Page scandal shadows House rematch in New York

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Men in tuxedos and women in evening wear were mingling with the regular crowd at the Buffalo House restaurant, waiting for a black-tie gala around the corner and their man of the hour: Rep. Tom Reynolds.

Surrounded by the elegantly dressed evidence of the Republican congressman's power, businessman Mike Ward and his friend Joe Augello argued over hot wings and beer about the role Reynolds played in the House congressional- page scandal.

"Tommy sure got his butt kicked there, didn't he?" Ward said. "He knew about it and he didn't do enough, and I think it was because of politics."

Augello countered: "Tommy's done a great job for the area, and I don't think they've proven he did anything wrong."

Ward wasn't convinced, saying he had long supported Reynolds but now prefers the Democrat, millionaire businessman Jack Davis.

The House race is a repeat of the 2004 matchup, when Reynolds beat Davis with 56 percent of the vote. This time, the two have spent more money combined on their campaigns — $6 million and counting — than any previous House candidates in New York.

Reynolds is straining to hold onto his western New York seat, criticized for what he did — and didn't do — when he learned about the worrisome e-mails Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., sent last spring to a male teenager who had worked as a page.

Tied down fighting for a fifth term in the district, which stretches from the Buffalo suburbs to the outskirts of Rochester, Reynolds has not been able to put all of the time he'd expected toward helping other GOP campaigns. That's his role as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"All politics is local"

Reynolds is something of a master mechanic of electioneering, with an impressive track record of squeezing tens of millions of dollars out of donors, deploying money and manpower to crucial races and cultivating winning candidates.

"It's still about taking care of people. You see, I believe all politics is local," Reynolds said at the gala, echoing an axiom by the late Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill. "I've taught America to think that! I've taught every single candidate running for the Republican office of Congress to think about all politics is local."

To prove the point, Reynolds is spending nearly $4 million on a campaign that skewers his opponent on issues of Social Security and homeland security while touting the federal dollars he has brought back to the district.

The Foley furor has subsided, partly because of a record-setting snowfall that left piles of tree branches 6 feet high in many streets. Yet Reynolds' connection to the scandal hasn't melted away.

Last Tuesday, Reynolds testified for three hours before the House Ethics Committee. He said he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., about the e-mails, but Hastert says he doesn't remember the conversation. In a TV ad, Reynolds has apologized for not doing more when he first learned about Foley's behavior.

Davis has said the Foley scandal is further evidence that Reynolds is more focused on his Washington connections than his New York constituents. But long before the Foley matter came up, their race was competitive.

Against free trade

Davis is a maverick with an anti-free-trade platform, and he has pledged to spend more than $2 million trying to defeat Reynolds. The Akron businessman, who started an industrial heating-element company out of a garage, calls for stiff tariffs on Chinese goods to protect American manufacturing jobs.

"Western New Yorkers are being sacrificed on the front lines of the war on the middle class that's being waged by Congressman Reynolds and the multinational corporations that pay for his political campaigns," Davis said. Such fiery rhetoric resonates in a district that has watched its manufacturing base atrophy.

Even a whiff of the Foley scandal may prove to be a tipping point, said University at Buffalo political science chairman James Campbell.

"It may only have to be decisive for about 3 to 4 percent of voters to make the difference," Campbell said.