How to Get Elected

By Hugh Sidey

It is the season of sunflowers, fresh tomatoes and political candidates. The latter crop may break all yield records as we rush on toward the fall congressional elections. The experts calculate that there will be more handshakes, more speeches and more television en treaties than ever before. These same experts also suggest that when the smoke clears there may be very little change in the Congress along party lines. But there will be more internal stress in the political system. There will be more trouble in the Legislative Branch for its leaders and for President Jimmy Carter.

The erratic voting of Congress during the past weeks -- killing, stalling, reintroducing -- is symptomatic of the personal nature of congressional politics: each Indiana's Floyd Fithian man an identifiable folk hero in his territory, diminishing party lines and defying Washington traditions of discipline. A brief study of the phenomenon came last week from the Historical Research Foundation, showing how some politicians who do not fit the traditional political patterns of their districts have won election by emphasizing sincerity, honesty, good cheer and hard work instead of ideology. Using the modern tools Congressmen have voted themselves--jet travel, television, staff experts -- the incumbents have rooted themselves to their home ground and loosened their ties to the capital.

A typically skillful practitioner is Timothy Wirth, 38, a liberal Democrat who reigns in Colorado's conservative Second District. His life is 80 hours a week of work, including a ride in the Red Zinger bicycle classic and a two-hour town meeting devoted to foreign policy. He knows how to work a parade so that all the people see him. When pollution became a problem in Denver, he carried a breath analyzer in his van for constituents who wanted to know the amount of carbon monoxide in their lungs. All summer he will be meeting, talking, shaking and listening. He is synchronized with his people.

In Indiana's Second District, former History Professor Floyd Fithian has found resonance with his moderation as a Democrat in an area that used to be considered far right. His voting pattern is blurred, but his attention to the home folks is not. When he is campaigning, he stays in people's homes most of the time, relishing the hot breakfast and a chance to listen. He hands out questionnaires, urges his people to "get inyour two cents' worth." He has some 200 junior high kids in the Fithian youth groups. For five hours' work in the Fithian cause they get a blue T shirt with his picture on it and the slogan HE WORKS FOR ALL OF US.

"I know every nook and cranny of my district," the Congressman says. He has talked to town meetings attended by as few as three people. Once he joined in an auction at a county fair believing he was just having fun, but ended up with a real, live lamb. Fithian has a toll-free telephone line to his Washington office, and if there were any way to calculate such a thing, it might be proved that the greater part of his heart, mind and body is back home most of the time. This is quite a change from 20 years ago, when one of the chief criticisms of members of Congress was that once elected, they turned into creatures of Washington.

New York's Second District, on Long Island, is considered one of the natural habitats for elephants. But young Thomas Downey, with energy and charm, claimed the place in 1974 for the Democrats. At the ripe old age of 29, he has a good chance of hanging on. In the next days he will tramp his district from dawn to sunset. He will attend the Mother Cabrini Festival and countless block parties. Downey will loiter at the commuter train stations, roll through areas in his mobile van. Every voter will be invited to a Sunday-morning tea at his parents' home in West Islip. Downey is sustained because the people consider him a good guy who works for them.

All of these men are vaguely troubled as they watch the splintering of party authority, which has slowed the Government dramatically. Yet all see something good in their strong ties to home. How to harness this heart beat for the national good is the question that the experts have not answered. It is an old American dilemma. Good intentions have often caused us trouble before we have figured out how to manage them.

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