Slinging Mud and Whatever Else They Can Afford

Images of the World Trade Center in flames fill the television screen. A somber voice warns that a local Republican House member is soft on airline security. Stark words appear: “Protect America. Say No to Pete Sessions.”

That message is courtesy of Sessions’ Democratic opponent, Rep. Martin Frost, long an influential member of his party on Capitol Hill. But Sessions, a Republican, has sent out a message of his own: Fliers in Dallas mailboxes accuse Frost of consorting with a former child molester and more.

These and other tough punches mark a congressional campaign that has the distinction of being the second-most expensive House race in history -- and one of the nastiest in the country.

On its face, the contest -- between Frost, a 26-year incumbent, and Sessions, who has been in Congress since 1996 -- is simply over who will represent a big chunk of Dallas in the House. But more broadly, it is one of the key fights in a determined national effort by GOP leaders to retain and expand their House majority.

Dallas voters are facing a rare choice between two incumbents because Sessions and Frost were thrown into the same district by a bold Republican move to redraw congressional district lines in Texas that were supposed to stay in place until 2012.

The effort, spearheaded by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), is crucial because it is expected to give the GOP enough new seats in Texas to virtually guarantee they will keep control of the House.

The fight in Dallas also is a microcosm of national political trends, sharing many hallmarks of the race between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry.

It pits a Republican who favors more tax cuts, limits on lawsuits and a free-market approach to healthcare against a Democrat who disagrees on all those issues. And while the presidential campaign has been riddled with attack ads and scare tactics, the House race in Dallas shows that Bush and Kerry have not cornered the market on negativism.

If anything, the mud is flying thicker and faster in Dallas. Sessions has accused Frost of tax evasion. The Frost campaign accused Sessions of “indecent exposure” because he was a streaker while in college. They have accused each other of dirty tricks with lawn signs. An anti-immigration group aired an ad against Frost that critics said was racist.

The race offers voters a real choice between two very different, credible candidates. But for many voters, the bitter, personal quality of the candidates’ attacks is overshadowing the debate over issues.

When students at the University of Texas in Dallas met with Sessions recently, they peppered him with questions about why the campaign was so negative.

“How do we focus on the issues?” they asked, as Sessions recounted later. He said they wanted to know, “What’s fair? What’s not fair? Is it true we just don’t like each other?”

Many voters casting early ballots recently were battle weary. Said Sue Lott, an employee of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: “Politicians are notorious for sliming the other side, but this has gone over the top.”

The campaign is grueling for both men, but especially so for Frost, 62.

The reconfigured district has a pronounced Republican tilt, presenting Frost with his hardest reelection challenge. And the contest crystallizes two of the most powerful trends that have transformed political campaigning since he was first elected to the House in 1978: the continuous rise in campaign spending and the escalation of attack politics.

“Campaigns were very different when I ran in 1978,” Frost said recently when he addressed a class at Southern Methodist University.

That year, he said, his campaign spent $250,000 -- half to beat a Democratic incumbent, Dale Milford, in their party’s primary, and half in the general election. Now, Frost and Sessions are on track to spend $4 million each -- more than any other House race this year.

The only more expensive House race was in 2000, when $11.5 million was spent as Democrat Adam B. Schiff beat GOP Rep. Jim Rogan to represent a Burbank-based district.

In 1978, Frost’s central campaign theme in his primary victory was that Milford was too conservative. In Frost’s few forays into negative campaigning, he criticized Milford for flying first class and taking foreign trips.

“That was considered very daring stuff back then,” said one longtime Frost associate who asked not to be named. “Compared to things going on now, that is ho-hum.”

But the 1988 presidential campaign was a formative experience for Frost and other politicians of his generation. Helping then-Vice President George H.W. Bush overcome an early disadvantage in the polls was his campaign’s aggressive attack on Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis that portrayed him as weak on defense and soft on crime. Dukakis was slow to respond, and lost.

