A Bull’s-Eye for an ‘Aye’: GOP Targets Freshman : Politics: Pennsylvania’s Margolies-Mezvinsky cast deciding vote on Clinton’s budget. But now she and other swing Democrats are on the defensive at home.

It was midway through the first week back in her district after The Vote, and Rep. Margorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, speeding down a highway between public appearances, was trying to listen to the radio, give an interview and force-feed a banana to a reporter, all at the same time.

“It’s got potassium and, frankly, you look like you could use a little,” she said.

The local newscast ended, and her own voice began to emanate from the radio. Everyone in the van fell silent to listen to the first airing of the 30-second spot she had recorded the day before: “Last week I cast the most difficult vote I’ll ever cast in the House of Representatives. Some even say it’s a vote that will end my career. But the politicians who are now calling me a villain are the same politicians who put our country in the position we’re in now.”

The advertisements, paid for by her campaign committee, will be carried throughout her suburban Philadelphia district over the next few days. Margolies-Mezvinsky, or “3M” as she is sometimes called by those who get tongue-tied over her name, is running for reelection. And running a lot sooner and a lot harder than she thought she would.

Last Thursday, the 51-year-old former television journalist, mother of 11 and author of a best-selling book on dating made history as the House Democrat who cast the decisive 218th vote that saved President Clinton’s economic package from congressional defeat.

Local Republicans are already circling Margolies-Mezvinsky like sharks sizing up an injured swimmer, with an eye toward moving in for the kill in the November, 1994, elections. “There will be no lack of (Republican) candidates for her seat next year,” said Frank Bartle, the Montgomery County Republican chairman. “Most people consider her more than vulnerable at this point.”

But what worries the Democrats even more is that her case, while extreme, is by no means unique.

“Margorie Margolies-Mezvinsky may be the poster child of the budget vote . . . but there are going to be 70 to 80 incumbent Democrats in difficult races next year and all but a dozen of them voted for the budget package, which is going to make their lives more difficult,” said Democratic consultant Charles Cook.

In California, freshman Rep. Lynn Schenk of San Diego finds herself in a position uncomfortably akin to Margolies-Mezvinsky’s--being a Democrat from a heavily Republican district with affluent constituents who will be most affected by the tax increases. Reaction to her vote for the budget, Schenk conceded, has been “highly negative.”

For Schenk’s San Diego colleague, Democratic Rep. Bob Filner, the response has been downright scary. “Physically threatening . . . frightening,” said Filner, describing some of the more than 200 calls a day that his office has been receiving. “Things like: ‘When he (Filner) gets home, we’re going to take care of him.’ ”

Such reactions give GOP strategists cause to hope that the party can recapture some of the traditionally Republican seats it lost to freshman Democrats swept into office on Clinton’s coattails or by the broad anti-incumbency sentiment that characterized many congressional races last year.

Among the other freshmen the GOP hopes to unseat: Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, James A. Barcia of Michigan, Tim Holden and Paul McHale of Pennsylvania, Don Johnson of Georgia and Karen Shepherd of Utah, all of whom voted for the budget plan.

Maloney noted that she and several other freshman women were subjected to intense pressure to support the President’s program, while older, more secure Democrats, some of whom hold prestigious committee and subcommittee chairmanships, cast their votes against it. “The women cleaned up after the men’s mess,” Maloney said. “The traditional role.”

It is not only freshman members that Republican strategists will be targeting next year. Veteran Rep. Mike Synar, the only member of the Oklahoma delegation to vote for the budget package, also is feeling the heat. “It’s really tough when every editorial in the state starts out with ‘Thank God for David Boren,’ ” said a Synar aide, referring to the Oklahoma senator who waged a widely publicized struggle against the Clinton plan. “The newspapers are definitely not with us on this.”

Along with Margolies-Mezvinsky, the GOP is taking aim at several House Democrats who “flip-flopped” and voted for the budget on final passage after voting against it the first time: Ike Skelton of Missouri, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Charles Wilson and Bill Sarpalius of Texas.

