Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.), center, with Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Pat McCrory and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (left to right) during Greenspan's recent visit to Charlotte. (AP)

By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 11, 1998; Page A01

RALEIGH, N.C.—The highly charged race between Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.) and Democratic trial lawyer John Edwards has something for everyone: a clash of ideologies, generations, powerful economic interests and personal styles.

The issues cover everything from health care to hogs. There is even a cameo role for the District of Columbia, which has been at sword's point with Faircloth since he became its Senate overseer last year.

The Faircloth-Edwards race is also shaping up as one of the closest Senate contests this year in a state that often seems to split down the middle between its tobacco fields and high-tech Research Triangle, between the progressive politics of Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt and the conservative causes of Republican Sen. Jesse Helms.

Senate hopeful John Edwards at his campaign headquarters after winning the May 5 Democratic Primary. (AP)

History argues for a suspenseful outcome. While Helms is now part way through his sixth term, no incumbent has been reelected to North Carolina's other Senate seat since former senator Sam Ervin (D) of Watergate fame was elected to his last term in 1968.

Even the candidates cannot agree on what the race is about.

"It's going to boil down ultimately to liberal and conservative," Faircloth said recently. "I represent a conservative approach to government, while he [Edwards] has said he would be a 'warrior' for trial lawyers and labor unions."

Edwards frames the choice in more populist terms, characterizing himself as a "people's advocate" who would reach across the ideological divide and "speak up for people whose voices are not being heard today in Washington," as he puts it in campaign literature.

Faircloth is "the only incumbent who's running behind" at this point, said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Bob Kerrey (Neb.) during a swing through here recently, basing his assessment on party polls. Republicans dispute his assessment but concede that the race looks tight. "It's going to be a very competitive race, but we feel comfortable," said David Hansen, political director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Given the apparent closeness of the race, both parties are giving it top-priority billing. While GOP control of the Senate is not in jeopardy, Republicans are looking to add to their 55 to 45 majority rather than lose ground and run the risk of a serious Democratic takeover bid in two years. For the Democrats, every seat gained is one step closer to eventual control.

Along with several other Senate contests in the South this fall, the North Carolina showdown may also help tell whether Democrats have stanched their political hemorrhage in the region and begun to regain some of the ground they lost to Republicans over the last several election cycles.

"The question is whether Republicans can make a marginal gain or Democrats make a marginal comeback," with the Faircloth-Edwards race figuring prominently in this equation, said Merle Black, professor of politics at Emory University in Georgia. But, with Republicans now holding two of every three Senate seats from the South – a reversal of the parties' balance of power only a decade ago – there are fewer opportunities for gain and greater risks.

"Republicans in the South used to win on Democratic mistakes," said Black. "Now they have to win on their own."

It's hard to find a race this year that presents the voters with a choice on issues, philosophy and personality as stark as this one in North Carolina.

Faircloth, 70, is a wealthy hog farmer, businessman and former high-ranking state official who got involved in North Carolina politics before Edwards was born. He spent nearly all of his political life as a Democrat, turning Republican shortly before he successfully challenged then-Sen. Terry Sanford (D), a friend-turned-foe, in 1992.

He has a genial, rumpled, homespun manner – along with a sharp tongue, hard-edged conservatism and combative style that led him into high-decibel conflict with President Clinton almost from the moment both of them arrived in Washington.

But he also has a streak of pragmatism that more recently has caused him to shift focus to such voter-friendly issues as consumer protection, the environment and federal dollars for North Carolina – for projects ranging from lighthouse restoration and mountain parkland acquisition to a law enforcement communications network.

As chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee for the District, Faircloth was almost single-handedly responsible for stripping Mayor Marion Barry of most of his operational authority. He has invoked Barry's name in speeches and fund-raising letters, prompting complaints of "racial overtones" from Barry. The mayor is also featured prominently in a television ad that the NRSC has been running on Faircloth's behalf for nearly a month.

Edwards, 45, is also rich, with pockets deep enough to pump about $3 million into his winning Democratic primary race – and, if need be, his race against Faircloth.

And, like Faircloth, Edwards came from a relatively modest background. Faircloth took over the family hog farm when he was 19, after his father died. Edwards grew up in the small town of Robbins, N.C., where his father worked in a textile mill and his mother ran a small shop.

But the similarities do not extend much beyond the just-plain-folks roots.

As a nationally recognized trial lawyer who specializes in liability lawsuits against insurance companies, Edwards is a skilled, articulate advocate who knows how to woo a jury and has made millions doing so – for his clients and himself. He is slim, telegenic and earnest, with a nicely trimmed mop of brown hair and a broad, ready smile.

Although he rejects labels of all kinds, Edwards seems to be in tune with the centrist wing of the Democratic Party, with a platform that stresses crime control, including support for capital punishment, as well as the more familiar Democratic fare of education, health care and protecting the environment. His environmental plank includes a proposal to "require industrial hog producers to use more effective treatment technology" – a barbed reminder of the fine that one of Faircloth's farms received for river pollution.

Edwards has ruled out contributions from lobbyists and political action committees (PACs) and appears to be relying heavily on support from other lawyers. Business interests, especially those he has sued, are lining up largely behind Faircloth.

One of Edwards' biggest issues – a natural outgrowth of his work as a plaintiffs' attorney – arises out of legislation backed by Clinton and congressional Democrats to crack down on restrictions imposed by managed-care insurance plans to control costs, including curbs on patient choice and limitations on treatment choices.

North Carolinians need "a senator who speaks for them and not the health insurance industry and the HMOs [health maintenance organizations]," Edwards said at a news conference here last week, joined by Kerrey and three health care professionals who also supported the legislation.

The issue worked for Edwards in the primary and has resonated nearly everywhere, apparently including Faircloth's own strategy councils.

A day after Edwards's news conference, Faircloth called one of his own, ostensibly about a meeting he had just concluded with credit union officials. But instead he opened with a statement about managed care, stressing his support for a GOP alternative to the Clinton proposals. Then he tried to turn the issue against Edwards by charging that the Democratic bill, by including a patient's right to sue for unwarranted denial of benefits, would drive up costs to the point that "socialized medicine" would result.

Separate from the two campaigns, rival outside groups that include insurers and trial lawyers have been running competing ads attacking each other's positions.

Democrats have struck out in recent efforts to run wealthy, self-financed candidates, mostly former corporate executives, but figure they have something different in Edwards because of his demonstrated skills in legal combat. The Faircloth camp, however, is poised to portray him as a slick, money-obsessed "personal injury lawyer," as they put it in nearly every news release. And Edwards's lack of legislative experience has already tripped him up a few times.

He told North Carolina bankers that he thought credit unions should be taxed like banks if they compete with them, then backed off, giving Faircloth an opening to accuse him of flip-flopping. On the day the Senate voted to kill the big tobacco bill, Edwards refused to say how he would have voted, saying he was not sure of the bill's final contents, and waited a week to say that he, like Faircloth, would have voted to shelve the legislation.