http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200002\POL20000207a.html
Federer Making Second Try To
Unseat Gephardt
By Jim
Burns
CNS Senior Staff Writer
07 February,
2000
(CNSNews.com) - Republican Bill Federer, an Oakville,
Missouri author and businessman is making a second try at knocking off House
Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO) in this fall's election.
Despite
his 16-point defeat at the hands of Gephardt in the 1998 elections, Federer is
optimistic about his chances this year given his improved fundraising efforts,
electoral trends and Gephardt's congressional record and greater interest in the
race from establishment Republicans.
Missouri's third congressional
district consists of the south side of the city of St. Louis, the city's
southern suburbs and rural St. Genevieve County on the Mississippi River.
Politically, the district has voted heavily Democratic since Franklin
Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s, but Gephardt's popularity has been steadily
slipping, according to declining vote tallies in recent campaigns.
In
1976, Gephardt won his first term with 81 percent of the vote. By 1996, his
reelection margin slipped to 59 percent. Just two years later his reelection
margin slipped further to 56 percent after spending over $3million on the
campaign. Federer links Gephardt's declining popularity with his straying from a
more conservative agenda that reflects the values of his constituents.
"When he first ran he was a conservative. It's a conservative district,"
said Federer. "He co-sponsored a pro-life bill with Henry Hyde, he voted for
Reagan's tax cuts. But, then in the mid-80's, he decided he wanted to run for
president and he totally abandoned his pro-life Democrats, the people that were
supporting him."
During Gephardt's early years in Congress, he was
pro-life, opposed raising the minimum wage and voted in favor of Ronald Reagan's
1981 tax relief plan, according to National Journal's Almanac of American
Politics. But by the 1990's, Gephardt's liberal shift became more apparent when
in the 102nd Congress he voted in favor of funding abortions for women in the
military overseas, though he did twice vote to override President Bill Clinton's
veto of a ban on partial birth abortions. By the 104th Congress he was a
supporter of a bill to raise the minimum wage.
Gephardt's shift continued
leftward, according to Federer, when "He began to vote for bigger taxes, cuts in
defense, more federal control of education, federal funding for abortions and
Title 10 where you can take a 12-year-old girl across the state border and get
her an abortion without the parents knowing about it. These are the radical
things that he has done," Federer told CNSNews.com.
Gephardt's
position on certain issues important to many labor unions could also work
against the Democratic leader in his home district. According to Federer, union
workers in the district, a strong force in the Democratic Party, have not been
treated well by Gephardt.
"Gephardt is one of the chief promoters of the
International Monetary Fund," said Federer. "He's basically taking our tax
dollars and sending it to Third World countries and the result is they end up
building factories to make stuff cheaper than we can."
Repeated calls by
CNSNews.com to Gephardt seeking comment on the upcoming race went
unreturned.
The financial aspects of Federer's campaign are also greatly
improved compared with his candidacy of 1998, a year in which Gephardt outspent
him by a 17-1 margin.
"We've raised over a quarter of a million dollars
this time, which is more than we spent all of the last race," said Federer, who
noted that two years ago Gephardt "spent the fourth largest amount," for a
congressional race but "received the lowest re-election margin of his
career."
Federer also believes Gephardt is vulnerable because he has not
lived in the Missouri district he's represented for almost 20 years. Gephardt
has maintained a home in Sterling, Virginia, a Washington suburb, and Federer
recalled that the Minority Leader's house was featured in an article in the
December, 1999 issue of Washingtonian magazine.
Federer claims
Gephardt has been using his mother's one bedroom apartment in South St. Louis
County as his Missouri address even though the house has been vacant since
Gephardt's mother moved into a retirement home almost a year ago.
"You
drive by there and its empty," Federer said. "It's his 92-year-old mother's one-
bedroom apartment, yet, she's moved into a retirement home, so it's vacant. He
has a vacant apartment that he uses. He cannot even fulfill residency
requirements in the state."
There is more to the race than just who wins
Missouri's Third District congressional seat. Republicans have a five-seat razor
thin majority in the House and if the GOP is unable to keeps its majority in the
November elections, "Speaker Gephardt" may run the next Congress. Federer thinks
the idea of a "Speaker Gephardt" would be disastrous for America.
"He's
a radical-liberal and if he's Speaker of the House, you can forget any of the
tax cuts or sanctity of human life or any of those type of issues," Federer
claimed. "They will never come to the floor, they will never get of the House
because the Speaker decides what comes to the floor for a vote."
A major
difference between this campaign against Gephardt and the 1998 campaign,
according to Federer, is the backing of the Republican Party and a number of key
endorsements. "I've got the endorsement of (Congressman) Jim Talent (R-MO),
who's running for governor," Federer said.
Also on his campaign team are
William H. T. Bush, brother of the former president and uncle of Texas Governor
George W Bush, as a finance committee co-chairman. Also on his team are Charley
Armey, brother of House Republican Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) and Senator John
Ashcroft (R-MO), who won his 1994 campaign with 60 percent of the vote, has also
endorsed Federer.
