THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 3, 1994 TAG: 9411030376
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
Like the spread of a nasty strain of flu, the seamy politicking that has marked the nation's most visible election contests is infecting the 2nd District congressional race.
Rep. Owen B. Pickett and his opponent, Jim Chapman, have released radio and television advertisements in which they pummel each other's dedication to the district's military constituency.
Tuesday, Chapman accused Pickett of turning ``hundreds of violent criminals'' loose on the streets, including a child molester who was ``re-arrested for the attempted rape of an 11-year-old.'' The allegation is based on a 1987 District of Columbia plan to relieve prison crowding by trimming 90 days from the sentences of a number of inmates.
Chapman also is running a radio advertisement that implies Pickett cannot adequately represent the 2nd District because the congressman never served in the military. The ad reminds listeners that Chapman served 11 years in the Army - seven of those were as a reservist - and that he is the son of a career military officer. Chapman ``volunteered to give his life,'' the ad concludes.
Confronted with that charge Tuesday during a morning radio call-in program, Pickett said it was a ``cheap shot.''
``My father served in World War I,'' Pickett said on WNIS AM-850, ``and he died in a veterans' hospital in Asheville, N.C. So my family has paid a very big price for this country.
``Two of my children are spouses of career military professionals, so I understand as well as anyone the pressures on career military families.''
Pickett later explained that his father had died of complications from a poison gas attack suffered in Europe, while Chapman had served as a lawyer with the Judge Advocate General staff.
``I understand more about giving a life for your country,'' Pickett said, ``than someone who spent their military career in a JAG office in Fort Carson, Colorado.''
For his part, Pickett has an ad running that dips back into a 1992 campaign debate and considerably warps a statement Chapman made then, during his first run for Pickett's seat.
At the time, Pickett was touting his effectiveness in drawing military funding to the area. Chapman countered that Pickett's ability to get ``a few goodies'' for the district was not all that significant.
That exchange, when resurrected for the '94 campaign, makes it sound as if Chapman dismissed the entire 2nd District military structure and its 135,000 active-duty personnel and their dependents as nothing but ``pork and goodies.''
The Pickett ad is notable enough for its hyperbole; it is even more striking that the campaign would replay a 1992 debate dialogue when Pickett has sidestepped most requests to debate Chapman this fall. In a counterattack, a Chapman ad accuses Pickett of ``sleazy distortions.''
Mike McElwain, Chapman's campaign chairman, dismissed Pickett's ``pork and goodies'' ad as ``a weak attempt to distort what was going on at the time. He's trying to make the point that Jim does not support military bases.''
``Chapman's a veteran,'' he said. ``Owen Pickett is not.''
McElwain offered those comments as he previewed the new television ad linking Pickett to a District of Columbia prison-furlough program seven years ago. That plan, enacted by the District's city government, backfired when violent offenders were mistakenly released. More than three-fourths of those released, according to the Chapman ad, were re-arrested for new crimes.
Rep. Stan Parris, a Virginia Republican, tried in October 1987 to get the Congress to use its oversight powers to cancel the city government's action. Pickett opposed that maneuver in a procedural vote.
The ad contains this statement: ``When child molester William Rorie was released early, he was re-arrested for the attempted rape of an 11-year-old. Owen Pickett knew about William Rorie, yet he voted to continue the early release program that let him go free.''
It is a close cousin to the volatile ``Willie Horton'' ad that George Bush used in his 1988 campaign, but it avoids the race-baiting aspect of the Horton ad by showing no faces. Although the Horton ad was effective, Bush was criticized for playing to white suburban angst by featuring a glowering African-American as a fearsome criminal.
Wednesday morning, the very first caller to Pat Murphy's talk show on WTAR AM-790 radio hit a visiting Owen Pickett with questions about that ad. Pickett called it a ``last-minute scare tactic'' from a candidate who was ``behind and getting frantic.''
``Like a lot of other things in this campaign,'' Pickett said, ``that ad does not depict the truth. . . . That's the sort of thing to expect when you have a campaign of this type.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Owen B. Pickett
Jim Chapman
KEYWORDS: HOUSE OF DELEGATES RACE 2ND DISTRICT CANDIDATE ELECTION by CNB