After possibly the most heated congressional race in Western New York history -- and certainly the most expensive -- Tom Reynolds hung on to win a fifth term representing the 26th District, which includes much of rural Niagara County, in the House of Representatives last week.
Whether he sticks around to serve the whole two-year term -- or any of it -- is another matter. Facing the loss of his lofty status as a Republican powerbroker, as well as a potentially unflattering report from the House Ethics Committee on his role in the Mark Foley imbroglio, Reynolds could resign his newly re-won position as early as the end of the year, local party sources indicated late last week.
As President George W. Bush's White House retrenches in the aftermath of losing control of both houses of Congress, and the party looks to 2008, Reynolds could have greater value to Republicans in a behind-the-scenes post.
On Wednesday morning, hours after his challenger, Akron factory owner Jack Davis, conceded defeat, Reynolds announced that he would not challenge party rules limiting him to two terms as chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee. While that wasn't unexpected, some fellow party members were surprised by the news that he wouldn't seek any other House leadership position.
The NRCC post is often viewed as a stepping stone to bigger things, but Reynolds said he'd content himself with his middle-of-the-pack spot on the House Ways and Means Committee.
That runs contrary to his entire political career, during which he's earned leadership roles at the local, state and national level, both in elected and political positions.
With Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman leaving his post at the end of the year, though, a shakeup is expected in the national party's leadership. Reynolds' close ties to the White House -- first lady Laura Bush made two visits to Western New York in the race's final month, while Reynolds meets regularly with Karl Rove, who also campaigned here -- position him for a high-level RNC job.
"The president only made one call on Election Night to a candidate -- Tom Reynolds," said a GOP source. Reynolds could also choose to follow Bill Paxon, his predecessor both in the district and at the NRCC, into the lucrative world of lobbying.
Either would seem more attractive than returning to the House, where he would have little, if any, of the clout he campaigned on. While Reynolds held on to his seat in the face of twin Democratic landslides in the statewide and congressional campaigns, he returns to a very different position in a completely rearranged political landscape.
Before Election Day, Republicans held more seats in the House than at any time since World War II. As of Jan. 1, they'll be in the minority for the first time since 1994.
The Foley scandal couldn't have helped Reynolds' standing with members of his caucus. He maintained that he told soon-to-be-former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert about "overly friendly e-mails" sent by Foley to teenage pages, essentially passing the blame upward. But he also helped talk the Florida congressman out of retiring to take a job in the private sector after learning of at least the initial correspondence.
Reynolds' rationale -- that Republicans were more likely to retain Foley's seat if he ran, rather than a relative unknown -- smacked of political expediency forcing abandonment of the moral high ground the party likes to claim.
Encouraging Foley to seek another term didn't ultimately cost Reynolds his seat. But it may have added to the perception by some voters that the House GOP power structure was too willing to look the other way. It certainly couldn't have helped Republicans in tight races who were already burdened by their support of an unpopular president and his quagmire in Iraq.
Reynolds' political philosophy -- define your opponent in the most unflattering terms possible by digging up as much dirt as possible, a practice known in political circles as "opposition research" -- doesn't make him an ideal consensus builder for Republicans left with little choice but to build consensus in the House. It's difficult to imagine Reynolds working very closely with New York Democrats Louise Slaughter and Michael Arcuri, for instance.
Slaughter, a 20-year veteran whose district includes Niagara Falls and part of Buffalo only because a redistricting plan pushed by Reynolds gouged out the heavily Republican portions of her district and folded them into his, is now in line to head the House Rules Committee.
Arcuri won in the 24th District, a Central New York seat formerly held by Republican Sherwood Boehlert. Arcuri withstood NRCC advertisements claiming he'd spent taxpayer money to make phone-sex calls from a hotel room. Reynolds infamously stood by the ads, even though phone records showed that the call was the result of a wrong number dialed by a staffer and Arcuri's opponent disavowed them.
Republicans across the country also have to be wondering if the Democratic sweep of the House would have been so overwhelming if the NRCC chairman hadn't been embroiled in a brutal race of his own. The RNC spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to save Reynolds in the campaign's final weeks, money that might have been enough to save several seats elsewhere.
