Page Scandal Complicates Race For 'Mr. Clout'

AMHERST, N.Y., Oct. 3 -- Possessed of a pleasant smile and a sweet demeanor, 60-year-old Eleanore Klepser represents something of a nightmare for local Republicans.

She is a registered Republican and she has always -- always -- voted for her local congressman, Thomas M. Reynolds, a Republican. But she is following this scandal about the congressional pages, and she suspects Reynolds just might have covered up the actions of a fellow Republican congressman who sent suggestive e-mails to a teenager who had worked in the House.

"Why didn't he do more? That's what I wonder," Klepser said as she walked down a street in her well-heeled suburb northeast of Buffalo. "Was he paying close enough attention? Was he covering something up?

"These aren't great questions to ask a month before an election."

Reynolds supporters would not argue with that. What appeared to be a political stroll for the Republican known locally as "Mr. Clout" has become a campaign sprint. And Reynolds's biggest headache is the role he played in the unfolding controversy around the teenage congressional pages. This spring, Reynolds, who is among the Republican leadership in the House, learned that Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) had sent an inappropriate e-mail to a 16-year-old former page that troubled the teenager's parents.

When word of the that and other e-mails broke last week -- along with news of far more explicit online instant messages -- Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) at first denied knowing anything about the scandal. But Reynolds told the media that he had told Hastert of the initial e-mail this spring; Hastert has said he does not recall this conversation, but he also has not denied that it might have taken place.

Now many, including Reynolds's Democratic challenger, are asking why Reynolds did not follow up on the complaint. They are also raising questions about the role of Reynolds's chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who used to serve as chief of staff to Foley. In the days leading up to Foley's resignation, Reynolds allowed Fordham to advise the Florida congressman. A recent local poll reports that the race in New York's 26th Congressional District -- which reaches from suburban Buffalo across farm country and into Rochester -- is too close to call.

Reynolds's Democratic challenger, Jack Davis, is a millionaire and former Republican who says he fell out with the GOP when Vice President Cheney's staffers tried to prevent him from talking with the media in 2003 during a fundraiser in Buffalo. Now he is tossing bales of his own money into the campaign furnaces in hopes of overtaking Reynolds. Davis, 72, has the outspoken cockiness that comes with not working for anyone else. Most days he talks about free trade, which he loathes, and illegal immigrants, all of whom he would deport, and the nation's steady loss of high-paying working-class jobs to "Communist China."

But on Tuesday, he made an exception.

"I want to beat Reynolds on my issues, but of course it's nice to have him screw up," Davis said as he paced the office in his factory in Akron, N.Y. "When Reynolds heard about the problems with the pages, he should have shown due diligence and investigated. This is all about power and all about money, and it stinks."

Reynolds remains no easy mark. He occupies a district tailored for Republicans, and he has directed tens of millions of dollars into the region, recently gaining a reprieve for an air base slated for closing. When he held a news conference Monday evening at Daemen College, reporters passed the Thomas Reynolds Center for Special Education, funded with $1.9 million from the politician.

He directs the National Republican Congressional Committee with a practiced hand and is mentioned as a possible future speaker of the House.

A lot of voters appreciate Reynolds's acumen, especially in this economically battered corner of New York. "We're losing a lot of jobs and industry, and we need someone who knows how to fight," said Sam Mairorana, a retired salesman in Williamsville. "A lot of folks I know are thinking about voting against Reynolds. I'm not sure we can afford it."

Reynolds returned to Buffalo on Monday and walked into a news conference affecting a jaunty air. He slapped a supporter's back, smiled at the 25 children whom his campaign aides had arranged around him, then turned to face the media and charges that he had helped cover up misconduct.

"I did what most employees do," he said. "I heard something, and I took it to my supervisor, the speaker of the House."

He could not remember when this conversation had taken place, however, nor what the speaker's reaction had been. As the questions kept coming, sweat beaded on his forehead, and he cut off questions. "I don't know what more I could have done," he said. Asked whether Hastert had done enough, Reynolds shrugged. "Look, I don't know. . . . You'll have to ask him."