Upper hand

Congressman Jim McGovern may seem like a shoo-in for the 3rd Congressional District, but any dip in the economy or continued Clinton woes could be the wild card that challenger Matt Amorello needs

by Walter Crockett

illustration by Roger Jones

It's 6:06 on a crisp September morning and the moon is still high over Franklin as Republican state senator Matt Amorello of Grafton greets commuters on the railway platform in the center of town.

Inside the little train station they're giving away free coffee in paper cups with Amorello stickers on them. Amorello is challenging first-term incumbent Jim McGovern for the 3rd Congressional District seat. Also in the race is Libertarian candidate George Phillies.

Mark Monahan, who owns Deb's Cleaners in town, works early mornings behind the train-station counter.

"I've been a conservative all my life," Monahan says. "Ronald Reagan, he's my hero."

But the name Matt Amorello doesn't ring a bell for him.

"Is he a Democrat or a Republican?" Monahan asks.

Outside on the platform, Amorello, whose slightly chunky figure and lack of visible neck make him resemble a character from the Babar books, wears a determined smile as he passes from potential voter to potential voter. One man ties him up in a detailed discussion of electric utility deregulation. Amorello knows the issue inside out, but that doesn't mean he'll get the man's vote.

He approaches a fortyish woman and tells her he's running as a Republican for the 3rd Congressional District seat. "So you're against labor?" she replies.

The commuter train pulls away and Amorello and his campaign volunteers walk upstairs to the street corner for an old-fashioned New England "stand-out." The volunteers -- two of them serious, young, bespectacled Republicans who bear an unfortunate resemblance to pallbearers -- are positioned around the intersection with Amorello signs. The candidate waves to passing cars and hurries across the street to shake hands with anyone who happens to be walking to work at 6:30 in the morning.

Most of the drivers don't wave back, but that doesn't discourage Amorello -- not visibly anyway. Whenever he shakes hands with a woman, he is quick to offer her a complimentary Amorello-for-Congress emery board. All the gals take the emery boards.

One of the sign-holders, George "Rusty" Valery, bears no resemblance whatsoever to a pallbearer. He looks like the Teamster he is. Rusty, 34, is the son of Red Valery, who used to run Teamsters Local 170 in Worcester. His family has been close to the Amorello family for years, and in the Teamster universe, family beats party hands-down.

"My dad spoke at the Teamster retirees meeting on Tuesday on Matt's behalf and got a great reception," Valery says. "Nobody has paid more into the health and welfare fund than Amorello Construction."

A Teamster insurrection would be music to the ears of any Republican candidate, but flash back if you will to the Labor Day Breakfast held by the Worcester-Framingham Labor Council of the AFL-CIO at the Holiday Inn in Worcester. All the Local 170 bigwigs were there, looking tough in their blue T-shirts. And when Congressman Jim McGovern was introduced, they rose to their feet along with their suited brethren. To the vast majority of area union leaders, McGovern is family. One defector doesn't make an insurrection.

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As much as the Republicans like to paint McGovern as an out-of-touch pinko who'd be more at home in Havana, the congressman's local image and voting record are remarkably mainstream by Democratic standards.

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Matt Amorello is going to need a lot of defectors to beat Jim McGovern in the 3rd Congressional District -- that bizarre, gerrymandered, shoehorn of a district that stretches from Princeton and Lancaster in the north to Dartmouth and Westport in the south. It's a district you can't easily drive through without leaving Massachusetts, a district with three cities -- Worcester, Attleborough, and Fall River -- and 30 towns. The only thing many of these towns have in common is that their relatively affluent burghers are more Independent than Democrat.

When the winds of change blow, incumbents aren't safe in this district. Republican Peter Blute toppled Democratic Congressman Joe Early in 1992 when Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America looked appetizing to Yuppieland. Democrat Jim McGovern toppled Blute in 1996, when just rhyming with Newt -- let alone voting with him -- was enough to get you booted from office.

But this year it's not at all clear that the winds of change are blowing for anyone other than Bill Clinton. The economy is great. The major issues -- education and healthcare -- seem to play to the Democrats' strength.

Which way should a liberal Republican like Amorello tack to fill his sails? If the stock market doesn't crash soon and Clinton's troubles don't rub off on other Democrats, where are the issues that will help a Republican challenger cross the ocean of public complacency? Though he'll never admit it, Amorello has got to be worried that the answer won't be blowing in the wind.