If Reynolds does leave the House, the word "retire" would be the likely verb in that press release. A special election would be held, to the delight of local residents who haven't had enough of congressional campaigning over the last six months.
Davis hasn't ruled out a third run for Congress, according to campaign insiders, and the shortened campaign of a special election, which usually has a 30-day cycle, might make such a bid even more attractive. On the Republican side, a veteran state legislator with strong name recognition throughout the 26th who also possesses a campaign-ready war chest might just be the ideal replacement for Reynolds.
Like, say, state Sen. George Maziarz, the North Tonawanda Republican who swept to an easy win in the 59th District and who shares many of the same strongly GOP enclaves in Niagara, Orleans and Monroe counties as the 26th.
In the aftermath of Reynolds' comeback from polls that had him trailing Davis by up to 15 points in early October, some pundits attributed his resurgence to an "act of God" -- the freak mid-month storm that plunged most of Erie County and some of southern Niagara into darkness for up to a week or more.
The incumbent's knack for positioning himself at the podium for just about every news conference, as well as glomming credit for Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to the affected area, more than wiped out the ill will from the Foley scandal and earned Reynolds a fifth term. Or so goes that bit of conventional wisdom.
It sounds good and makes for a believable explanation. It's just that the numbers don't back it up. Davis won both Erie and Niagara counties, where the storm did the most damage, and by larger margins than when he challenged Reynolds in 2004. The difference in the race was the eastern end of the district, where the storm was more nuisance than disaster, if any snow fell at all.
As expected, Reynolds carried Genesee and Orleans counties. But the roots of his re-election were in Monroe, Livingston and Wyoming counties. The Rochester media market that serves them didn't cover the race with the same intensity as Buffalo's, but Reynolds spent just as heavily there. Combined with the GOP's numerical advantage at that end of the district and a district-wide get-out-the-vote effort, Reynolds' efforts in the Rochester area, particularly the staunchly Republican suburb of Greece, were too much for Davis to overcome in the west.
For all his campaign's attacks on "Millionaire Jack Davis," Reynolds will have outspent his challenger by nearly 2-to-1 when all the outside money from PACs and the national party are figured in. He won by fewer than 6,000 votes out of nearly 200,000 cast.
In the end, it wasn't the Almighty who returned Reynolds to Washington, but the almighty dollar.
Contrary to published reports here and elsewhere, everything is apparently just terrific here in Niagara Falls and throughout Western New York.
At least a majority of those who bothered going to the polls last Tuesday seems to think so.
Every single state and national incumbent was returned to office. Other than Reynolds, none broke a sweat. You could pin it on the two major parties at both the local and state level. Besides Reynolds, David Broderick -- who topped Pat Brown to win his 85th term as Niagara County treasurer -- and Mike Cole, the six-month veteran of the New York State Assembly who represents the eastern end of the county and warded off a strong challenge from Iroquois School Board member Laura Monte, there wasn't a single local incumbent facing a serious challenge.
The state Republican Party bailed out on Dan Bazzani and every other Assembly challenger with a late-campaign decision to devote its resources to protecting incumbents in both houses of the legislature. In local House races, the GOP gave Slaughter and Buffalo's Brian Higgins a pass, too.
Democrats couldn't find, or wouldn't fund, a viable challenger to Maziarz, Dale Volker or other Western New York Republicans in the state Senate.
In statewide races, the only remotely competitive race was for comptroller, and that was only because Alan Hevesi admitted swiping $173,000 worth of state services -- at least -- in the form of a driver for his wife.
Thanks to the early Republican surrender in that race, though, challenger Chris Callaghan still wound up losing by nearly 20 percent statewide, though he did carry Niagara County. The GOP's candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate, whose names can now be safely forgotten if you knew them in the first place, each failed to attract even one-third of the vote.
It's a cozy little arrangement for leaders of both parties and their well-paid spokespeople, for whom campaigning every other year is the primary job description.
But then, when far fewer than half the eligible voters can spare the few minutes it takes to get to the local polling place, who can blame those in power for taking it easy?
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | November 14 2006 |