Heinz v. Green

The next junior Senator from Pennsylvania will be only 38 when he takes the oath. He is attractive in a wholesome way; his wife and three children look swell on campaign brochures. His bloodlines are important enough for him to rate a dynastic III after his name. With experience in the House and a reputation for being bright and ambitious, he will have an edge over other freshmen Senators in competing for Capitol Hill influence and national attention.

No tarot cards are necessary to make these predictions. The description fits both Democratic Congressman William J. (for Joseph) Green III and Republican Congressman H. (for Henry) John Heinz III, now locked in a close and increasingly bitter contest for the seat of retiring Minority Leader Hugh Scott. Each combatant finds the circumstantial similarities irksome as he tries to establish his own independent identity. In fact, there is no shortage of differences in personality or policy.

Heinz was a multimillionaire at birth, thanks to the food-processing empire built by his antecedents--he calls it "that little pickleworks down in Pittsburgh." He has diplomas, manners and diction from Exeter, Yale and Harvard Business School. He does wondrous things on ski slopes, plays hand tennis and jogs two miles almost daily. On learning that a new campaign adviser had once been a competitive swimmer, Competitor Heinz's first reaction was a challenge: "I bet I could beat you if we went just one lap." Heinz is also a picky employer who has problems with his staff. After the spring primary he replaced his pollster, TV adviser and campaign manager. Last month he fired his new campaign manager.

Though touchy about references to his wealth--he spends large amounts of his own money in his election campaigns --Heinz has a knack with voters.

Munching pungent Polish sausage (heavy on the onion sauce) at a county fair, he can talk knowingly about the fine points of a champion steer because he has done some gentleman farming. In the predominantly Democratic Pittsburgh district that has elected him three times, Heinz, an Episcopalian, gets on well with blue-collar ethnic families. He de-emphasizes the G.O.P. label and tries to come across as an independent who cares enough about working-class problems to vote occasionally against Republican Administration positions. Two weeks ago, for instance, he voted to override President Ford's veto of the $56 billion HEW appropriation bill.

At the other end of the state, Bill Green inherited public office rather than money. His father both sat in Congress and stood astride the Philadelphia Democratic machine. After the elder Green died 13 years ago, young Bill dropped out of Villanova Law School and became the youngest member of Congress by virtue of a special election. He earned his degree years later, but still has not taken the bar examination. His style reminds people of Ted Kennedy and, like Kennedy, he still dresses in white shirts and blue suits, as if he must reaffirm his lace-curtain status.

Heaven to Green is a lazy weekend with his family at their old house on the Jersey shore, or a long night of political gab during which the Budweiser empties and Marlboro stubs pile up along with the jokes and tales. He does fine impersonations of both allies and adversaries, including an excellent rendition of Heinz's pear-shaped, prepschool enunciation. Blarney aside, Green is a heavyweight both on the stump and in Congress. Before a union audience in Allentown's Fearless Fire Hall recently, Green literally rattled the crockery by smacking the lectern repeatedly. "I come from where you come from," he told the local labor leaders. "I grew up where you grew up." A good response so turns him on that he runs right over applause lines in describing --accurately--how he led the successful fight in Congress to overthrow the oil-depletion allowance, a change that liberals had sought for decades.

Green has a natural advantage because the Democrats have a registration edge in Pennsylvania of 650,000, and most of the large unions prefer him (COPE, the AFL-CIO'S political arm, rated Heinz 74 last year, which is high for a Republican, but gave Green 96). Yet the race is suspenseful.

One reason is Heinz's willingness to outspend Green by about 2 to 1. Another is the Republican's attack on the Democrat as a knee-jerk liberal inflation monger ("Green favors total Government control over virtually every aspect of the American system") and as a prisoner of the Old Politics. Pennsylvanians have a well-founded suspicion of Philadelphia's tainted Democratic machine and an affection for mavericks.

Though Heinz's speaking manner is cool as he hooks a thumb into a belt loop, the words boil: "One who is figuratively and literally the son of old Boss Green and the Green machine can't possibly be prepared to represent the whole state. I say he's afraid of [Democratic Governor] Milton Shapp and afraid of Frank Rizzo [Philadelphia's Democratic reactionary mayor]. I say the people don't want little Billy Green."

Green counters this assault by saying: "My father has been dead for 13 years. I wish John Heinz would get out of the cemetery and face me on the issues"--which Green defines as the state's serious economic problems, worsened by Republican policies. Green also points out that he and the Democratic organization broke years ago, when he showed his first signs of reformist heresy. He and Frank Rizzo, in fact, have been enemies since he lost a mayoral primary to Rizzo in 1971.

When Heinz drew the issue as one of integrity he took a risk; he was one of the politicians who received illegal campaign contributions from Gulf Oil. Though the amount was a piddling $6,000 and Heinz returned the money--insisting that he had originally been unaware of the source--the incident remains very much alive. Green, with his gift for mockery, corrupts one of Lady Macbeth's lines; he quotes it as "Will not all the oil of Arabia wash this blood from my hands?" (while the real language is "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand"). He then brings down house after house by saying: "I understand each night he [Heinz] mutters in his mansion, 'Will not the ketchup of my fortune wash this oil from my hands?' "

Which candidate enjoys the last laugh next month will probably be determined by which establishes himself as having the higher IQ (independence quotient).

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