MATT AMORELLO IS 40 years old. He went to public schools in Grafton, graduated from American University in Washington, interned in a Ronald Reagan presidential campaign, and worked for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington and Boston. Unlike Republicans in some other states, he knows what a wetland is and what it's worth. "We used to call him Nature Boy," says a childhood friend.

Amorello graduated from Suffolk Law School in 1990, but before he took the bar exam he decided to wage a sticker campaign to get on the Republican ballot for the state senate seat held by Worcester Democrat John Houston. Not only did he get on the ballot, he pulled a major upset and has held the senate seat ever since, earning a reputation as an intelligent, respected, environmentally aware lawmaker who works well with pols on both sides of the aisle and never forgets his constituents. He helped found the Central Massachusetts Legislative Caucus and chaired it three times. He pushed through brownfields legislation. In short, Matt Amorello is just the kind of Republican that Massachusetts voters like to elect governor. Trouble is, he's running for Congress.

Jim McGovern is 38 years old. He went to Burncoat Elementary School and Worcester Academy and got a BA and an MPA from American University. McGovern worked for US Senator George McGovern (no relation) and then spent 14 years as an aide to Massachusetts Congressman Joe Moakley. He moved back to Worcester just two years ago when he ran against Blute. McGovern knows the Washington game inside out. Now he's got a five-month-old baby at home in Worcester, and his tired eyes reflect what it means to be a congressman in a district that could blow either way: non-stop campaigning for the last two years with hundreds of public appearances from here to Fall River. It must make the time he spends in Washington seem like a vacation.

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"I've been pretty effective in my time in the senate working in a minority," Matt Amorello says -- and local Democrats agree with himon that much.

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"Add the job, the campaign, and the new baby and I don't sleep at all," McGovern says. "That's why the bags under my eyes have bags."

Neither candidate is going to get much sleep over the next six weeks, for each has significant problems in this election. Amorello's problems appear to be bigger, partly because McGovern is the incumbent, has more money, and is taking nothing for granted -- and partly because McGovern may be able to trump him on most of the important issues, issues like education, healthcare, Social Security, and the environment.

But McGovern can't relax a bit, partly because there are too many Republicans and unpredictable Independents in his district -- and partly because no one can say for sure whether Bill Clinton's dirt will rub off onto the guy who introduced him at Mechanics Hall last month.

The last week of August showed the two candidates in stark contrast. Amorello had been lobbing hand grenades at McGovern all summer and watching them fizzle like cheap firecrackers. He'd pointed out that one of McGovern's top aides had tobacco-industry ties, that McGovern supported "partial birth" abortions, that McGovern voted against the Balanced Budget Act, that McGovern wasn't big on cutting taxes. But nothing caught fire. Nobody seemed to care.

On Tuesday, August 29, Amorello held a luncheon press conference at the El Morocco, in Worcester, to announce his endorsement by the US Chamber of Commerce, a group that has a political stance to the right of everyone in Massachusetts except perhaps the pre-primary Joe Malone. Thirty-four people showed up including family, staffers, and media. They didn't fill half the room. Worcester establishment honchos John Nelson, Sumner Tilton, and Alex Drapos were on hand, as was former State Rep. Charles Buffone, a Democrat for Amorello. But the reception was underwhelming, as was the speech by former Republican state chairman Jim Rappaport, whom John Kerry thrashed in a Senate race in 1990.

The 10 Democrats who make up the Massachusetts congressional delegation constitute "the largest delegation of socialists outside of Cuba's at the United Nations," Rappaport said. Yawn. That red-scare line might have worked 50 years ago, but probably not in Massachusetts.

Two days later, more than 1200 people were giving Jim McGovern repeated standing ovations in Mechanics Hall, which President Clinton had chosen as the first stop on what he hoped would be his Redemption Trail. McGovern embraced the president's policies while holding his indiscretions at arm's length.

"This is not a city of fair-weather friends," he told Clinton. "A friend of Worcester is a friend for life. And you, Mr. President, through your policies, have been a true friend of Worcester."

Standing ovation. Key words: "through your policies." Subtext: "aside from your personal shortcomings."

