WHEN HOUSE SPEAKER Newt Gingrich arrived in Lemoyne, Pa., on February 21 to speak at a fund-raiser for Rep. Bill Goodling, fewer than 50 people were present. Gingrich, who is accustomed to fund-raisers attended by at least a few hundred, wasn’t amused. At a House GOP leadership meeting a few days later, he said Goodling needed help if he was going to defeat the pesky conservative who’s challenging him in the May 19 Republican primary. Noting that Goodling, who was elected to the House in 1974, lacks a “modern” campaign apparatus, Gingrich told his fellow Republicans, “We need to do whatever it takes to get [Goodling] renominated. . . . We need to take care of him.”
Shortly after the meeting, the National Republican Congressional Committee (the House GOP’s official reelection operation) kicked into gear. An NRCC official, Mike Scanlon, was ordered to turn all of his attention to Goodling’s faltering campaign. Other NRCC officials, too, were directed to help out. The result? Goodling now has a pollster, Tony Fabrizio, who worked for Bob Dole’s presidential campaign, and a media guru, Larry McCarthy, who’s best known for cutting the Willie Horton ads in 1988. There’s no guarantee these campaign consultants, and the NRCC’s help in crafting a media strategy, will produce a victory for Goodling. But they certainly show that the congressional leadership wants to help him.
While it’s not unusual for the NRCC to work in behalf of House incumbents in Republican primaries, the amount of support being given to Goodling is remarkable. In addition to the above, GOP leaders Trent Lott and Dick Armey have trekked to the south-central Pennsylvania district for fund-raisers. Moreover, the NRCC chairman, Rep. John Linder, says his group anticipates providing the Goodling campaign $ 55,000 in “coordinated expenditures” — the maximum allowable by law — in addition to $ 5,000 given directly.
And that’s not all. Conservative House members are making unsolicited calls to reporters, to vouch for Goodling’s conservative credentials. And senior party officials have leaned on figures such as Grover Norquist, an influential Republican activist, not to support Goodling’s opponent, Charlie Gerow. (Norquist ignored the pressure and hosted a fund-raiser for Gerow on April 29.)
Why this massive campaign in behalf of Goodling? It would be easier to explain if his opponent were a David Duke type, embarrassing to the party. Or if the opponent were likely to lose the seat for Republicans in November.
But neither of those conditions applies. Gerow is a lawyer and local conservative activist who simply believes Goodling is too moderate and has been in Congress too long. When he challenged Goodling two years ago, Gerow was outspent nearly 5 to 1, but he garnered 45 percent of the vote. And contrary to predictions by some state GOP officials, there’s no reason to believe Gerow would lose the seat in November. The district is so Republican that it gave Bob Dole a 14-point margin over Bill Clinton in 1996.
GOP sources say party leaders are laboring so mightily for Goodling because they like him and believe it would be humiliating to them if he lost. As chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, Goodling has recently curried favor with Gingrich and other conservatives with his strident opposition to the Clinton administration’s national-testing proposal. (Goodling knew that Gerow would run again, which probably intensified the congressman’s efforts.) There was some question after the 1994 election whether Goodling would be made the committee chairman, given his moderate leanings and his past support for federal programs like Head Start and Even Start. But in recent years, he’s become a more reliable conservative vote on fiscal and social issues.
GOP leaders are concerned that if Goodling is defeated, they will have to respond to endless media accounts of how the party has been “captured” by the extreme Right. And after all the unwelcome publicity stemming from the California primary in which conservative upstart Tom Bordonaro beat the establishment-blessed moderate Brooks Firestone, some party officials think a Goodling defeat would be another blow to the reputation of Linder, the NRCC chairman.
If Washington-based GOP leaders are successful in stopping Gerow, Goodling will be deeply indebted to them. Having had almost no close races since being elected, he maintained a campaign operation that one Republican described as ” straight out of 1958.” Indeed, prior to the NRCC’s intervention, Goodling’s campaign staff was entirely volunteer. And his fund-raising was so laggard that from January through March Gerow raised more than he did. Also, Gerow and his volunteers started going door to door in December, and they expect to have knocked in 35,000 of them by Election Day. Goodling’s team began a similar effort only six weeks ago.
Complicating the effort to save Goodling is $ 400,000 in television and radio ads deriding him as a career politician who breaks his word. The ads, which started on April 29, are being paid for by Americans for Limited Terms, a national group promoting the idea that members of Congress should pledge to serve only three terms. There may also be future ads criticizing Goodling for accepting over $ 11,000 in campaign contributions from a company that would benefit from a student loan bill he’s introduced.
These ads are sure to offend Goodling’s sensibilities. He represents an old- school Republicanism that is more Bob Michel than Bob Barr. Having spent two decades toiling in the minority, and having inherited his seat from his father, he believes he’s entitled to the Republican nomination. “Baffling” is how he describes the conservative effort to oust him. He also says he won’t debate Gerow because there is “little overall value to debates in the contemporary political system.” With this attitude, Goodling may be a big headache for the Republican establishment in the next few weeks — and Gerow may be the nominee.
Matthew Rees is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
