THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 27, 1994 TAG: 9410270473
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
The only debate to date in the 2nd District congressional race began as an ambush Tuesday night and blossomed into a free-wheeling, gloves-off showdown between Rep. Owen B. Pickett and his two-time Republican challenger, Jim Chapman.
Pickett was 20 minutes into a boilerplate lecture on the role of the federal government in the lives of a Thalia Civic League audience when Chapman and his campaign retinue strode in and took seats near the front. Chapman sat quietly, listening, but his presence was as ominous as Poe's raven.
If the tactic angered Pickett, he never let it show. The congressman closed his remarks by saying, ``I notice that my opposition is here, and I'm perfectly willing to stay here and debate him or anything else that y'all would like to see.''
It was a remarkable thing to say, given that Pickett has claimed schedule conflicts each time an attempt was made to arrange a true debate. While both candidates have done hand-shaking tours of public and private events across the district formonths, they have appeared together infrequently.
Much of the campaign has been carried out on the airwaves, and Chapman ratcheted up his attack on Pickett the very night that he jumped the congressman at the civic league meeting. A hard-edged TV ad went on the air linking Pickett to President Clinton, and a radio spot was ready to run that features a voice mimicking Clinton talking to Owen Pickett on the telephone.
The radio voice, in a heavy Arkansas drawl, goes roughly like this:
``Hello, Owen? This is Bill Clinton, and I just wanted to call and thank you for all the times you voted with me and Hillary to support my big-spending program . . . and I want to come to Hampton Roads and campaign for you. (Silence) No, it's not too much trouble. . . . What, you say all the airports are closed down? Well, that's OK, we'll just drive down. . . . Uh, you say all the bridges are down? . . .
The ad ends with the president being ``disconnected.'' It is a satirical continuation of the key tactic of Chapman's campaign, to link Pickett with a president whose popularity in the district has plummeted. Pickett's camp is planning a humorous air assault of its own.
When debate broke out Tuesday night, Pickett jumped on the ``Clinton-clone'' issue, claiming the ads showing that he ``votes with Bill Clinton 82 percent of the time'' are a distorted view of his record.
Chapman countered that the 82-percent figure was based on a study by the nonpartisan journal Congressional Quarterly.
``As I understand it,'' Chapman said, ``they took a look at roughly 500 votes that are cast by Congress every year and identified the ones that the president had actually staked out a position on, and from that analysis determined that on 82 percent of them you supported the president's position.''
``OK,'' Pickett said, ``I think you're wrong on the number of votes that were considered in this, and I'll be glad to provide you with the accurate data so you can correct your ads on television.''
Specifically, the study was based on 102 votes and shows Pickett backing the same position as Clinton on 82 percent of them - a slightly higher average than other Southern Democratic members of the House.
Pickett said that ``80 percent of the votes cast in Congress are unnecessary,'' that issues are brought up and ``votes are taken to establish a political position. . . . It's just a partisan squabble.''
The congressman also tried to kick the pins out from under an attack he knew would come: Chapman frequently uses statistics from various watchdog organizations that shroud Pickett as a free-spending budget-buster.
``There's one thing that's common to all these organizations,'' Pickett said. ``They've all got headquarters in Washington. Now, do you want your representative listening to what people are talking about in Washington, or do you want him to do what's right for this community in the 2nd District of Virginia, in Norfolk and Virginia Beach?''
Undaunted, Chapman took the lectern and hammered Pickett with reports from groups like the National Taxpayers Union, ``a nonpartisan, anti-tax organization that says he gets a `D' when it comes to tax-and-spend issues. . Pickett is one of the four worst deficit fighters out of all 435 members of the House of Representatives.''
Noting that the Democratic Party has been in power for more than 40 years, Chapman said, ``What has happened in that 40 years is that many, many members of the Democratic Party come back to their district and tell you what a good job they are doing looking out for one, two or three things, and the rest of the time, in all candor, they're selling the country down the river,'' spending taxpayers' money on such projects as ``Lawrence Welk museums, fish farms out in Arkansas and paying for midnight basketball leagues.''
Owen Pickett, in his normal element, is professorial to the point of exasperating even his closest confederates. As Tuesday's dialogue heated up, though, he grew increasingly feisty, seeming even to enjoy what had begun as a political bushwhacking.
The 70-odd members of the audience also warmed up to the event: At one point, two onlookers were so hotly debating the relative merits of Clinton and Reagan tax maneuvers that they momentarily upstaged the candidates.
With just under two weeks until the election, and a recent poll showing him roughly 16 points down, Chapman's tactic Tuesday night clearly was an attempt to smoke Pickett out into the open. Pickett's campaign aide, Jean Keary, was visibly angry when Chapman crashed the civic league meeting, but she expressed relief afterward with the way Pickett had handled it.
Though Chapman had to endure at least as much as he dished out, his staff seemed satisfied that they'd forced Pickett into a confrontation.
``He's a moving target,'' said Mike McElwain, Chapman's campaign manager. ``We've got to pin him down wherever we can.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Jim Chapman, the Republican challenger, was a late, unexpected
arrival at the Thalia Civic League on Tuesday night.
But Rep. Owen Pickett, after finishing his scheduled speech, invited
Chapman to join him in an on-the-spot debate.
KEYWORDS: CONGRESSIONAL RACE 2ND DISTRICT CANDIDATES
DEBATE by CNB