Nethercutt Decides Against Senate Race Republican To Seek Third Term In House, Says Family Comes Before Fund-Raising

George Nethercutt resisted temptation Tuesday.

Saying he’d rather spend the next year raising his family than campaign contributions, the Spokane congressman will not run for U.S. Senate in 1998.

Not that he didn’t want to. He kept Spokane - and potential opponents - waiting for months as he searched for the answer.

But in the end, Nethercutt, 53, heeded advice from House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and his conscience to avoid the rigorous senatorial campaign trail.

Rather, Nethercutt will campaign for re-election for a third and final term in the House.

“I believe I could win the U.S. Senate,” Nethercutt told a crowd of 50 supporters and the media at Deaconess Medical Center. “This was the hardest decision I’ve had to make in my lifetime.”

Nethercutt’s decision leaves the Republican primary field to U.S. Rep. Linda Smith of Vancouver and Doug Sutherland, the top elected official for Pierce County.

Both hope to unseat incumbent Democrat Sen. Patty Murray.

Nethercutt, a Spokane lawyer who upset former House Speaker Tom Foley in 1994, was seen by some Republicans as the best match against Murray because he is less conservative than Smith and better known than Sutherland.

Polls had shown that Nethercutt would lose an election against Smith or Murray, but a huge group of undecided votes could have swung the outcome his way.

With Nethercutt out, Smith and Sutherland will seek votes in Republican-rich Eastern Washington. But Smith might have the edge, said state party chairman Dale Foreman.

“Linda Smith is a well-known conservative and Doug Sutherland is a well-known moderate,” Foreman said. “But I know there are more conservatives.”

Sutherland was delighted by Nethercutt’s decision, saying the two-way race will show a clear difference between candidates.

“There are X number of votes available,” said Sutherland, who grew up in Spokane. “If you divide that by two, it’s easier than if you divide it by three.”

Smith, who was scheduled to campaign in Spokane today even before Nethercutt planned his announcement, said she thinks her push for smaller government, campaign reform and Second Amendment rights will resonate with Eastern Washington voters.

She also has members of her campaign from Spokane who were active in the Reform Party and the campaign against Foley.

“I wish him well in his re-election campaign,” she said of Nethercutt. “I had decided it didn’t make any difference who got into the (Senate) race.”

Foreman said he had no plans to run and was waiting to see whether any other well-known candidates would join the race.

“The longer you wait,” he said, “the more difficult it is to raise the money you need for a statewide campaign.”

One group supporting Murray was pleased that Nethercutt won’t become a senator anytime soon.

Rusty Nelson, co-director of the Peace and Justice Action League, interrupted Nethercutt’s press conference by presenting the congressman a phony diploma from the U.S. Army School of Americas, a controversial training center for Latin American soldiers at Ft. Benning, Ga.

Nethercutt took the framed diploma before realizing it was a publicity stunt to draw attention to his vote to continue funding the training center.

If re-elected next year, Nethercutt would serve until 2000. That’s the same year that Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., would be up for re-election, unless he retires. Gorton will turn 72 that year.

Nethercutt said he would have had to raise $6 million, or $16,000 daily for a year, to finance a campaign for Senate. He said that would have required too much time away from his wife, Mary Beth, daughter, Meredith, 17, and son, Elliott, 13.

“I’d be fund-raising and fund-raising and campaigning and fund-raising,” he said. “I can’t do that to my family.”

Nethercutt added that there was pressure from Gingrich to remain in the House.

“That had an impact on me,” said Nethercutt, whose victory over Foley helped usher Gingrich to power.

Nethercutt said Gingrich has assigned him to examine ways the National Institutes of Health could better spend taxpayers’ money on fighting diseases and to prepare a master plan for the huge research agency to cure heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other diseases.

Nethercutt denied the assignment was a political payoff for bowing out of the Senate race.

“We can help avoid the needless suffering caused by many diseases,” said Nethercutt, whose daughter, Meredith, has diabetes. “I am excited to undertake this project.” , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo