THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411060213
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 145 lines
Mike McElwain was dressed in his best wool banker's suit. The scrubbed-up Generation Xers helping with Jim Chapman's congressional campaign had cleaned up a corner of the chaotic headquarters and draped banners where the news-cams couldn't miss them.
Team Chapman was set for A Big Event: three television stations, the newspaper and two news-talk radio shows had been promised in urgent phone calls that Chapman, just a week from the election, was about to tag Rep. Owen B. Pickett as a reckless, jelly-legged lawmaker who had handed Get Out of Jail Free cards to a raftload of predatory child-molesters. Or something like that.
And then, painfully, the whole thing went to hell.
Only one television crew showed up, and it was late. Fifteen uncomfortable minutes ticked away, and clearly, nobody else was coming. McElwain, the campaign manager, decided to press on.
He was just a few words into his prepared statement when the TV reporter interrupted. `` 'Scuse me,'' the TV guy said, ``but where's Chapman?''
``Uh, he's not going to be here,'' McElwain said. ``He has meetings all day.''
The TV reporter turned to his cameraman and uttered a three-word command: ``Break it down.''
McElwain's face drooped like hot candle wax. Channel 10 was leaving. No story, no play on the 6 o'clock news.
They'd never even turned on the lights.
Voters, when asked what they despise about politics, commonly will drape themselves in sanctimony and tell you that they're sick of negative ads, they're tired of personality hype, they want the politicians to stick to a clean, clear look at the issues.
If that were entirely true, Owen Pickett and Jim Chapman might be the two most popular politicians in the commonwealth. Instead, their voices have been drowned out by the roar of chainsaw politics in the U.S. Senate race.
Even when their ads turned a bit nasty, Pickett and Chapman stuck pretty much to hashing out how government should work for the people of Norfolk and Virginia Beach. The campaign lacked the pungency of the Senate race, which devolved into a lurid debate over loose truths and even looser underwear.
Pickett and Chapman had to endure the handicap of conducting a campaign without a single cry of ``Bimbo!'' or ``Liar!''
Everywhere in the press, the eyes of assignment editors glazed over. A simple squeak from Ollie North or Chuck Robb drew more cameras than were used to film the chariot race in Ben Hur; the local congressional race couldn't get on the 6 o'clock news if one candidate set the other's hair on fire.
Hanging out in the wreckage of his press conference, Mike McElwain was candid about life in the political shadow of Chuck and Ollie.
``Frustrating? Yeah, I think it's frustrating that the media have not covered us. They've taken Owen Pickett's word as gold, continually they say that Owen Pickett's a conservative . . . . They're just giving this guy a free ride.''
Undoubtedly, the lack of attention works against Chapman. Two years ago, with lousy ads and little money, but a whole lot of handshakes and shoe leather, he pulled 45 percent of the vote against Pickett.
This year, with as much cash as Pickett and a sharp, motivated campaign staff, Chapman hoped high exposure would force across the message that he and Pickett are political animals of a very different stripe.
Chapman chose as his local issues the fear that Oceana Naval Air Station and other bases will be closed through military cutbacks and the public perception that the government is fumbling the Lake Gaston pipeline project.
He built an attack plan that welded those 2nd District issues to the national Republican strategy: Paint the incumbent as part of the pork-sucking Washington elite. Hammer at the GOP themes of a balanced budget, a lower deficit, a stronger military, tax cuts, congressional term limits and a line-item veto.
And, most importantly, tell the voter that your Democrat opponent is Bill Clinton's bag man, and Bill Clinton isn't worth a sackful of dryer lint.
Chapman turned this offense loose on a wide-open playing field. Congress was locked in a hideous partisan squabble that made all the incumbents look childish, and the Republicans were whipping Clinton like a rabid dog. It also kept Democrats like Pickett from campaigning back home.
Election analysts were beginning to understand that the anger and disgust in the heartland might translate into a Republican takeover of Congress. For hard-runners like Chapman, it was all tall cotton and summer sunshine.
Then came Oct. 7, and a few things began to break the Democrats' way. Congress adjourned and no longer provided a platform for discontent with Clinton. The president's policies in Haiti and the Mideast were paying off, and his popularity was inching back toward the 50 percent mark.
And Pickett was free to spend all his time in the district. His ads went on the air and he began to play trump cards that always seem to be dealt to the incumbents.
Though he keeps his distance from President Clinton and the left wing of the party, Pickett clings to one adage from the most liberal of all Democrats, the late Thomas P. ``Tip'' O'Neill of Massachusetts.
O'Neill coined the phrase, ``All politics is local.''
While Chapman leaned heavily on the GOP's national strategy, Pickett stayed with the issues that play strongest in the 2nd District. They are defense, defense and defense.
Owen Pickett is a native Virginian and a longtime Hampton Roads politician. He spent 15 years in the General Assembly and did a stint as state party chairman before winning the congressional seat in 1986. He has built a record as a moderate-conservative who is strong on constituent service and military spending.
He also grew up tough. Pickett is not a product of the silk-stocking Virginia political class. He was 7 when his father died, . Pickett had to work his way through college, the only member of his family to earn a university degree.
Normally polite and professorial, Pickett let a hard edge show as he countered Chapman's attacks. When Chapman repeatedly accused him of being a free-spending Clintonite, Pickett would simply reply that any congressman who has a big military constituency had better be willing to vote for the spending it takes to keep the machine running.
Opponents have learned in the past that chewing on Owen Pickett is like chewing on a platter of ribs: It's easy to tear off some meat around the edges, but pretty quickly you'll hit a mass of gristle and bone.
Late in the campaign, anxious for a chance to establish his position, Chapman took on Pickett in two face-to-face encounters - one planned, one an ambush - and both times came away with at least as many bruises as he inflicted.
Chapman was unfairly cast in a recent letter-to-the-editor as having an ``elitist'' background. His road, like Pickett's, was not easy: Son of a career military man, he grew up on the move, went to high school in Germany, attended Virginia Tech on an ROTC scholarship. He, too, learned how to scuffle.
Like Pickett, he is a lawyer and is good on his feet, capable of strong and forceful argument. But as a relative newcomer to the area - he has lived here eight years - he is up against a four-term incumbent who has shown an ability to draw support from a very wide swath of Democrats and Republicans.
People have strange reactions to their local congressmen. A New York Times poll reported that 33 percent of registered voters are unhappy with their local representative, but only 28 percent can name the man or woman who serves them in Congress.
Just how deep that confusion and discontent run in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, and how willing the voters are to make Owen Pickett pay for it, is the key to Jim Chapman's chances of pulling off an upset Tuesday. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
THE CHALLENGER:
Jim Chapman
THE INCUMBENT:
Owen B. Pickett
KEYWORDS: HOUSE OF DELEGATES RACE 2ND DISTRICT CANDIDATES by CNB