Moran's Character Dominates Va. Race

Moran has raised about $1 million and spent most of it, targeting 45,000 homes and spreading a much wider blanket of telephone calls and mail.

The campaign has unfolded as a contrast of styles and circumstances more than a clash of visions.

Rosenberg, a bachelor who lives in Old Town Alexandria and who took a leave as a seventh-year associate at Washington law firm Patton Boggs to campaign, has some connections in the capital legal community but is a political neophyte. His campaign could not afford to pay for television advertisements in Washington's expensive media market.

A last-minute radio ad touts Rosenberg's community activism "in everything from the Little League to the American Red Cross" and asks a woman whether she plans to vote Tuesday.

"Are you kidding? I don't want to vote for Jim Moran," she says, before being told, "Well . . . actually, you don't have to."

Rosenberg noted that Virginia voters do not register by party, so Democrats, Republicans and independents can vote.

"We welcome support from anyone who comes out to vote, but there's no effort on our part to get out the Republican vote. This is a Democratic primary," said Rosenberg, a Philadelphia native and University of Virginia law and graduate school degree holder.

"If we had money to go on TV, that would have been a great opportunity, but that costs a lot of money," he said.

Moran, who is engaged to be married next weekend for the third time and is moving into a McLean mansion, has racked up establishment support ranging from labor unions to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, from 48 locally elected Democrats to such high-profile liberals as Dean and Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.).

Under a header "Seeing is believing," a typical Moran mailing lists 23 categories of projects through which he has helped to funnel billions of federal dollars to constituents, from library technology for Arlington and Alexandria schools to defense contracts to drug and gang law enforcement grants to support for Wolf Trap and Classika Theater: "You don't have to ask what Jim Moran has done for Northern Virginia. . . . His accomplishments are all around."

Moran chose not to raise large amounts of cash in favor of a kaffeeklatsch campaign. Friends said Moran has become more guarded this year, if not withdrawn, limiting the role of an inner circle that included Dean media consultant Joe Trippi; Mame Reiley, an aide to Gov. Mark R. Warner (D); and Secrest.

"I happened to be running a grass-roots campaign for a long time. I had a sense I was getting out of touch with the people I served," Moran said. "I preferred to spend my time with the people who actually vote and to relate directly to them, and that's why I wanted to run a different kind of campaign."

Tuesday's election will decide whether Moran continues a cycle of trial and recovery that has marked his entire career.

He resigned as Alexandria vice mayor in 1984 after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charge for voting on a city garage project in which he was an investor. Moran was later elected mayor and the verdict set aside.

While a congressman, Moran has withstood criticism from public-interest groups for accepting, among other things, an unsecured $25,000 loan from a drug company lobbyist whose bill he supported and a $447,000 debt consolidation mortgage package from a credit card giant whose legislation he carried.

A shoving match on the House floor with a colleague, for which Moran later apologized, a challenge to box then-D.C. Mayor Marion Barry (D) for charity and a dispute with his ex-wife that drew a police response all became part of Moran's bad-boy lore.

Rosenberg, dogged and diligent, said Moran has reached the end of the line. "He failed to understand what was going on with voter fatigue at what he's done. . . . He's been unapologetic and defiant," Rosenberg said.

Moran, in a Boston accent familiar to cable TV news viewers as well as constituents, said: "I can live with myself. When I look in the mirror, I know I am looking at someone who is very human but tries to do the right thing, who believes in this country, believes in the community that I serve and will continue to [serve], whatever happens politically."