“We have reserved a special place on our list for the Democrats who changed their minds and chose Clintonomics over their constituents,” said Dan Leonard, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Margolies-Mezvinsky is the president of that class . . . but the list also includes all Democrats with less than a five-point cushion, as well as the freshmen who campaigned against higher taxes.”

In the Senate, the Republicans’ main focus will be Dennis DeConcini, the three-term Arizona Democrat who already faced a tough reelection battle next year because of political problems caused by his connection to former Lincoln Savings owner Charles H. Keating Jr., who was convicted recently in the savings-and-loan scandal--even though DeConcini was exonerated by the Senate Ethics Committee. In the days leading up to the Senate vote on the budget package, DeConcini’s Phoenix office received about 5,000 calls from constituents urging him to vote no.

“By and large we heard from irate people, battering and swearing . . . being belligerent,” DeConcini spokesman Matt Collins said.

Like Margolies-Mezvinsky, DeConcini had voted against the package when it first passed the Senate. But after negotiating changes to make the tax increases less onerous on high-income Social Security recipients, DeConcini switched and voted for the final package that emerged from a House-Senate conference.

DeConcini clearly hoped the concessions he extracted from Clinton would make the bill more palatable to his constituents, who include many retirees receiving Social Security. But several political analysts said they believe that was a grave miscalculation.

“In the end, DeConcini came across looking like a real wheeler-dealer,” said Cook, the Washington-based political consultant. “On top of his ‘Keating Five’ problems, being perceived as having a vote that was up for sale won’t generate support among voters back home.”

But if these and other Democrats look vulnerable now, cautious analysts note that it is useful to remember some recent political history. Only a year before his downfall, George Bush had the highest approval rating of any modern President, and Clinton’s political fortunes could likewise turn in the 15 months between last week’s vote and the 1994 congressional elections.

“If the economy picks up and health care works, then all of this will soon look like ancient history,” said Saul Shorr, a Philadelphia-based Democratic consultant.

“Democrats are in this thing altogether now, and how the economy is going and how Clinton is perceived in November, 1994, is going to matter more than any one particular vote,” agreed Cook.

In the meantime, Democrats like Margolies-Mezvinsky have decided that the best defense is a strong offense and, with the help of the national party, they are hitting the airwaves and the campaign trails with a vengeance.

Like many of her colleagues, Margolies-Mezvinsky had voted against the President’s budget package when it first passed the House. Even as she walked onto the floor for the final vote, she was planning on opposing it again on grounds that it contained too many tax increases and not enough spending cuts.

But then came the phone call from Clinton, who told the congresswoman from Montgomery County, Pa., that he had to have her vote. When she returned to the chamber moments later, it was with the wide-eyed look of a doe caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. As Republicans jeered and Democrats murmured words of encouragement, Margolies-Mezvinsky walked stiffly down the aisle and cast the last vote in favor of the budget plan.

Fellow Democrats hailed her political courage--and not without good reason.

The first Democrat to represent Montgomery County since 1916, Margolies-Mezvinsky was elected by a razor-thin margin last year after a campaign in which she promised to oppose any further increases in the top tax bracket. Her solidly Republican district along the posh Main Line is the most affluent in the metropolitan Philadelphia area. When Clinton defended his plan from Republican attacks by noting that 90% of its tax increases would be shouldered by the rich, he was talking about the people who sent Margolies-Mezvinsky to Congress.

Not surprisingly, her vote was welcomed here with about as much enthusiasm as Iowans would receive a forecast for more rain.

Now, as she tries to make amends with an angry but also educated and economically literate constituency, Margolies-Mezvinsky’s strategy is to force the focus of the debate away from tax hikes to the need for the kind of deficit reduction that cannot be achieved without cuts in formerly sacrosanct entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

“Even if we eliminated all discretionary spending, all the pork, by the year 2004, we would still go into debt again on the entitlements alone, and that is what no one wants to talk about,” she said.

But at restaurants, ribbon-cutting ceremonies and even a nursing home, where talk of cutting Social Security might be considered taboo, Margolies-Mezvinsky is tackling the issue head-on.

