Ad’s bipartisan claims challenged

For a freshman, Rep. Cathy McMorris has a fairly prominent role in House Republican leadership. She sits on the Steering Committee, serves as a “whip” and was named chairwoman of a special task force studying environmental laws.

That might surprise some people who see her latest campaign ad, which talks about her bipartisan efforts on education, including a time when she “bucked party leadership.”

A Democratic campaign operative said the ad sounds as if McMorris, like some other Republicans around the country, is shying away from unpopular leaders.

But McMorris campaign manager Dan Beutler said Tuesday the television commercial is not an attempt to put distance between the Eastern Washington congresswoman and GOP leaders who are under fire because of their handling of disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley of Florida.

“It’s an ad about fighting for education, not about fighting leadership,” Beutler said. “Some of her significant accomplishments that have helped Eastern Washington have been bipartisan.”

The ad starts out with an announcer saying that to McMorris, “bipartisan cooperation isn’t a sign of weakness, but of strength.” It talks about her support of programs to enhance math and science education and improve student loans. She “bucked her own party’s leadership to restore the Perkins Student Loan Program,” it adds.

Earlier this year, McMorris co-sponsored an amendment with New York Democrat Nita Lowey that restored Perkins loans that the Bush administration had removed from the budget.

The campaign manager for Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark said he thinks it’s odd for McMorris to be talking about bipartisanship at this point in her career. She was in key leadership positions in the state House, where she rose to minority leader and continued on that track when going to Congress, Jeremiah Levine said.

“She’s the freshman Republican on the Whip Team, which is where she keeps her peers in line,” Levine said. She also has received campaign contributions from GOP leaders’ political action committees.

In a Washington Post database of 671 votes taken in the last two years in the House, McMorris voted with the Republican majority 629 times, or 93.7 percent, a researcher for the Spokane Public Library said. Of the remaining 42 votes, she voted with Democrats 18 times, and didn’t cast a vote the other 24.

Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington, D.C., said the commercial seems like recognition by the McMorris campaign that voters are increasingly unhappy with President Bush and the Republicans who control Congress.

“Across the country, Republicans are trying to distance themselves from this White House and trying to make the best of a record of failure,” said Bedingfield, whose organization works to get Democrats elected to the House.

But Beutler said the ad is simply about education programs and not tied to any national trend: “This election is about issues that affect Eastern Washington.”