Too conservative for Bush country?

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Can a Candidate Be Too Conservative in Bush Country?

Tue Aug 10, 3:26 PM ET

By Jon Herskovitz

DALLAS (Reuters) - A battle is raging for the Texas congressional seat that represents President Bush (news - web sites)'s adopted home of Crawford, and redistricting, religion and a cross-dressing scandal are weighing in the race.



Chet Edwards, a Democrat who won seven straight elections for the seat in a heavily Republican district, is facing Arlene Wohlgemuth, a Republican who has served in the Texas State House of Representatives and has basked in high-profile support including a visit from Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites).


While Wohlgemuth has the advantage of being a Republican in a newly redrawn district designed to favor a Republican, her alliance with Christian fundamentalists, staunch conservatism and infighting among Republicans may work against her.


The 17th congressional district covers an area in central Texas around Waco and Crawford, where Bush owns a ranch, and stretches to the towns south of Fort Worth.


It is an important seat for Republicans first because state Republicans backed by the White House last year worked hard to push through a plan that redrew the boundaries for the district in an effort to oust Edwards and several other leading Democratic congressmen in the state.


And on a symbolic level, Republicans do not like having their president represented by a Democrat in Congress.


In the campaign, Edwards is trying to position himself as a moderate Democrat who is equally ready to back his party or the president on issues.


His campaign is trying to portray Wohlgemuth as being right of Bush and the Republican Party on issues. His efforts have been helped by several leading Republicans in Wohlgemuth's home area abandoning their party in the race because they see her as being too conservative.


"Central Texas voters know that I am no John Kerry (news - web sites) and Arlene Wohlgemuth is no George Bush," Edwards said in an interview.


Wohlgemuth is positioning herself as the candidate who best represents the values of the district and Edwards as a candidate who is too liberal to serve the area.


She is confident that she will take a district that was designed by Republicans for a Republican candidate to win.


"This is Bush country," Wohlgemuth said in an interview, adding that Edwards was out of step with the people in central Texas.


"It is very conservative. It supports a very conservative president. I believe it will elect a conservative congressman to represent it," she said.


BOOST FROM DEFECTION


Edwards' campaign may get a boost from defections among Republicans. Some leading Republicans in Wohlgemuth's home of Johnson County publicly split with her during the Republican runoff campaign to find a candidate for the race to fill her State House seat, and the bitterness lingers.


In the waning days of the election, photos mysteriously appeared that showed one candidate as a cross-dresser.


The photos of candidate Sam Walls, a backbone of the Republican Party in the county and considered one of the area's greatest benefactors, in women's clothes helped give the race to a candidate favored by Wohlgemuth. Texas newspapers reported that Walls had for years been a cross dresser and said Walls in a statement called the activity a "small part" of his past.





In addition, some voters in Johnson County see Wohlgemuth as too strongly aligned with fundamentalist Christians. These voters have taken to calling hard-core religious conservatives Talibaptists, a play on the name of the fundamentalist Islamic group the Taliban.

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said despite defections in the Republican camp, Wohlgemuth will not suffer significantly for it come election day.

"Wohlgemuth does bother people as sort of being aggressively and thoughtlessly conservative," Jillson said.

"While there is plenty of time left for finger pointing among the Republicans, when push comes to shove on election day, if they turn out, I expect them to vote for Arlene Wohlgemuth," he said.

The redistricting did not greatly change the percentage of Republicans in the district, but it did erase traditional areas of support for Edwards around a military base and among some rural communities.

Political observers have said the new district lines mean that if a Democratic incumbent does well, that candidate can easily get 47 percent of the vote, but 51 percent or more may be impossible.

Edwards in the past has been able to get residents who have voted Republican in national races to split their vote. In 2000, about two-thirds of the voters in his district selected the Republican Bush for president while a majority voted for Edwards, the Democrat, for Congress.

Edwards has a significant advantage in money raised for the campaign and has done much better in finding money in the district than Wohlgemuth. But Wohlgemuth is expected to fill have her coffers with support from national Republicans and by conservative groups.