“Some Democrats are using this as an opportunity to go upfront, be positive and turn the issue into a plus for them, and Margorie is certainly one of them,” said Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

To get her message across, Margolies-Mezvinsky is banking on a promise that Clinton gave her in exchange for her vote. Next fall, probably in September or October, Clinton will come to her district and host an economic summit on entitlement cuts.

While local Republicans contend that the meeting will be nothing more than a high-profile fund-raising event for the congresswoman, Margolies-Mezvinsky argues that it is the essential first step in energizing a national debate over the real spending cuts that will be needed to reduce the deficit and save Social Security from future bankruptcy.

Keeping another promise to help members casting a politically unpopular vote, the White House already has jumped to Margolies-Mezvinsky’s defense by sending Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala to Pennsylvania to campaign on her behalf.

“This is the beginning of a national debate . . . , a debate we will begin in a small district in Pennsylvania because of the courage of one congresswoman,” Shalala said outside Margolies-Mezvinsky’s district office. “Every once in a while. someone stands up and does something courageous and really starts the ball rolling. That’s what’s happened here . . . and I’m not surprised that it came from this particular member of Congress--or from a woman.”

Voter reaction, however, has been decidedly mixed. At the Green Acres retirement home, where Margolies-Mezvinsky gave a brief speech Tuesday, businessman Tom Kulp, who was there to visit his 86-year-old mother, said that she had “a lot of explaining to do” after promising her constituents she would vote against higher taxes.

At the ribbon-cutting the next day for a building at AEL Industries, a defense contractor, one worker braved the obvious disapproval of company executives by accosting Margolies-Mezvinsky with charges that she broke her promise. “You campaigned on a promise of no higher taxes and then you turned around and voted for higher taxes,” charged Kathleen Shannon, a 26-year-old electronics assembler.

When Margolies-Mezvinsky tried to discuss the entitlement conference, Shannon appeared unconvinced. “All she got from Clinton was a promise of a conference. She did not get a promise of cuts. She’s going to have her conference and then everybody will forget about it and people will still be stuck with higher taxes,” Shannon complained.

Bartle, the county GOP chairman, said his office has been getting “hundreds of calls” from Republicans and Democrats alike demanding Margolies-Mezvinsky’s recall.

Margolies-Mezvinsky conceded that many of her calls have been “ugly” too. “I ran as an outsider and, boy, do I really feel like one now,” she admitted.

Elsewhere around the country, the problem is the same as Democrats try to counter what they acknowledge has been a better job of spin control by the Republicans.

Conservatives have been “scaring people . . . with misinformation and one lie after another,” but it’s been effective, said Schenk.

In North Texas, Sarpalius is feeling the heat from voters who, while conservative, are by no means affluent and who do not realize that they may actually benefit from the Clinton budget’s earned income tax credit.

Sarpalius’ chief of staff, Phil Duncan, said the Republicans have waged a successful campaign of misinformation. “When people learn what this bill actually does, they are much more supportive.”

Colleen Alexander, co-chairwoman of the Montgomery County Democratic Committee, maintained that Margolies-Mezvinsky’s difficulties are being exaggerated. “The Republicans are magnifying her problems and putting their own negative spin on them. The bottom line will be when she’s reelected.”

That is still nearly 15 months away--paradoxically, both a short and a long time in politics.

In the meantime, Margolies-Mezvinsky is, as usual, busy with 10 things at once as she juggles her responsibilities as a congresswoman and the mother of a family so big it would put the Brady Bunch to shame.

Back in the van after the ribbon-cutting ceremony, there was a quick scheduling check: a luncheon with business leaders at 1 p.m., preparations for the Shalala visit the next day and a follow-up dental appointment for her son, Mark. No cavities, thank God. And then, of course, there was the problem of the reporter in the back seat, who really looked like he could use some nourishment but was too busy taking notes about the lawmaker’s political predicament to eat the banana being dangled under his nose.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writer Michael Granberry in San Diego and special correspondents Laura Laughlin in Phoenix, Jim Henderson in Dallas and Ed Lane in New York.