THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 3, 1994 TAG: 9409030459
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Analysis
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 124 lines
Two years ago, Owen Pickett didn't need much of a tug-along from Bill Clinton's coattails in defending his perch as the congressman representing Virginia Beach and most of Norfolk.
This year, whether he likes it or not, Pickett will be spending a good deal of the election season trying to convince voters in the 2nd Congressional District that affiliation with the Democratic Party is about all he and Clinton have in common.
Pickett's nemesis two years ago, Republican James L. Chapman IV, is taking another hard run at the 2nd District seat. Last time around, Chapman painted Pickett as a two-fisted spender with a taste for such high-life congressional perks as fact-finding missions to Rome, Paris and Antigua.
That sinker-ball spin on Pickett's record earned Chapman, who had never before run for public office, 45 percent of the vote.
Chapman's 1994 strategy plays on a growing disdain for Congress and the Clintons. In campaign fliers and talks with voters, he insists that Pickett and Clinton are hatchlings of the same political egg, that Clinton is a free-wheeling, big-government taxosaurus whom Pickett has supported on eight of every 10 votes in Congress.
In reality, Owen Pickett is not high on the invitation list for brunch with Bill and Hillary. He has rebuffed the president on several critical votes, refusing to support Clinton's budget, his crime bill and the ban on semi-automatic guns lumped under the label of assault weapons. He has serious problems with some of the key proposals in the Clinton health-care plan.
Asked how he can look at Pickett's record and, with a straight face, call him a Clinton Democrat, Chapman is prone to answer: ``Well, like they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.''
A cliche that won't die has it that politicking starts in earnest over the Labor Day weekend. Members of the U.S. House run every two years, though, so campaigning is something of a way of life. Pickett spends every weekend glad-handing in the district. Chapman had to win a June primary to earn a second shot at Pickett, so he's been wheedling voters and contributors for months.
Asked one day why he'd decided to try again, Chapman leaned back in his law-office chair, hooted and said, ``I had a lobotomy. C'mere, I'll show you the scar.''
But the 1992 campaign left Chapman more hungry than scarred. Just 35 years old at the time, and an absolute novice, he gave Pickett a tough run. The performance taught him a few things about politics, he said, and made him much more credible to contributors.
And then there are the Clintons. Chapman is a lock-kneed conservative to whom the major White House initiatives are as painful as a peach-brandy hangover. Health care. Crime bill. Military cutbacks. Foreign policy. Name a Clinton program and Chapman will reel off a Republican rebuttal that treats the president's plan like some wretched offal that is stuck to the heel of a shoe and must be scraped away before it causes a permanent stain on the rug.
At times Chapman seems to forget that he's running against Pickett, not the president. Ringing doorbells and haunting a shopping center in Ocean View last weekend, his patter always began, ``Hi, I'm Jim Chapman. I'm running for Congress in the 2nd District because I want to send Bill Clinton a message. .
Pickett's view of his opponent is this: ``If he wants to run for president, he ought to run for president.'' This is the 2nd District, Pickett said, and the real test of service is seeing after the needs of its people.
The congressman, in a long discussion this week, showed little inclination to be stampeded into ratcheting up his low-key, professorial image or spin-doctoring his record to offset the increasingly pointed assaults of the Chapman team.
Chapman had just released the findings of a study by the non-partisan National Taxpayers' Union that rated Pickett as No. 67 on the list of 432 sitting members of the House in willingness to increase government spending. That pokes a big hole in Pickett's fiscal-conservative armor, a Chapman campaign aide said. His rating was ``worse than Congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the only Socialist in Congress.''
It was proof, Chapman said, that ``Owen Pickett has grown out of touch with the people here in our part of Virginia.''
Though he hadn't seen the report, Pickett didn't blink. In a district where government money is as vital as plasma, he said it was his duty to support big-ticket military programs and such science projects as space-station research at NASA-Langley and expansion of research from the Norfolk-based National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
``I can't go along with the idea,'' Pickett said, ``that I should vote for any one special interest group, like this taxpayers' association. If I do that, I can't represent the people of the district. And the people of this district are strong on education, strong on defense, strong on science . . . ''
If both candidates agree on one thing, it is that Pickett's voting record will be a fat bone of contention in the campaign, though he and Chapman clearly will be chewing it from opposite ends. The candidates have agreed to a series of debates, though none has been scheduled.
Chapman's insistence on sewing Owen Pickett to Clinton's shirtsleeves is a tactic right out of the Republican Party's playbook. The strategy is so obvious that Clinton's pollster last month advised Democratic candidates to run at a distance from the president.
Off-year congressional elections - those held in a year the presidency is not contested - generally go against the party that holds the White House. With the troubles Clinton has endured in his first 20 months in office, Republicans believe they can make dramatic gains.
The Democrats hold a 56-44 advantage in the Senate, and the best guesses are that the GOP will take back three or four seats. In the House of Representatives, Democrats hold a 256-178 edge, and even party strategists fear they could lose 30 seats in November. A true avalanche - a 40-seat loss - would put the Republicans in power in the House for the first time since the Eisenhower era 40 years ago.
Virginia's 2nd District became decidedly more conservative after redistricting in 1991, when several heavily Democratic Norfolk precincts were shifted into the minority-rich 3rd District. Facing the strong conservatism of the Virginia Beach suburbs, Pickett ran at arm's length from Bill Clinton in winning a fourth term in 1992.
While he is careful not to disparage his president - Pickett says they have a reasonable working relationship - the congressman's campaign will emphasize his independence from party doctrine or White House influence.
Asked how he would respond if Clinton telephoned him to see if he needed any help in his campaign, Pickett suppressed a grin and said, ``I'd tell him I'm fine - didn't need his help last time, don't need it this time.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Pickett
Chapman
KEYWORDS: U.S. HOUSE RACE CANDIDATE ANALYSIS by CNB