Quietly, Democrats Rally to Van Hollen

By Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 12, 2002; Page A01

As a stiff wind snapped the flags surrounding a podium draped in mourning black, Rep. Constance A. Morella (R-Md.) tapped Christopher Van Hollen Jr. on the shoulder and warmly congratulated the man whom Democrats have chosen to defeat her.

Van Hollen smiled broadly. "I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of each other," the state senator said.

And so, amid a solemn Rockville ceremony looking back to Sept. 11, 2001, one of the most competitive political battles in the nation charged forward yesterday. Both candidates officially took the day off the campaign trail in deference to the victims of last year's terrorist attacks, but behind the scenes their campaigns were already hard at work.

Van Hollen's campaign worked to unify the Democratic Party's splintered base and to secure the support of organized labor, which largely eluded him in his come-from-behind primary victory Tuesday over Del. Mark K. Shriver. Morella, the eight-term Republican incumbent, announced more White House support for a race that will test her personal popularity and independent voting record against the changing demographics and growing political polarization of her Democratic district.

Both parties have targeted the seat in their battle to control the House of Representatives, and yesterday national Democrats called to lend their support to Van Hollen, a 12-year veteran of the Maryland General Assembly.

He will need the help.

Van Hollen overcame a significant fundraising disadvantage and the allure of the Kennedy name to defeat Shriver in Maryland's 8th Congressional District. But tallies show he slipped by with just a 2,400-vote margin, and his campaign said he has only about $100,000 left in the bank compared with Morella's nearly $1.7 million.

Members of former vice president Al Gore's staff called to offer help. So did his ticket-mate in the 2000 presidential election, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) phoned. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was making plans to introduce Van Hollen to its big-time donors. Members of Congress who had supported Shriver, such as Minority House Whip Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), quickly shifted gears, as did Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Shriver's cousin and the Democratic nominee for governor.

"People are really pulling together and uniting behind us because of the importance of this seat," Van Hollen said.

Although Shriver stayed out of sight yesterday and some of his supporters remained bitter over Van Hollen's portrayal of their man as a lightweight, Shriver spokesman Jay Strell reiterated that the defeated candidate would fully back Van Hollen. A "unity event" is planned tomorrow, the same day that Morella plans a rally at which she will give away a ticket for lunch with first lady Laura Bush.

Meanwhile, Van Hollen's campaign reached out to the organized labor groups who turned out hundreds of votes for Shriver in a frantic, last-minute, get-out-the-vote effort.

Van Hollen's campaign said he will meet today with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who only days ago was pressing Montgomery and Prince George's voters to support Shriver.

In the white-collar communities that make up much of the 8th District, a labor endorsement does not deliver the punch it can in working-class neighborhoods. But labor can play three potentially crucial roles in this general election: mobilizing its army of troops to knock on doors and pass out campaign literature, paying for so-called "issue advertising" that questions Morella's record, and helping Van Hollen replenish campaign coffers after the hard-fought primary.

Yesterday, some of the same unions that Van Hollen once accused of backing Shriver based on their relationship with his uncle, U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), were promising to deliver checks. Kennedy released a statement congratulating Van Hollen.

Willie Harris, regional political director for the Service Employees International Union, said: "I never disliked Chris. All he has to do is continue to working families' issues at the top of his agenda, and we'll be with him 150 percent."

At the Rockville event, Montgomery County Council member and Morella ally Howard A. Denis (R-Potomac-Bethesda) whispered an assessment of Van Hollen's chances to the man Maryland Republicans hope will be their next governor, U.S. Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) as Townsend stood just yards away.

Endorsements by local newspapers may have helped Van Hollen pull out a primary win, Denis said in hushed tones, but Van Hollen won't have the same appeal to black voters in Prince George's that a member of the Kennedy family would.

Denis's comments underscore the biggest challenge that Morella faces: geography. This year, the Democrats who control the Maryland General Assembly redrew the 8th District's borders, lopping off her strongholds in more conservative northern Montgomery County and adding reliably Democratic portions of Silver Spring and Takoma Park and a heavily African American sliver of western Prince George's County.

That sliver is supposed to be the Democrat's insurance policy, making it all but impossible for Morella to win, and Van Hollen did do poorly against Shriver there. But Democratic turnout in those precincts, while higher than normal, amounted to just a little more than 4,000 of the nearly 83,000 votes cast on Tuesday. Potentially more problematic for Morella are the areas where Van Hollen did do well.

In Montgomery County, Van Hollen motivated his own electoral base in Chevy Chase and Kensington, and he cleaned up in large areas of Bethesda. Those precincts are loaded with what pollster Keith Haller calls "persuadable Democrats" who have voted for Morella -- a neighbor -- in the past.

Haller said that Van Hollen's aggressive grass-roots campaign "clearly lit a fire" in the ranks of progressive activists. At the same time, the competitive, and late, primary forced Democrats to drain their money and energy.

"So, to that extent, her grandest wish came true in spades," Haller said. "No Republican in the country knows how better to appeal and win support from Democrats, so you can never estimate that."

Morella, who had been predicting a Van Hollen victory for weeks, signaled yesterday that she will continue to make redistricting -- and the role Van Hollen played in it -- a major campaign issue. "Any opponent for me is going to be tough because of the district," she said. "Here you've got personal partisan ambitions splitting up communities."

Van Hollen plans to continue to run pretty much the same campaign against Morella as he did against Shriver.

"Our polling was clear from the beginning: Make this a referendum on legislative effectiveness," said Tom O'Donnell, a Van Hollen media adviser. "We'll stay on that theme. Connie votes right and says the right things, but she's not a leader. While on issues from health care to education, Chris has gotten things done."