Metcalf vs. Cammermeyer

Human Events, Oct 23, 1998

Washington State's

2nd District

When Cary Grant was cast to play composer Cole Porter in the autobiographical film Night and Day, studio hands were aghast. The tall, handsome Grant looked nothing like the gnomish, scowling Porter.

But Grant got the part largely because of the insistence of Porter himself, who said, "Who would not want to be played by Cary Grant?"

And what woman would not like to be played by Glenn Close, which is exactly what happened to the Democratic nominee for Congress in Washington State's 2nd District-before she was elected to anything. Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Grethe Cammermeyer doesn't look all that much like the glamorous Glenn Close, but she wasn't about to complain.

In a made-for-television film Serving in Silence, Close/Cammermeyer is shown discharged from the military in 1992 after revealing that she was a lesbian. After two years and a protracted court battle, she was reinstated-to national headlines.

In a year in which four avowed lesbians are Democratic nominees for Congress, Cammermeyer is the most celebrated. Her cult-heroine role among organized gaydom has unquestionably made her what Congressional Quarterly concluded is "one of the best-funded House challengers in the country (she raised more than $600,000 through August 26th)."

Standing between Cammermeyer and even more international "star" stature as the first avowed lesbian in Congress is Rep. Jack Metcalf, the first Republican congressman from the 2nd District in three decades and, at 70, the grand old man of Evergreen State conservatism.

In nearly 40 years as a conservative voice in a state where Republican politics are generally middleroad, Metcalf-as state representative and senator, two-time Republican Senate nominee, and freshman U.S. representative at age 66-has been the true keeper-of-the-flame for the right in Washington State.

Whether the issue was protecting the rights of landowners from the claims of l9th Century Indian treaties, cosponsoring a ban on automatic pay increases for members of Congress, or term limits (which then-state legislator Metcalf first campaigned on back in 1967!), the angular, silver-haired man from Washington State was always in the fight and usually on the front lines.

Now, he faces the fight of his career. Cammermeyer's well-heeled challenge comes two years after Metcalf was counted out election night by 2,200 votes but ended up narrowly winning reelection after 40,000 absentee ballots were tallied.

"We've only had one debate so far and I still can't really say where my opponent stands on specific issues," says Metcalf. "She says her chief concerns are education and health care, but not much beyond that. She attacks me for favoring abolishing the Department of Education.

"The media make that sound so horrible but I don't back down. All I do is explain that if we eliminate that bureaucracy, we get $37 billion back in the hands of local school boards and parents. And that sells.

And, oh yes, she's trying to say that I'm `against Social Security' because I supported the $80-billion tax cut this year that the President threatened to veto. You get the picture-it's all right out of the Clinton playbook."

Indeed, Cammer

meyer clearly attracts fat donations from Manhattan and Hollywood, less because of what she would vote and work for in Congress-which is so far rather unclearthan who she is and what she did. Inarguably, her election to Congress would make headlines worldwide and provide a booster shot to a notable special interest.

For his part, Jack Metcalf eschews discussion of his opponent in favor of talking about his own agenda and the causes he has long believed in, among them, wiping out the national debt, protecting 2nd Amendment rights, and stopping the use of U.S. troops for international actions under the United Nations.

"I don't want to see our troops used by some world body to make the U.S. the bully of the world and I don't see why there is any more of a case for intervening in Kosovo than there is for intervening in, say, Iraq," says Metcalf, who has long cosponsored legislation for an immediate end to the U.S. military presence in Bosnia.

For those who know Jack Metcalf well, it was no surprise to find him going to Congress at an age when he could be comfortably retired and devoting full time to wife Norma and their four daughters and 12 grandchildren, to his Log Castle Bed and Breakfast on bucolic Whidbey Island and to his beloved Kiwanis Club.

And it is also no surprise that the John the Baptist of term limits not only vowed to limit his own tenure to three terms in the House, but also has lived up to it, announcing earlier this year for "my third and last term."

"Personally, I always liked the idea of 12 years as a term limit for House members,' said Metcalf. "That's about the right time fo] these younger fellows coming in. At my age six years is just about right. And that's wha I promised the voters-and I keep my promises:'

(Friends for Jack Metcalf, P.O. Box 3371, Everett, Wash. 98203; 425-258-3212)