The House: Clash of Ideas and Styles

Incumbent vs. incumbent

Democrat Barney Frank did not want to run against Republican Margaret Heckler. Heckler did not want to face Frank. But according to the last census, Massachusetts had one too many congressional seats; somebody would have to be squeezed out. The Democrat-controlled legislature, charged with redistricting, chose to inconvenience most the incumbent they knew best and liked least: Frank, 42, who as a state legislator (1973-80) had made the mistake of being uncooperative and acerbic. The gerrymandered new Fourth District, which stretches snakelike from Boston to Rhode Island, has many more Democrats (115,000) than Republicans (44,000). But most are longtime Heckler constituents, and a plurality (119,000) is independent. The candidates agree that the race is close, with Heckler holding a modest lead.

The intense, hard-edged Heckler, 51, concentrates on a few relatively uncontroversial but still progressive issues, like benefits for Viet Nam veterans. While not a naturally effusive campaigner like Frank, she is scrupulously attentive to bread-and-butter constituent problems. Paunchy, glib and (until recently) chronically disheveled, Frank seems more like a back-room political operative than an up-front candidate. But he and his liberal orthodoxy are especially popular in Brookline and Newton, slightly tweedy and heavily Jewish suburbs that were grafted from his old district onto the new one.

Frank wastes no opportunity to associate his Republican foe with the Republican President. "Just to get things straight," he once said, "I'm the one who did not kiss Ronald Reagan on the night of the State of the Union address." Heckler just as surely distances herself from Reagan policies. "I am running on my own record," she insists. When Treasury Secretary Donald Regan spoke at a fund raiser in July, she went out of her way not to be photographed with him. After it became clear that she would face Frank, her positions veered noticeably: this year she voted against funding the MX missile, which she supported in 1981.

Heckler emphasizes her 16-year tenure, longer than that of any other woman now in the House, compared with Frank's single term. She says pointedly, "One must do more than simply vote and debate in Washington," noting that since 1977 she has helped bring $4.8 million in urban development grants to her district. Heckler insists that she is no uncritical devotee of Reaganomics. Yet in distressed old mill towns like Fall River, where unemployment is at 14% and, according to Frank, voters "have this terrible sense of unfairness," her independence of the Administration may not seem so clear.

Kramer vs. Kramer

The 175-mile-wide heart of Colorado is stunningly scenic, generally prosperous and traditionally Republican: the Fifth District has never sent a Democrat to the House. The apparent hopelessness of Democratic Challenger Tom Cronin's cause seemed underscored last week when Republicans leaked a poll from July showing that two-term Incumbent Congressman Ken Kramer was ahead by a margin of better than 3 to 1.

Yet a Democratic poll shows Kramer with a 53% negative rating in an area that may not be the G.O.P. bastion it was. These days, 42% of the voters describe themselves as independents, outnumbering both Republicans (35%) and Democrats (23%). A onetime aide in the Johnson White House who now teaches government at Colorado College, lanky, quick-witted Tom Cronin is counting on those pivotally unaffiliated voters. Given the choice, Cronin, 42, believes that most will opt for his brand of moderation. He contends that Kramer, 40, is on Capitol Hill a kind of "E.F. Hutton in reverse--when he talks, nobody listens," and a "classic example of the New Right."

Kramer believes that Reaganomics has not gone far enough; he favors the balanced-budget amendment and further slashes in social programs. He would also limit the discretion of federal courts to rule on school-desegregation and abortion cases, and is the only Colorado Congressman who did not co-sponsor this summer's reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment. Kramer supports generous military budgets, a popular stance in Colorado Springs, which is the home of an Army post, the U.S. Air Force Academy and NORAD headquarters.

Cronin emphasizes the need for effective conventional forces. Although his own economic prescriptions are fuzzy, he attacks Kramer for inconsistency: "How can you be for a balanced budget and defense increases, yet vote against the [recent $98 billion] tax increase?" That contradiction, Cronin says, amounts to "Kramer vs. Kramer."

Kramer reminds audiences that Cronin is a native of Massachusetts: guilt by geographic association. "Liberal Democrats aren't in vogue here," says Kramer, who does not remind audiences that he grew up in Illinois. Counters Cronin, a bit coyly: "I'm not liberal or conservative. I'm a problem solver." One problem he has not yet solved is campaign money. But Cronin does have the strong support of popular Democratic Governor Richard Lamm. Says Cronin: "It's an unusually good year for a challenger."

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