MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN ATTACK ON SENATE CANDIDATE

The former tenant who beat and stabbed social activist and U.S. Senate
candidate A. Robert Kaufman at his Baltimore home last year pleaded
guilty today to attempted second-degree murder.

Henry Leon Davis, 42, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with all
but 12 years suspended, and five years of probation.

Kaufman, 75, has suffered numerous complications since the near-fatal
attack last June. He went into a coma and contracted blood poisoning,
leading to kidney failure. He gets dialysis three times a week and
needs a kidney transplant.

In an interview after the hearing, Kaufman said he was sorry that
Davis would have to go to prison for such a long time and that there
was a better way for Davis to demonstrate remorse.

"If he's at all repentant, and his blood type is A or O, he could give
me one of his kidneys for the one that died in the process of saving
my heart and brain," Kaufman said.

Kaufman, a socialist running as a Democrat, said he would continue to
make the attack and its implications a centerpiece of his campaign. He
said poverty and drug addiction motivated Davis to try to kill him,
and that Davis represented society's failure to provide adequate
education and jobs for the poor and treatment for addicts.

"If we had universal health insurance, perhaps he wouldn't have
medicated himself with illegal drugs," Kaufman said. "We're the
richest country in the history of the world, and for us to have such
poverty is inexcusable."

Kaufman received 32,000 votes in 2004 when he ran against Sen. Barbara
Mikulski, a Democrat. He has also run for governor, mayor of Baltimore
and the Baltimore City Council.

Kaufman is seeking to replace retiring five-term Sen. Paul S.
Sarbanes. Other Democrats in the crowded primary field include U.S.
Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin and former congressman and NAACP president
Kweisi Mfume. Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele is seeking the Republican
nomination.

For Kaufman, the campaign is about getting his message out. He plans
to continue to denounce the war on drugs in candidate forums. He said
addicts need places where they can acquire drugs at nominal cost and
get treatment, not jail time.

"We have over 2 million people in prisons now, and there's not even a
crime wave," Kaufman said. "It's mostly for drugs."