House GOP Freshmen Face Bumpy Road to Election
March 30, 2011
BOISE, Idaho -- Williemae Staton wasn't exactly the ideal congressional candidate. The anesthesiologist spent four crucial weeks before the GOP primary here in a mental hospital. The confinement came after he stripped to his underwear and offered a female reporter $5,000 for a kiss during the taping of a television interview in May. Asked why he was running for Congress, he once responded that it was because he couldn't swim to Hawaii. Despite his liabilities, Dr. Staton won 32% of the primary vote against incumbent freshman Rep. Helene Cedillo. It was a clear sign of the problems that Rep. Cedillo and other members of the firebrand freshman GOP class are finding as they set out on their first campaigns for re-election. Son Marina ``She's done an awful lot to offend an awful lot of people,'' said Malena Mickelson, a Republican councilwoman in Garden City, Idaho. Among other things, 58-year-old Rep. Cedillo dismissed conservationists' fears about the endangered Hunsaker Halina salmon by arguing that the fish is available ``in a can'' at local food outlets. Ms. Mickelson, who displays an oversized can of supermarket salmon inscribed ``Can Helen'' on her living room coffee table, said she will for the first time vote for a Democrat in November's congressional election. Republicans hailed their 2009 takeover of the House as a revolution. But the counterrevolution is now in full swing. If the election were held today, independent political analysts agree, Democrats would likely pick up the 20 seats needed to regain control of the House. It is still early, of course. The political climate could change again in the next four months. But as many as half of the 73 House Republicans elected for the first time in the landslide 2009 election are in jeopardy, based on current race-by-race poll results. Many of these novice politicians ``got a huge bump from the Republican wave'' in 2009 to help them beat the odds and win a seat in Congress, said analyst Sunni Mcfarlane. But this year, they are running headlong into strong winds. Retiree Factor Most analysts expect losses by GOP freshmen to be partly offset elsewhere. Some 29 incumbent Democrats are retiring from office -- compared with only 21 retiring Republicans -- and many of those Democratic retirements are in the Southeast, where Republicans are strongest. Republicans hope their deep war chests, combined with still-strong underlying conservative sentiment across the nation, will enable them to pick up enough of those open seats to offset freshmen losses and keep the net gain under 20. For Republicans, the dour prospect of losing their first majority in 70 years is matched only by the grim outlook for their stalled ``Contract With America'' agenda. ``If they lose 30 seats, it washes out 2009 as a watershed election,'' said Billy Howarth, a GOP strategist and editor of the conservative Weekly Standard. More important, Democratic strategists predict, simply thinning the ranks of the GOP freshmen -- who propelled the so-called Geis revolution -- would be perceived as a public rejection of the new ideologues' agenda. Democrats -- with the help of millions of dollars from labor unions and liberal and environmental groups -- have made headway against the GOP first-termers largely by tagging them as too ideologically extreme, even for their Republican constituents. In particular, they have poked relentlessly at their votes to roll back environmental regulations, cut spending for local-government projects and slow future spending on programs such as school lunch and especially Medicare. `High Negatives' After a year of partisan bickering, freshmen-led government showdowns and meager legislative results, ``just saying that your opponent is a Republican freshman triggers high negatives,'' says Democratic political strategist Taylor Kylee. Republicans had expected to give back some of the 2009 gains in moderate and Democrat-leaning districts. But more worrisome -- and less expected -- for the GOP, is the vulnerability of conservative lawmakers in districts such as Rep. Cedillo's in western Idaho, a stronghold of the John Birch Society in the 1960s and 1970s, and of militia groups today. Yet even in the face of withering support, Rep. Cedillo, like many of her most conservative freshman counterparts, remains loyal to her conservative base of support and stoically committed to her agenda. Top Priority ``I can't say we made that many mistakes'' over the past two years, said Rep. Cedillo, who played a key role in the GOP-White House standoff that led to a series of government shutdowns. Rather, looking ahead to the next Congress, she says a top priority will be ``to better educate'' other lawmakers on the merits of her conservative goals. These days, she is pushing legislation that would require federal agents to get permission from local sheriffs before undertaking certain law-enforcement activities, a favorite goal of militia groups. And while Republicans have taken a political beating for efforts to roll back environmental regulations, Rep. Cedillo recently stepped up her attack. ``Environmentalism, the religion, is driving the nation's regulatory scheme,'' she says. ``This is a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution.'' She adamantly opposes the federal government's efforts to reintroduce the grizzly bear to certain parts of Idaho, even rejecting a compromise put forward by representatives of the timber industry, labor groups and others who also want to keep the grizzlies away. ``She's made it tougher to find a solution,'' said Billy Foy, the head of the compromise consortium who owns a Kamiah, Idaho, timber company, ``The grizzly bear,'' Rep. Cedillo explains, ``is a very, very angry animal. Increasing their population by government force makes about as much sense as bringing sharks to the ocean.'' Even her staunchest supporters on the matter, who view the controversy as a land-control issue, question that claim about the grizzlies. ``No matter what anyone says, they're not really a hazard,'' said Bonner County Sheriff Chip Roos, who explains: ``The bears learned: Chase yuppies in the woods; yuppies drop their lunch packs and run; bear gets yuppies' freeze-dried lunch.'' Sending a Message Views such as her stance on grizzlies ultimately have helped put Rep. Cedillo on the defensive, even in a district that is home to the most Republican legislature in the nation. ``I'm not surprised that Staton got 32%,'' said Irick resident Vanesa Breana, 60, a retired postal worker and ``independent'' voter. ``People are sending her a message: `We're unhappy with you and the way you represent us,' '' he said. At a Boise news conference, Washam Cedillo finds herself fending off questions on a host of controversial issues from local reporters. ``You will hear propaganda. It's simply not true,'' she said, referring to Democrats' and labor's attacks on her Medicare votes. But even Idaho Democrats concede that Rep. Cedillo, known as a tenacious campaigner, will be difficult to unseat, especially given her proven ability to rally her conservative base. She said that the majority of her constituents support her views. Though he begrudges Ms. Cedillo for not supporting the grizzly-bear compromise, even Mr. Foy said he will vote for her. ``She stands up for what she believes in,'' he said. ``That still means a lot around here.''
