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When it became public knowledge this year that "Good Time Charlie" Wilson, a 10-term Democrat, had written 81 bad checks totaling $143,857 on the House bank, he had a quip ready: "It's not like molesting young girls or young boys." Opponent Donna Peterson was not amused. The 32-year-old West Point grad, a former helicopter test pilot and business consultant, says she is going to oust Wilson from the East Texas seat he has held for 20 years.
Peterson, a conservative Republican in the heavily Democratic Second Congressional District, ran unsuccessfully against Wilson two years ago, when he outspent her 6 to 1. This year she's well funded by the Republican National Committee and conservative groups, who like the fact that she's antiabortion, probusiness, pro-death penalty and pro-gun.
The real issue, however, has become Wilson himself. At 59, he's an old-style politician who, as his ads say, "takes care of the home folks." He pushes through more Social Security and Veterans Administration cases for his constituents than perhaps any other Congressman. Though he also champions women's rights and supports the right to abortion, he has a reputation as an aging Lothario. (On one taxpayer-supported foray to Pakistan, he took along a voluptuous former beauty queen.) This year hot checks have been his weak point. Peterson calls Congress a "check-bouncing, debt-ridden retirement village." Though polls show the race as a toss-up, Peterson is confident of victory. As she told Texas Republicans this summer: "Hang on, Mr. President, and hang on, America. Help is on the way."
NORTH CAROLINA / Melvin Watt
George White, North Carolina's last black Congressman, left Washington in 1901. But first he offered a prediction to his colleagues on the floor of the House. "This is perhaps the Negro's temporary farewell to the American Congress," he said. "Phoenix-like he will rise up someday and come again." It took just over 90 years for the state to send another black to Washington, but here he comes: attorney Mel Watt is one of two African-American candidates considered all-but-certain winners in new North Carolina congressional districts that have black majorities.
On the campaign trail Watt traverses his odd-shaped district -- it looks like a road-kill salamander -- in a shiny Dodge minivan, stopping to shake hands, wolf down fried fish and cheese puffs at dinnertime rallies, and spread his message: "We can't continue to widen the disparity between the haves at the top and the have-nots at the bottom." Watt well knows the have-not side of that great divide. He grew up near Charlotte in a tin-roofed home with no electricity or running water. But he went on to law school at Yale and a career as a civil rights lawyer. He also got a bitter taste of politics when he managed former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt's ill-fated 1990 Senate race against Jesse Helms.
Now Watt, 47, compares the work he plans to do on behalf of his constituents to a class-action lawsuit. On his agenda: cut the defense budget in half over five years and shift much of that money to domestic priorities; fully fund Head Start; implement universal health care. "Let's send America a message that it's time for a change," Watt tells supporters, "and part of that change is to give 'em Mel."
NEW YORK / Nydia Velazquez