THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 7, 1994 TAG: 9411070036
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
His adopted hometown of Newport News ``has always meant something special in shipbuilding,'' Herb Bateman recently observed. So the congressman does not apologize for his zeal in looking out for what he calls ``our shipyard.''
The shipyard, Newport News Shipbuilding, and its brethren in the defense establishment look out for Bateman, too.
As he campaigns for what would be his seventh and perhaps last term in Washington, the veteran Republican representative from Virginia's 1st District is riding a crest of goodwill and campaign contributions from defense interests.
Democrat Mary Sinclair, by contrast, is struggling to raise money and grab voters' attention in a district that stretches from Newport News to Stafford County, an outer suburb of Washington. An independent candidate, shipyard worker Matt Voorhees, is running with the support of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche's organization.
While voter discontent is making 1994 an uncomfortable year for many other incumbent congressmen, even Democratic partisans acknowledge there is no sign that Bateman is in difficulty.
``Friendship, dependability, dedication, commitment and unswerving support Phillips, Newport News Shipbuilding's president, told an audience of other shipyard leaders earlier this month. ``And believe me, I think of him a helluva lot these days.''
Since 1991, according to records compiled by the National Library on Money & Politics and The Virginian-Pilot, Bateman's re-election efforts have received more than $145,000 in donations from political action committees aligned with shipbuilders and other defense contractors.
``It is only rational that they do so,'' Bateman explained to a Fredericksburg-area audience during a recent debate with Sinclair. His work for a strong defense, particularly a strong Navy, has helped keep alive the local shipyard and the shipbuilding industry generally, he asserted.
All but about $18,000 of the defense PAC donations were for Bateman's 1992 campaign, when he was widely perceived as in danger of losing the seat to Democrat Andy Fox. With Sinclair, a York County supervisor, considered a long shot, many of the defense PAC dollars have gone elsewhere this year.
Bateman, 66, styles himself as a ``mainline, mainstream conservative.'' He has built a reputation in 12 years on Capitol Hill as a quiet but effective force for maritime interests. On other subjects, he generally votes with his fellow Republicans but has defied party orthodoxy to support gun control legislation and oppose tax breaks for parents who put their children in private schools.
Bateman is something of an anachronism in this age of blow-dried, sound-bite politicians - a graying, bespectacled chain smoker whose verbose style can make simple subjects seem complex.
He claims a large share of the credit - and even Democratic congressional insiders say he deserves it - for Congress' decision this year to fork over $3.5 billion to build a new aircraft carrier at Newport News. Shipyard executives cast the project as vital to the company's survival.
The lone Republican in the four-member Hampton Roads congressional delegation, Bateman took the lead in keeping GOP lawmakers in line for the ship. That left Democratic Reps. Owen B. Pickett, Robert C. Scott and Norman Sisisky to quell the stronger anti-carrier sentiment among Democrats.
The combined effort was so successful that carrier opponents were unable to force even a floor debate on the new ship.
Advocacy of the carrier serves Bateman well on the Peninsula, where thousands of his constituents owe their livelihoods to Newport News Shipbuilding. And it didn't hurt him that in the spring Sinclair was publicly ambivalent about whether the new ship should be built. Since then, she has endorsed it.
``She was just a little bit too open in her thinking about a crucial issue in the district,'' said one longtime Democratic activist who spoke on the condition he not be identified.
Bateman also was instrumental in securing House approval - over the objections of the Democratic leadership - of a $375 million federal aid program for U.S. shipyards.
The subsidies, which were derailed in the Senate, are designed to help the yards end their dependence on Navy work and get back into commercial shipbuilding. American shipbuilders essentially have abandoned the commercial market to foreign competitors.
The Shipbuilders' Council, a trade association led by Phillips, gave Bateman its first ever ``man-of-the-year'' award earlier this month.
With Republicans looking to make big gains, and perhaps take control of the House in this election, Bateman is publicly reconsidering a pledge to retire after his next term. A Republican majority could propel him to the chairmanship of the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, where he would be positioned to be an even stronger advocate for the industry.
Except for 1990, when a strong campaign by Fox and active opposition by the gun lobby almost toppled him, Bateman has had little trouble in past elections.
Sinclair, 50, is a transplanted Californian and veteran civic activist who moved to York County in 1987 and is in her first term on the Board of Supervisors. She has campaigned gamely but failed to generate excitement even among Democrats, raising only $39,000 and tapping her own bank accounts for an additional $25,000. Bateman has raised almost $280,000.
Sinclair has spent months crisscrossing the district to espouse a platform defending abortion rights, calling for more federal aid to education and attacking Bateman's vote against the Clinton administration's crime bill.
Unlike most other Democratic candidates this fall, Sinclair has not run away from the Clinton administration. ``I am a progressive Democrat,'' she proclaimed at last week's Fredericksburg debate. Much of what Clinton has done ``has set us on the right track,'' she asserted.
One supporter suggested privately that Sinclair approached the campaign as a three-year effort, figuring to use the 1994 race to make herself known across the district and then to run again in '96, when Bateman had said he would retire.
KEYWORDS: CANDIDATE CONGRESSIONAL RACE
by CNB