This had to be the McGovern strategy, caught up short as he was when old Uncle Bill suddenly decided to accept the long-standing invite to dinner. McGovern couldn't very well turn him down without creating national headlines bigger than the headlines the visit actually got.

So the event was a two-edged sword for McGovern. It rallied the troops, but it gave his opponents a chance to tar him with the presidential stain. Yet it was also a two-edged sword for Amorello. He got to appear on national TV tying McGovern to Clinton (as McGovern so effectively tied Blute to Newt two years ago). But in throwing the Clinton mud, Amorello risks besmirching his own reputation as a straight-shooter who takes the high road.

"Real negative campaigning is somewhere I've never gone -- to start getting into personalities, questioning the character and integrity of opponents," Amorello told an audience of Franklin school children a week later.

"I think the voters are a fair lot," says Democrat Kevin O'Sullivan, who lost to Blute four years ago. "I don't think they're going to equate Clinton's behavior to Jim McGovern, and I don't think Matt's going to make that an issue."

Amorello has been relatively restrained in exploiting the McGovern-Clinton link. But not everybody on his side has the same qualms. The Attleborough Sun Chronicle reported earlier this month that a company from Pennsylvania was calling area residents and conducting what is known on the sleazier side of the political business as a "push poll." Under the guise of taking a real poll, push-pollers make thousands of calls and ask leading questions that disparage one of the candidates.

"Gretchen Robinson of Attleboro said the questions were worded in such a loaded way that it made her feel `immoral or un-American' to disagree with the premise of the questions that McGovern should be voted out of office because he supports Clinton," wrote Jim Hand, a Sun Chronicle political columnist. Amorello's camp, the state Republican Party, and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) have all denied having anything to do with the push poll.

The NRCC has identified the 3rd District race as one of the Republican Party's best chances to gain ground in Congress. It has the ability to funnel about $70,000 Amorello's way and to encourage individual contributions from Republicans around the country.

The NRCC also has millions of dollars in "soft money" to spend nationwide on ads promoting the Republican Party without specifically mentioning a particular campaign. It's not hard to imagine the zest with which Republican admen are devouring the videotapes of Clinton testifying before the grand jury. And it's not hard to imagine a Republican family-values ad that shows Clinton and McGovern in the same frame.

NRCC spokesman Mike Donohue (not to be confused with County Treasurer Mike Donoghue, who appears later in this story) says he doesn't imagine anything of the sort -- such speculations are all too hypothetical, he says. But he does imagine that the NRCC will fully fund Amorello.

"Senator Amorello is definitely one of our strongest challengers in the country," Donohue says. "We view his strength first and foremost as himself. He's run for office successfully in a Democratic district. He knows how to campaign. Also, his views, his positions, and his record are a more accurate reflection of the voters. This is not an ultra-liberal, far-left seat that would be best represented by Jim McGovern."

As much as the Republicans like to paint McGovern as an out-of-touch pinko who'd be more at home in Havana, the congressman's local image and voting record are remarkably mainstream by Democratic standards. He's spent his two years in office focusing on education and healthcare and bringing home the bacon in the form of federal funds for projects throughout the district.

"Amorello's a good guy, a nice guy," says County Treasurer Mike Donoghue (a Kennedy Democrat who shouldn't be confused with the NRCC's Mike Donohue), "but he hasn't clicked on any one issue in nine months. Jimmy McGovern is doing the right thing. He's talking about health issues, education, economic development, and jobs. These issues are the main parts of the Democratic platform, and people are responding to them. How do you run against that? There's no way you can run against that."

What's more, McGovern's incumbency and his knowledge of Washington give him an impressive fundraising advantage. As of the end of August he'd raised more than $826,500 to Amorello's $350,000. He had $384,000 left while Amorello had only $136,000 -- almost a 3 to 1 advantage.

"We need to get to 2 to 1 and then we can beat him," says Amorello's fundraiser, Steve Kareta.

"I look down McGovern's contributors list," Amorello complains, "and I see Archer Daniels Midland and J.P. Morgan. Ninety-five percent of my money is from Massachusetts."

McGovern's big bucks will help him offset the negative blizzard he expects when the NRCC starts playing hardball with its soft money.

