Labor Targets Rep. Hayworth In Arizona

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Oct. 25) -- There is nothing small about GOP freshman Rep. J.D. Hayworth, a former college football player and sportscaster, and there is certainly nothing small about the labor movement's efforts to block Hayworth from a second term.

"J.D. Hayworth voted to allow the government to seize family assets and make children liable for their parents' nursing home bills," says one labor-bought TV ad.

The AFL-CIO is angry at Hayworth for his opposition to raising the minimum wage, and his Republican votes on issues like Medicare and student loans. On top of that, they think he is vulnerable. So organized labor estimates it has poured at least $750,000 into the race. Republicans say it's twice that. Either way, it's one of the largest chunks of the $35 million labor is shelling out for campaign commercials nationwide.

Hayworth's opponent, Steve Owens, a former state Democratic chairman and aide to Vice President Al Gore when he was a senator, is the beneficiary.

That same labor ad says, "Steve Owens says we should protect families against the high cost of nursing home care."

But Owens says issues, not ads, will decide the race. "I think one reason we're seeing that level of support here," he says, "is that Congressman Hayworth has got one of the worst records on issues that matter to working people in the entire Congress of the United States."

Hayworth replies, "The historians will write that this was the largest, single special-interest expenditure in the history of Arizona politics. And with the work we're doing, the historians will also add the sentence, 'It was all for naught.'"

Maybe so, maybe not. In Arizona's 6th District, which stretches from the Phoenix suburbs all the way to north to the Utah border, the most recent public polls show Hayworth in a statistical dead heat with Owens.

So the interests interested in Hayworth are waging a counter-attack against the AFL-CIO. "The big labor bosses," intones an ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee. "Big money, big lies, big liberals. Call the union bosses and tell them Arizona is not for sale."

Of all the issues dividing the two candidates, none dominates more than the issue of money and ads flowing into the race. Witness a recent television debate:

Owens said, "Ten months ago, I challenged Congressman Hayworth to a spending limit of $250,00 apiece in this campaign. That sounds like a lot of money to me, but Congressman Hayworth refused to agree to that spending limit."

Hayworth said: "You know why my opponent wanted me to limit my campaign spending? Because he had a pretty good idea that the liberal labor bosses in Washington, D.C., at the behest of his old buddy Al Gore, were going to pump millions of dollars in here to smear my name."

There are hundreds of these congressional battlegrounds, of course. But the fight for Hayworth's seat is the single greatest demonstration of how forces on both sides are spending millions on television, waging a massive, costly, national air war, district by district.

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