The House: Pipeline and Out of Line

Peoria's pick

Ever since he first went to Congress 26 years ago, Republican Congressman Robert Michel has played well in Peoria, the largest town in his 18th Congressional District in central Illinois. Now Peoria seems to be having its doubts. Long a pocket of prosperity in America's heartland, the region is reeling from depressed farm prices and 16% unemployment. The Pabst brewery and the Hiram Walker distillery have left town, and giant Caterpillar Tractor alone has laid off 8,000 workers. So Michel, 59, the House minority leader and President Reagan's high-profile point man on Capitol Hill, is in an unexpectedly tight race with a relative unknown, Democrat G. Douglas Stephens. Michel has paraded through town on an elephant, courted Kiwanis and even imported Hollywood stars. "He's not running scared," says an aide, "but he sure is running harder than ever before."

Small wonder. Michel is widely blamed in his home town for failing to change Reagan's mind about U.S. sanctions against the Soviet gas pipeline. This Reagan decision cost Caterpillar an $85 million contract for pipelaying equipment and shifted future contracts to its leading rival, Japan's Komatsu. Michel later broke publicly with the President on this issue, but he has not otherwise sought to distance himself from the Administration. Says Michel: "Ronald Reagan is not a problem for me or for the country."

Stephens, 31, a lawyer with ties to organized labor, claims that Michel's responsibilities as a G.O.P. leader put him at odds with his factory and farm constituency. He also criticizes Michel's heavy contributions from political action committees that "read like the FORTUNE 500 list." Stephens, trying to overcome low name recognition, has raised about $120,000 so far, to Michel's $490,000. The House Republican leader ranks first in Illinois and third nationally among House candidates in PAC contributions.

Despite a redistricting move last year by the state legislature that increased the district's potential Democratic vote from 38% to 46%, Michel is still the favorite. He argues that his own stature as a national leader, while admittedly the source of some political trouble for him now, will prove an advantage to his constituency in the long run, especially when the recession ends. He says he is "tickled to death" about Reagan's scheduled appearance this week at a campaign gala at the Peoria Civic Center, also featuring Charlton Heston and Pat Boone. Scoffed an aide to Stephens, on whose behalf such Democrats as Walter Mondale and John Glenn have made campaign appearances: "They must be running scared if they have to bring in the Gipper, Moses and Mr. Clean all together." But while Michel is not expected to carry home town Peoria, businessmen and farmers elsewhere in the district should provide enough votes to make him a 14-term Congressman.

Scout's honor

California's 43rd Congressional District is Reagan country. Recently reshaped by legislative reapportionment, it includes northern San Diego County and covers part of highly conservative Orange County, a region with the third highest Republican registration in the state. Why then does the Democratic candidate have a real shot at winning? Unemployment? No. Reaganomics? No. The reason: the campaign tactics of the Republican candidate, Johnnie Crean, 33, which have made his conduct the only significant issue in the race.

A millionaire travel-trailer manufacturer, Crean beat 17 opponents in the Republican primary, but with a campaign so unscrupulous that he was censured by the ethics panel of the Orange County Republican Committee. He had mailed a brochure claiming in large print that one of his opponents "faces voter fraud, tax fraud, conspiracy and perjury charges" when, in fact, no legal authority had ever raised such charges. He had also accused another opponent of providing "a forum" for "bigotry and hatred." He had listed as his supporters some Republicans who actually backed other candidates. Last week the Fund for a Conservative Majority, one of the wealthiest political action groups in the nation, said that because Crean had used "misinformation, innuendo and smear tactics," it refused to support him.

Crean, a Reagan loyalist and arch-conservative who spent some $600,000 of his own money in the primary, invested $50,000 more in a half-hour TV broadcast to apologize to voters for his primary conduct.

Despite local G.O.P. reservations, even repugnance, the President has endorsed Crean. And after visits to the White House, Crean was sent $35,000 in Republican Party funds to augment his already bulging campaign kitty. But Crean's tactics did outrage Ron Packard, 51, a Mormon and former mayor of Carlsbad, Calif. After losing to Crean in the primary by a mere 92 votes out of 83,025 cast, he mounted a challenge to Crean as a write-in candidate on the Nov. 2 ballot. More moderate than Crean but a less lively speaker, Packard is counting on anti-Crean sentiment to encourage voters to cast write-in ballots. But this is a fairly complex procedure in some parts of the district, and Packard has little hope of victory.

The clear beneficiary of this bitter split among Republicans is Pat Archer, 48, a colorless critic of Reaganomics. A respected professor of political science at Palomar College, Archer spent less than $2,500 in winning the Democratic primary. While he has not sought to exploit Crean's background, which includes a period of alcoholism and an array of speeding tickets, Archer does not object when his own backers point out that he is scoutmaster of the largest Boy Scout troop in San Diego County.

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