"I was outspent in the last race and I won convincingly," McGovern says. "I will outraise my opponent because I don't think he has the base in the district to raise the same amount of funds we do. But Republicans always have more money than Democrats -- that's just the facts. They'll come in at the very end with soft-money ads and just knock the hell out of me. That's the way they campaign."

Given the McGovern money advantage, and Amorello's lack of name recognition in the southern part of the district, the possible Clinton effect looms larger in the Republican strategy.

"If you had asked me a month ago I would have said Amorello had no chance whatsoever," says one veteran Republican officeholder. "I think that the only wild card is the president."

Former Republican state senator Arthur Chase, who once ran for state treasurer and did well in 3rd District communities, thinks Amorello needs to raise at least half a million dollars.

"Matt's taken very moderate stands over the years in the senate and I think that that will help him in the general election," Chase says. "But that will only help him if he gets the extra push from the inverted shirt tails of the president."

A longtime Democratic political operative from Worcester goes even further, not for attribution, of course: "In my opinion, the only way Amorello could win is if the stock market collapsed, if the Clinton poll numbers switched around and Clinton's popularity dissipated overnight, and if the voters thought that the Republicans offered the best solutions to their family problems," he says. "I think you need all three."

"The question is, where are the soccer moms going to go this year?" says Darrell West, political science professor at Brown University. "I think a lot depends on the economy. What really has shielded Clinton from damage has been the strong economy, but there are signs that the economy is weakening and may continue to weaken through the fall."

Carl Copeland of Sutton was campaign treasurer for Peter Blute's winning campaigns in '92 and '94. Copeland thinks the soccer moms and dads of the 3rd District are in for a rude awakening that will drive them into Amorello's arms.

"The interesting thing will be when all those people open their 401K statements for the third quarter this year, in October," Copeland says. "Most people are going to lose 10 to 15 percent on those statements. I'd make the case that perhaps two-thirds of the voters will be receiving those, and I think they'll be upset at the declines they'll be taking."

"Less than 20 percent of the population has 401K's. That's a Republican speaking," replies John Blydenburgh, a Clark University professor who often does polling for Democrats but hasn't been involved in this race. He doesn't see a significant voter backlash against the Democrats as long as the economy remains healthy, and as long as Clinton's job rating remains high. Nor does he see Amorello's tax-cut and abortion stances resonating with the public this year.

"The Republican strategy at this point is to hold down Democratic turnout," Blydenburgh says. "The congressional elections are very low-turnout elections. Nationally the turnout's going to be something like 37 or 38 percent. That means if you can get two or three percent of the opposition to sit home you can win a lot of elections. Republicans want to keep [the Clinton issue] alive until Election Day so that Democrats feel ambivalent and don't vote.

"This race is McGovern's to lose. He's the incumbent." Blydenburgh says. "But never underestimate the power of events. We just don't know what's going to happen between now and Election Day."

IF THE ECONOMY doesn't slide significantly, and if voters don't punish Jim McGovern for Bill Clinton's sins, where will that leave Matt Amorello? Fighting an uphill battle with too little money and perhaps too few resonant issues.

Amorello is strong on the environment, but so is McGovern. He's been a big supporter of the Blackstone Heritage Park, but so has McGovern. He cares about working families. Ditto McGovern. Almost every time Amorello moves into the left lane, or even the middle lane, McGovern is there ahead of him.

That means that to differentiate himself, Amorello's had to move to the right. And on certain issues, like healthcare and Social Security, the right lane just might be the breakdown lane in Massachusetts. Many seniors go livid over proposals to tinker with Social Security. Baby boomers too are increasingly concerned about funding for home healthcare for their elderly parents, funding that the Republicans in congress led the charge to cut.

Ask Amorello to name the major issues that separate him and McGovern and he'll list the Balanced Budget Amendment, his record of tax cuts, his support for capital punishment in certain circumstances, his opposition to late-term abortions, and his ability to be effective in Washington as part of the majority party.

"I've been pretty effective in my time in the senate working in a minority," Amorello says -- and local Democrats agree with him on that much. "We need to have someone down there who's speaking on behalf of the voters and citizens of Massachusetts on the other side of the aisle."

There's no question that Amorello, if elected, would have better access to the Republican leadership than McGovern would. However, the Republican leadership is Newt Gingrich, and McGovern has already started using the slogan, "Amorello is Newt's fellow."

