MAYBE IT WAS THE FEELING that a dirty Congress needed a lot of new brooms to sweep it clean. Or it could have been the congressional redistricting that followed the 1990 census, creating dozens of new House districts, many with new racial and ethnic majorities -- nuggets of opportunity for candidates who aren't white men in business suits. Maybe it was the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings, a spectacle that caused millions of female Americans to look angrily toward Washington -- and dozens of them to head there as part of the powerful movement known as the Year of the Women. Whatever the reason, this is the year of outsider candidates who think they can take Capitol Hill by storm. Many of them may succeed.
Bitterness toward the entrenched Washington elite and anxiety over the economy have produced a bumper crop of unconventional challengers. Major-party candidates for Congress run the gamut from a gay Republican activist in Los Angeles to a former Black Panther in Chicago to a Wyoming ophthalmologist who promises to return to private life as soon as Congress passes health-care legislation. And many incumbents, who normally trot confidently to re- election, are running scared in the face of this unexpected assault. At least 150 newcomers are expected on Capitol Hill next year. That number includes 85 seats in the House and nine in the Senate that are guaranteed to have new occupants because the incumbents have retired or have been defeated in the primary campaigns.
Among the fresh faces:
WASHINGTON / Patty Murray
Even in a year of unlikely candidates, Patty Murray, who is running for the Senate in the State of Washington, stands out as an original. The 41-year-old state legislator and community-college teacher likes to call herself "a mom in tennis shoes." Going toe-to-toe on the footwear symbolism, her Republican opponent, five-time Congressman Rod Chandler, has taken to wearing cowboy boots. But no amount of heavy stomping on the campaign trail has yet put him ahead of a woman whose campaign slogan could be "Mother knows best." "I tell people I am a mom caring for two kids and two aging parents with health problems," she says. "I go to work every day, and I know what everyone is dealing with."
Going after her proenvironment and health-care stands, Chandler has labeled Murray a tax-and-spend liberal Democrat. He also chides her for lacking the legislative experience and expertise to serve effectively in the Senate, but in a year marked by resentment against Washington insiders, inexperience can be a plus in the eyes of many voters. Maybe not enough of them, though -- while Murray once led in the polls by as much as 24 points, her lackluster debate performances and Chandler's attacks on her lack of political savvy have turned the race into a virtual dead heat.
In a year of complicated gender politics, Murray has been careful not to cast herself narrowly as a woman's candidate, while also letting it be known that it was the spectacle of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings that propelled her into the race. "When I saw what the Senate looked like, I was astounded," she recalls. "I didn't see anyone there like me. I turned to my family and said, 'I know where I can make a difference.' "
TEXAS / Donna Peterson