Gingrich Foe Sidestepping Controversies Over Speaker

All over America this election season, Democratic candidates have been running against Newt Gingrich, the speaker of the House who polls show is one of the nation’s most unpopular politicians.

But in the suburban Atlanta district where Gingrich is up for reelection, his opponent, Democrat Michael J. Coles, has spent much of the campaign ignoring the inflammatory issues with which the speaker has become associated.

Coles, a millionaire businessman, says that is because he first wanted to introduce himself to the voters.

But some here suggest that the real reason may be that Gingrich’s stand on such issues as restructuring Medicare’s financing and the role he played in the government shutdown last year aren’t nearly as unpopular in Georgia’s staunchly conservative 6th District as they are in the country as a whole.

Although national Democratic Party leaders would dearly love to see Gingrich tumble on Tuesday, that appears unlikely. An independent poll taken last week showed him comfortably leading Coles, 55% to 41%.

Still, the same poll had given Gingrich a whopping 29% lead late in September. The drop in Gingrich’s margin gave resonance to earlier complaints from some local Republican leaders that the speaker had not been taking Coles’ challenge seriously enough.

A Gingrich spokesman rejected that claim. The aide, Mike Shields, noting that Coles is spending $2 million of his own money on the race, said: “You have to take [money like that] seriously in the age of television.”

Regardless, Gingrich has been campaigning more aggressively in recent weeks, going on the attack against his foe.

The 53-year-old Coles, founder of the Great American Cookie Co. and a first-time candidate for office, is a political moderate who supports the death penalty and abortion rights, opposes gun control and favors tax cuts--but only if they are paired with spending cuts. He’s won an endorsement from Ross Perot’s Reform Party. But he has been forced to dodge Gingrich’s efforts to link him with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Gingrich pursued this theme relentlessly when the two squared off in their only campaign debate recently. “Congress is a team sport,” he said at one point. “There’s a conservative team--I’m speaker of the House on the conservative side--and there’s a liberal team. All the major people supporting my opponent are liberal.”

And while Gingrich seemed at a loss to pinpoint specific liberal positions held by Coles, the Democrat has taken steps to avoid identification with his national party.

Coles passed up the opportunity to appear with President Clinton at a recent rally in Atlanta. Indeed, Coles won’t even say whom he plans to vote for in the presidential race.