Kansas Congresswoman Isn't Capitalizing on Her (D)

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 31, 2008

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- Rep. Nancy Boyda wants voters in her Kansas district to know that she works hard, is moderate and worries about the middle class. What she doesn't advertise is that she's a Democrat.

Even in an election that is shaping up to be stellar for Democrats, when analysts predict the party will claim the White House and significantly expand its majorities in Congress to cement control over Washington, Boyda and more than two dozen other Democrats are trying to play down their ties to the party.

"When someone asks 'Are you a Republican or a Democrat?' I throw my arms around them," said Boyda, a centrist who voted against the $700 billion rescue plan for Wall Street.

Boyda and other Democrats who got elected on an anti-Republican wave two years ago are trying to defend those seats in conservative districts that were easily carried by President Bush in 2004. Dozens more are challenging Republican incumbents or seriously competing for open seats in GOP territory -- a sign that Democrats have made inroads.

"Anywhere that's happening, they're competitive because they're putting distance between themselves and party," said David Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

The word "Democrat" does not appear on Boyda's campaign literature, on her bumper stickers, or on the outsize signs farmers stick in their wheat and cornfields. In gatherings with voters, she scrupulously avoids mentioning party. Boyda frequently talks about the failings of Washington, even though she has spent the past two years working there as a member of Congress and wants voters to send her back.

She stayed home from the Democratic National Convention, saying she preferred time with family and constituents to schmoozing with party leaders. She declined the health insurance available to members of Congress, saying she would rather endure the "nightmare" of private insurance to better understand the struggles her constituents face.

And she is the only freshman Democrat in a tight House race to refuse help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which was prepared to spend more than $1 million on her race, an amount that would have nearly doubled her campaign coffers. Boyda declined to join the Frontline Democrats program, which provides fundraising and strategic help to vulnerable incumbents.

"What I wanted was to be able to make independent decisions about how I ran this campaign," said Boyda, 53, a chemist before entering politics. "What I'm fighting against is Washington's control over me, my message, the way I run."

In what has become one of her stock tales, Boyda likes to describe her first run for office in 2004. She hired Washington political consultants. They imposed their will. She tanked. It was a disaster.

She ran again in 2006, but on her own terms, with her husband as campaign manager. They bought airtime on farm radio and used a $99 software program to produce newspaper inserts about her positions on the military, the economy and other issues -- a low-tech formula she is repeating this election. Boyda surprised both parties by unseating 10-year incumbent Republican Jim Ryun.

Boyda's opponent, State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins, is hoping her background as a certified public accountant will appeal to voters in the midst of an economic crisis. Even though Republicans outnumber Democrats in her district 42 percent to 30 percent, she, too, is trying to create distance between herself and her party. "I don't have to tell you this, but Washington, D.C., has failed us," Jenkins said in an April speech. "Let's not mince words. The Democrats are failing us right now. But Republicans have also failed us in recent years."

Jenkins has the difficult task of trying to persuade voters to "fire their member of Congress twice in a row," and she doesn't appear to be making headway, Wasserman said. He recently changed his rating of the race from "tossup" to "leans Democratic."

Still, Boyda is taking no chances. At coffee last week with supporters in the relatively liberal college town of Lawrence, Boyda declined several chances to say anything supportive about Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), who is expected to generate a massive voter turnout that could help Democrats such as Boyda.

"I've stayed away from presidential politics," she demurred when an Obama supporter asked whether she prefers Obama's health-care plan to Republican John McCain's. "I just don't get into it. I stay in my lane."

In the depressed farm town of Atchison, Boyda changed into cowboy boots to walk the route of the annual Halloween parade, lined with weathered men in Caterpillar caps and middle-aged women in sweat shirts. A candidate for county commissioner rode on a tractor. Many said they would be voting Republican at the top of the ticket.

"Not Obama" is how Robert Hosier described his choice for president. Hosier, a single father of two young boys, sat on the broken concrete sidewalk along Commercial Street, across from the Salvation Army. He is 45, but with a graying beard and worried eyes, looks a decade older. He earns $21,000 a year as a security guard and has no health insurance.

He thinks he might vote for Boyda. "She hasn't been that bad," he said, even though the economic crisis has ignited his anger at Congress. "I say throw them all out and start over again and get some common people in there."

While she refused help from the DCCC, Boyda has accepted more than $50,000 in donations from political action committees controlled by Democratic House leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), the subject of pending ethics investigations.

"If you're sending a check back, you're sending a strong statement," Boyda said, explaining why she kept the money. "I did it because it's crazy out there. I have to raise money."

An independent arm of the DCCC also recently reserved $104,000 worth of television airtime to promote Boyda in the last days of the campaign.

That offered Boyda yet another opportunity to exert her independence. In an open letter she wrote, "If anyone who is running ads in my support is reading this letter, here's my message to you: Thanks, but no thanks. Please stay out of my race."