"Do you want to send a Republican down to Washington to cut healthcare, to weaken education, to cut investment in education, to cut Medicare, to destroy Social Security, to weaken our environmental laws?" asks McGovern in one breath. "Do you want to strengthen Newt Gingrich's hand? If you do, then vote for Amorello. We had a Republican that represented this district for two terms [Peter Blute] who voted for some of the biggest cuts in education in the history of this country, who voted to cut Medicare. I think I won in part because people did not approve of his record."

This kind of talk gets Amorello hot under the collar. "What Jim McGovern and his ilk are doing is trying to scare people," Amorello says. "That's bullshit, excuse my language, to scare people to win elective office, telling people we're going to take their healthcare away. It's their whole agenda. Nineteen ninety-eight will be: `The Republicans want to privatize Social Security,' which I don't, `and to take away from home health care,' which I don't."

Amorello faults McGovern for voting against the Balanced Budget Amendment and for being a tax-and-spend liberal. "In eight years in the state legislature we've balanced eight budgets and we've cut taxes 28 times," Amorello says. "I think we should be talking about reducing the tax burden, closing loopholes on corporations and special interests and going to a system that is flatter, fairer and simpler. I think that helps the working man and woman."

"I voted for the biggest tax cut in the history of the nation last year," replies McGovern. "If you're going to provide people tax cuts, you've got to figure out a way to pay for them. I'm not opposed to more tax relief for working families, but I'm not going to raid the Social Security trust fund to give Donald Trump a tax cut."

McGovern says he voted for several different versions of the Balanced Budget Amendment but opposed the final one because it contained $15 billion in cuts for home healthcare. Both candidates support legislation that would ease the crisis in home healthcare, but McGovern scores points when he says the Republicans caused the crisis.

Whether the tax cut issue will resonate with the voters in a year of affluence remains to be seen.

"I think people care about it and I think that's going to help Matt, but I think he needs an added push beyond that," says Arthur Chase.

Both McGovern and Amorello are strong supporters of public education. McGovern has spent so much time at Worcester's University Park Community School that he could probably pass the MCAS test. He's worked to expand Pell grants for college education and to increase federal funding for public schools.

Amorello visits several schools a week, and while he's a strong backer of the Worcester public schools, he's also a big supporter of charter schools. He faults McGovern for opposing the education savings fund bill, which would allow families to create savings accounts for any education-related purpose without paying tax on the interest. McGovern says the bill is so loosely written that you could buy a Mercedes with the money and claim it was for driver education.

There are other issues, and they're bound to surface over and over in the coming weeks, as McGovern and Amorello hold a series of public debates throughout the district.

But the big question remains: how can Amorello overcome McGovern's incumbency advantage? Advertising in the 3rd Congressional District is an appalling exercise in waste. The major newspapers are in Worcester, Fall River, and Providence; and in each case your ad reaches thousands of people who don't even live in the district. The major TV stations are in Boston and Providence; and in each case your ad reaches millions of people who don't live in the district. McGovern may not have money to waste, but he's got a whole lot more than Amorello.

Both candidates are working their tails off in the southern communities.

"They're really starting to step up things," says a reporter who covers the race in the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border towns. "Just yesterday Amorello was at the Attleborough train station at six in the morning and he finished the day at eight at night in Fall River. I've noticed in every single parade, if he's not in it, his people are there.

"McGovern has been doing just about the same thing, but people down here know him. He brought Hillary Clinton to Attleborough, and yesterday he brought the secretary of agriculture to a farm in Westport. It was the first time a secretary of agriculture had visited Southeastern Massachusetts, so it was really a big deal for all the farmers. From what I see, people are pretty pleased with him."

To win the district, observers agree, Amorello will have to do exceptionally well on Worcester's East Side, where the voters know him and where his Italian heritage will help. And he'll have to wake up the soccer moms and dads from Princeton to Westport. And he'll have to hope for a low Democratic turnout. Peter Blute drew about the same number of votes in 1994 as in 1996. He lost the second time because the turnout was higher.

In the final analysis, Jim McGovern seems to be holding most of the aces, but the Clinton card has yet to be played. And, as everybody knows, Clinton's wild.