THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 4, 1994 TAG: 9411040683
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Jim Chapman, Republican challenger for the 2nd District congressional seat, got one final shot Thursday at Rep. Owen B. Pickett's political chin, but he found the incumbent Democrat to be a rough brawler in the clinches.
In a testy debate taped for broadcast Sunday, Pickett fought back against Chapman's months-long harangue on the congressman's voting record. Time and again he chided Chapman as a campaigner who ``can't get his facts right.''
Pickett's tone and tempo seemed designed to portray himself as an experienced, independent lawmaker and Chapman as an upstart who hasn't quite learned the ways of the world.
At times, Pickett talked to Chapman the way a teacher would lecture a student who was late with his homework.
Annoyed by such Pickett asides as, ``You ought to be able to figure that out, Jim, you're a smart lawyer,'' and ``Jim still doesn't understand this,'' Chapman at one point fired back, ``That is so condescending of you.''
The debate will air at 11:30 a.m. Sunday on Joel Rubin's ``On the Record'' program on WVEC, Channel 13.
At the core of the argument was the theme that Chapman has used effectively in months of hard campaigning: that Pickett walks in Bill Clinton's shadow and supports the president on four of every five votes in Congress.
Pickett attacked the substance and methodology of the voting analysis that Chapman cited. Disdainfully tossing its pages across the table at his opponent, Pickett said, ``Jim, here, get your facts right.''
Refusal to back the president at any turn, Pickett said, would have required a vote against funds for the new aircraft carrier that will keep jobs at Newport News Shipbuilding.
``According to his rule,'' Pickett said, ``I'm supposed to vote against it. I'm not going to do silly things like that.''
``You're the guy that's in Congress,'' Chapman countered, ``you're the one that has all these lofty goals and ideals, and the fact is the citizens of the 2nd Congressional District know that this country is on the wrong course, we need to get it back on the right course, we need to get somebody that's willing to go up there and stand up to Bill Clinton.''
But it was ``absolutely misleading,'' Chapman added, to suggest that he would put partisan politics ahead of support for defense programs, as Pickett has implied Chapman would do.
Chapman tried to trap Pickett on the congressman's refusal to support a line-item veto or a balanced-budget amendment as ways to control spending, but Pickett never quite let him tighten the noose. He questioned Chapman's ability to deliver on promises to change the way Congress does business.
``Unfortunately,'' Pickett said, ``you don't realize it, but when you go up to the House . . . you're not going up there by yourself, you're going up there with 435 other people. . . . Can you get 218 others to think and act and do exactly what you want them to do? Are you going to take your hoop along and get them to jump through?''
``I know it's going to be a lot easier to get 218 Republicans to do that,'' Chapman shot back, ``than it is to get 218 Democrats to do that.''
Other than an impromptu debate at a Virginia Beach civic league meeting, the confrontation was the second - and probably final - face-to-face airing of the issues that separate Pickett and Chapman.
Their campaigns have been marked by frequent sessions with small groups of voters in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, and an increasingly hard-edged series of TV and radio ads.
KEYWORDS: HOUSE OF DELEGATES RACE 2ND DISTRICT DEBATE CANDIDATES by CNB