Both Parties in Ky. Battle Try to Take Right Flank

But Lewis said Weaver cannot escape association with his party.

"If you look at the national Democrat party and their platform, the Democrats of the 2nd District do not line up with that," he said.

Lewis spokesman Michael Dodge said he does not dispute that Weaver is as socially conservative as the congressman, but he warns that once in Washington the colonel would be taking orders from liberal leaders such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Those are fighting words in these parts, where Christian singer Michael W. Smith can be heard singing praise and worship songs on the radio at Chick-Fil-A.

The district, which President Bush won with 65 percent of the vote in 2004, is a string of rural farming communities interrupted only by towns such as Elizabethtown, population 23,000. The Kentucky 2nd is anchored by Elizabethtown in the north, Bowling Green in the south and Owensboro in the west.

The area is in transition. Tobacco farmers are converting to soybeans and corn. Military life is changing, too. Fort Knox, the Army base that drew thousands of military personnel to Radcliff and turned them into lifelong district residents, survived the most recent round of cutbacks but lost its armor school, which trains personnel for armored warfare.

The latest change is that the district is once again an interesting place to watch an election. The Republican congressman this week aired campaign commercials -- the first time a challenger has forced him to do that in eight years -- and he plans to spend well over $1 million to defend his seat.

Given the scant difference on social issues, Lewis is taking aim at Weaver over tax cuts. In one of the new ads, Lewis warns that Weaver would vote for tax increases as he did several times in the state assembly. "That voting record doesn't line up" with traditional values, Lewis said. That he is going negative this early suggests Weaver's internal polling -- showing the GOP lead in single digits -- might be on target.

Weaver, in an interview, concedes that he would support repealing the Bush tax cuts that benefit the richest 1 percent of taxpayers, but he refused to detail any specifics. He walked a similar line on the Iraq war. He criticized Bush's planning and execution of the war, and he demanded that the president put forth a plan for withdrawal, but he has not backed any timetables himself. And, no matter the question, his instinct is to turn the conversation back to his biography.

"My faith and values were taught and nurtured in my home," he said, "then taught and nurtured in the school system, which happened to be a Catholic school. It was also taught and nurtured in a church -- and confirmed in a foxhole. That is my faith and values, and I match that with anyone."