A Rowdy Campaign of Personalities

Idaho voters are faced with a bitter, invective-filled Senate race --one of the nastiest political contests of the year. But in two other states, candidates for the House are mostly staying away from personalities: in North Carolina's Piedmont region, an old-school Southern gentleman is fighting genteelly to retain his seat, while in central Indiana, a moderate-conservative Democrat and a conservative Republican are debating issues and ideology.

No. 1 on the G.O.P. Hit List

Of all the embattled liberal Democrats this election year, none has come under more heavy and sustained fire than Idaho Senator Frank Church. No. 1 on the Republican hit list, he has had to fend off attacks not only from his feisty opponent, four-term Republican Congressman Steven Symms, but also from combative conservatives who have formed an organization called ABC--Anyone but Church. Amid Idaho's piny woods and parched plains, where voters peer skeptically out from under their cowboy hats and pop questions like gunshots, the candidates are waging one of the rowdiest, most name-calling campaigns in the nation.

The race is all the more contentious because it is ideological. While many candidates elsewhere are diving for the middle, where they think the votes are, Church, 56, and Symms, 42, stand sharply apart on the spectrum. In a traditionally conservative state, which is likely to go heavily for Reagan, Church's record is vulnerable. Says Symms' campaign manager Philip Reberger: "Church on the issues is the issue." Symms keeps pounding away at the incumbent's support of the Panama Canal treaties, SALT II and deficit spending for social programs. He attacks Church's chairmanship of the committee that investigated the CIA and in the process, many believe, seriously damaged the agency. Symms often recalls Church's flattering remarks about President Fidel Castro after visiting Cuba in 1977: "I leave with the impression I've found a friend."

The energetic Republican challenger, who is the strongest opponent Church has ever faced, boasts a 100% rating among conservative groups for his voting record. He also has the appealing grace to appear to take himself less seriously than the issues. Outfitted in a brown suede jacket and cowboy boots, the stocky, cherubic-looking fruitgrower hands out his wife's apple recipes to voters who respond warmly to his hearty greeting. The apple, in fact, is his campaign symbol. In past years, he would take a bite and ask: "Wouldn't you like to take a bite out of government?" His TV ads portray him as a down-home boy driving a tractor, while a voice-over sings: "I was born to be an Idahoan at heart."

Symms is helped and occasionally hindered by the right-wing groups that are determined to defeat one of the public figures they hate the most. Since ABC was organized nearly two years ago, it has kept Church on the defensive with a ceaseless barrage of charges. "I don't know what else they can say about me," says the bewildered Senator. Under the guidance of the Virginia-based National Conservative Political Action Committee, ABC has poured more than $200,000 into its attack on Church. The organization can raise and spend an unlimited amount because it is legally considered an independent committee. Says ABC Chairman Don Todd: "We are critical in softening Church's support. We've made the race what it is today." Adds N.C.P.A.C. Chairman Terry Dolan: "We're not people who crave respectability. We care about winning elections. If we have to step on a few toes, we'll do it."

Once well known as a boy orator, Church still casts a spell in a land where the spoken word is revered. He has struck back at his tormentors by labeling them "scummy and fraudulent" and comparing their technique to Hitler's "Big Lie." The right-wing radicals, Church trumpets, are trying to take over the "entire American political process." He does not go out of his way to bring up national or international issues or boast of his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But he defends his past stands and reminds critics: "Once I was against the war in Viet Nam, and the people of this state were overwhelmingly for it. But I think time proved I was right." When he was asked why he gave the Panama Canal to the Communists, Church shot back: "We didn't give it to the Communists. We may have saved it from going Communist by making Panama a working partner. We made a friend instead of an enemy."

Mainly, Church portrays himself as Idahoan to the core. A campaign leaflet shows him in Western garb toting a shotgun, by a barbed-wire fence. Declares his campaign literature: "Church puts Idaho first." The Senator claims that he has responded to 110,000 pleas for assistance since he was first elected 24 years ago. He takes credit for reclamation projects, rangeland improvements, recreation areas and dairy-farm price supports. He has kept the votes of many conservative businessmen by cutting red tape in Washington for them. He defends his support of the wilderness bill, which would set aside 2.2 million acres in the state, by insisting: "Idaho is not for sale." Some of his supporters are slinging a little mud of their own. They are distributing bumper stickers in heavily Mormon eastern Idaho that read WINE, WOMEN AND SYMMS--a reference to a remark the Congressman is reported to have made after a 1977 trip to Libya: "There was no chance to drink or chase women."

The campaign is the most expensive in Idaho history. So far, Symms has raised an estimated $1.2 million, half of it from out-of-state conservatives. Church has accumulated $1.4 million, most of it from liberals heavily concentrated in New York. While Symms has whittled down Church's early commanding lead and a Republican poll gives him a slight edge, the race is too close to call. However narrow the winner's margin when the votes are counted, the result is sure to be hailed as a resounding victory for either liberalism or conservatism.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.