nine years together in Congress, they usually voted the same liberal line. Both rose to prominence and influence.

But Benjamin L. Cardin and Kweisi Mfume carved sharply distinct profiles from the moment they arrived on Capitol Hill. The former became a bipartisan dealmaker on a powerful committee with oversight of tax, trade and health-care law. The latter took on urban housing and economic issues and became a major voice for black Americans in Congress.

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Mfume left soon after the 1995 Republican takeover to become president of the NAACP. Cardin expanded his reach on the Ways and Means Committee and ranks fourth among its Democrats.

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The many contrasts in their House careers suggest that the front-runners for their party's nomination in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.) would make different senators in style and substance.

Cardin pursues "a classic insider strategy," said Christopher Deering, a political science professor at George Washington University. "Here's a guy who knows where the power is."

Cardin said in an interview at his Baltimore County campaign office that he is "very quietly" preparing a bid for the Senate Finance Committee -- the chamber's counterpart to Ways and Means -- if he is elected. "It's known to people in the Senate that I want to be on the Finance Committee," he said. But, he said, he is focused first on the primary Sept. 12 and the election Nov. 7.

Mfume, 38, "has got fairly consummate political skills" and would gain immediate national attention if elected, said Ronald Walters, a government and politics professor at the University of Maryland. "When you're one of the few blacks in the Senate, you're a celebrity," Walters said, noting the spotlight on Barack Obama (D-Ill.), now the chamber's only black senator. "They are expected to carry a great deal of water for minority populations all across the country. People want to see, feel and touch them."

Mfume's legislative niche is not as clearly defined as Cardin's. But he names three Senate committee assignments that would appeal to him: Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

In the House, Mfume served on two committees his entire tenure: Small Business and Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs. He used his positions to support minority-owned businesses and promote equal housing opportunities.

For instance, Mfume helped secure an amendment to the 1991 Civil Rights Act that extended protections to Americans working for U.S. companies abroad.

When first elected, Mfume said he tried to stay flexible when he was a junior member. "I didn't know what doors would open and where they would lead me," he said in an interview at his Baltimore campaign office.

In his early years, Mfume sought to win over senior lawmakers who didn't know what to make of the former City Council member with an adopted Swahili name. (It is pronounced kwah-EE-see oom-FOO-may and means "conquering son of kings.")

At one hearing, Mfume recalled, a veteran representative, Frank Annunzio (D-Ill.), butchered his name. When Mfume took his turn at the microphone, he seized an icebreaking opportunity. "I want to thank 'Chairman Enunciation' for the opportunity to speak," he said, drawing laughter.

Mfume made a point of sitting next to Rep. Claude D. Pepper (D-Fla.) in the House to absorb Pepper's knowledge from a half-century of service in Congress and his recollections of the segregated South. "I was kind of a fascination to him," Mfume said.

In December 1992, Mfume's moment came: He captured the chairmanship of an enlarged and emboldened black caucus. The post gave Mfume the ear of the White House in President Bill Clinton's first two years in office and a platform to push a liberal domestic agenda backed by a bloc of more than three dozen black House Democrats.

Mfume's caucus turned heads in 1993 when it mobilized to stall the House leadership's efforts to approve a line-item veto for Clinton. Then the caucus stood up to the president himself, declining an invitation to meet with Clinton at the White House amid a furor over a civil rights enforcement nomination.

Such muscle-flexing helped the caucus influence major legislation enacted in Clinton's first term. On the budget, Mfume pushed to protect Medicare funding, increase tax credits for lower-income families, and bolster nutrition and immunization programs for needy children. On crime, he backed a ban on assault weapons.

On trade, however, Mfume opposed Clinton. He voted in 1993 against the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mfume drew fire from some quarters after he declared that year that black lawmakers had entered into a "covenant" with the Nation of Islam to solve problems in the black community. In 1994, the caucus distanced itself from that position after an aide to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan made statements condemned as anti-Semitic.

Mfume's role shrank when his two-year chairmanship ended, and Republicans took over Congress. He was trounced in a late-1994 bid to become Democratic Caucus chairman. A year later, he accepted an offer to lead the NAACP. By February 1996, he had left the House.

CONTINUED : Cardin's climb

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