From that episode, many politicians drew two conclusions that remain guiding principles today: Negative campaigning works, and no attack should go unanswered.

That is why, Frost said, when he got an inkling that his opponent was going to go negative, he opened his own barrage of attacks. The move risked distracting from Frost’s positive pitch that he has been effective in serving Dallas’ interests. But a purely positive campaign was not an option, Frost concluded.

“I had to make a choice,” Frost said. “Was I going to be Michael Dukakis and not respond? You can’t let an opponent say wild and crazy things. I won’t be a punching bag.”

Sessions, 49, blamed Frost’s campaign for setting a nasty tone for the campaign, and said the Democrat did so because he was behind in the polls.

“The guy is losing and bleeding,” Sessions said. “He’s lost his balance. It’s gotten more and more shrill.”

Whoever started it, the campaign probably was destined to be nasty because it was born of a divisive fight over the redrawing of Texas’ congressional districts. That process usually happens once every 10 years, after the census. But in 2003, after the GOP won control of the state Legislature, DeLay prodded state Republicans to push into law new district lines.

The new map gave Republicans a chance to gain several House seats and put five previously safe incumbent Democrats at risk.

The new lines split Frost’s old district, comprised of parts of Dallas, Fort Worth and points between. The Democrat decided to run against Sessions in a district that included portions of his old territory and most of Dallas’ Jewish community. Frost is the only Jewish member of the Texas delegation.

He faces an uphill political fight. More than half the district comes from Sessions’ old one. And the new lines encompass affluent suburbs of North Dallas, which are heavily Republican.

Still, polls show Frost giving Sessions a serious run for his money. And Frost got a surprising boost last week when he was endorsed by the Dallas Morning News, which traditionally favors Republicans.

The attacks that have marked the campaign began early.

In April, an ad sponsored by a little-known independent group charged that Frost supported amnesty for illegal immigrants, which the Democrat denied. Sessions said his campaign had nothing to do with the ad, but Frost said the Republican did not do enough to repudiate the message.

In August, Frost yard signs mysteriously appeared on the grounds of a school attended by Sessions’ child. Sessions accused Frost of trying to embarrass the child; Frost said the signs were stolen by Republicans trying to make him look bad.

Then there was the matter of Sessions’ youthful streaking episode as a student at Southwest Texas State University.

Justin Kitsch, Frost’s spokesman, said it was legitimate to call attention to the prank because it illustrated Sessions’ hypocrisy, given that he had been a vocal critic of singer Janet Jackson’s exposing her breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.

Sessions called it “a new low” for Frost to broach the streaking incident, but it has caught voters’ attention. When Sessions addressed a Lion’s Club meeting in Dallas, members teased him by having someone streak through the meeting.

The child molestation issue was raised by the Sessions campaign after it learned that a Frost fundraiser was to feature singer Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary fame. In 1970, Yarrow was convicted of indecent behavior with a 14-year-old.

Frost canceled Yarrow’s appearance. But he objected that a mailing by Sessions implied Frost was a child molester. Sessions denied the charge, while arguing it was “very germane” to note that Frost had asked a person with Yarrow’s record for political help.

Frost used the images of the burning World Trade Center after it was struck by hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, in an ad that criticized Sessions’ vote against a Bush-backed bill to establish strict new air safety rules. Sessions was one of nine members of Congress who voted against the bill -- mostly, he said, because of concerns that the bill would force baggage handlers to unionize.

Some critics said the ad exploited the terrorist attacks for political gain. But Frost was unapologetic. “This was a dramatic ad to illustrate there was a real difference between the two of us,” he said.

A Sessions ad showed a plane flying overhead and a shoulder-fired missile, presumably hoisted by a terrorist, pointed at it. The announcer warns of “unspeakable horror, shattered lives.”

Sessions and Frost agree on one thing: Both complain the media have contributed to the campaign’s negative tone by focusing more on personal attacks than issues.

But Frost acknowledged: “I’d rather have a discussion of issues, but that’s not the real world.”