Posted on 10/24/2002 1:28:01 PM PDT by BlackRazor
Liberal label dogs conservative Democrat in key House race
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
The Associated Press
10/24/02 10:30 AM
ST. CLAIR, Pa. (AP) -- Among the baseball-capped beer drinkers at the St. Clair Fish and Game Club, U.S. Rep. Tim Holden takes his place at the bar. The target shooters have hung up their rifles for the night, and the locals -- Holden included -- are watching the Philadelphia Eagles game on TV.
"Oh yeah -- all sorts of liberals hang out here," Holden, a Democrat, says sarcastically as he looks around the wood-paneled room.
An ad for Holden's Republican opponent, Rep. George W. Gekas, calling Holden a "typical tax-and-spend liberal" appears during a commercial break.
"Look at this," Holden calls out to a friend. "It's just not true. Hey, Wally, they're lying again."
Despite a decidedly moderate -- he would even say conservative -- voting record over the last decade in Congress, Holden is having a hard time beating back the liberal label in the race for Pennsylvania's 17th Congressional District. The election is one of four in the nation where incumbents are pitted against each other as a result of the 10-year redistricting process.
Though no independent polls have been taken, the race is considered by both parties one of the closest in the country and could, some analysts believe, be pivotal in determining whether Republicans or Democrats control the U.S. House next year.
Even Republicans agree that the 72-year-old Gekas, a 20-year House veteran, is in for the toughest race of his career against Holden, a ferocious campaigner. Gekas is "right up there" among the GOP's most vulnerable House incumbents, while Holden, 45, is "an attractive candidate," said Rep. Tom Davis, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
But Gekas has a key advantage: Republican voters far outnumber Democrats in the central Pennsylvania district, which includes Harrisburg, vast portions of central Pennsylvania farmlands and once-thriving anthracite coal towns.
Voters here supported Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore by a 15-point margin during the 2000 presidential election. And Gekas has smartly aligned himself with the president, urging voters here to "let this George W. help that George W." and by describing Holden as a liberal Democrat.
"He says he's a conservative," Gekas said in an interview this week. "But he fails as a conservative and stands out as a liberal."
Gekas and national Republicans point to Holden's support for labor unions, his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement and vote in favor of former President Clinton's 1993 tax increase as prime evidence of the Democrat's liberal leanings. Holden also voted against President Bush's 2001 tax cut and against eliminating the estate tax, and sided with Democrats over Republicans on prescription drugs, privatizing Social Security and the "Patient's Bill of Rights" medical malpractice plan.
But Holden is also a pro-gun, pro-death penalty, anti-abortion rights lawmaker who supported welfare reform and was given a 48 percent approval rating with the American Conservative Union in 2001. (Unabashed liberals like Democratic Sens. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, for example, scored 4 and 0 percent, respectively.) He voted this month to allow President Bush to use force in Iraq and supports eliminating the "marriage penalty" tax.
"Is he a liberal? I probably wouldn't use that word," said Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a slightly right-leaning Washington think-tank. "In the context of the Democratic Party, he's very much a moderate. But in a district like that, the term liberal would be more negative than positive; more pejorative than laudatory.
"In his old district, which was pretty conservative, he's done pretty effectively," Ornstein said. "But he's got a whole lot of voters now who don't know him."
Indeed, with less than two weeks to go before the Nov. 5 election, Holden is worried about how to win over voters who only know him by the "liberal" ads they see on TV. His campaign lawn signs do not identify him as a Democrat and he is eager to talk about his two terms as Schuylkill County sheriff -- a job he won despite a 4-3 Republican voter edge.
"Timmy's had a hard race every single time. And he's won beautifully," said Lynne Gitman, 72, of Pottsville, a Republican who voted the straight-party line until Holden's first campaign in 1985. "But this worries me. We'll get the vote out for him up here, because we know him. But they don't know him out there."
The Republican strategy seems to be working. The airwaves have been saturated with campaign ads, supplemented by $2.4 million from the NRCC and another $1 million from a conservative group supported by pharmaceutical companies. The NRCC ads, in particular, have made a point of noting Holden's pro-tax votes and appear to have hit home with viewers.
"Tax-and-spend liberal. That's what I remember," said Paula Stiffler, 39, a Republican from Marysville, which is part of the new district ground that Holden has to cover. She said she plans to vote for Gekas, who has been her local congressman since 1983.
"I never heard of him until he decided to run for office," Stiffler said of Holden. "In Perry County, he's never had an effect on me."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.