10/29/2006 by Wayne Nelson

Richard Nixon was settling into his first term in the White House and the Watergate break in was still three years away in 1969 when David Obey was seated in the U.S. House to represent Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District.

With his 37 years of seniority, the Wausau Democrat is the ranking minority member on the powerful Appropriations Committee, and will become its chairman if Democrats regain a House majority for the first time since 1994. His two challengers — neither with elective experience — are trying to make his 19-term longevity the issue as poll after poll confirms a public disillusioned with both houses, and the two major parties.

One is Green Party candidate Mike Miles, who ran against Obey in 2004 and finished second with 26,000 votes, 9 percent of the total. “I spent less than $5,000 and was one of the most successful third party candidates,” Miles said.

The Republican candidate dropped out too late in the race to be replaced. Obey then shifted his focus to supporting the Kerry-Edwards Democratic ticket, refusing to debate his only remaining challenger, Miles said. Using guerilla campaign tactics reminiscent of filmmaker Michael Moore’s pursuit of General Motors’ CEO Roger Smith in “Roger & Me,” Miles finished with twice the number of votes needed to be considered a major party candidate this time.

“It’s indicative of how the two parties operate,” he said. “If a Republican doesn’t run, the Democrat considers the race uncontested.”

Obey is cautious, perhaps sensitive to the diminished power of incumbency this year. He won’t talk about his priorities as appropriations chairman should his party regain control of the House.

But he doesn’t seem too concerned about his own reelection.

As in 2004, he’s visibly supporting Democrats anywhere who can help upend Republican control in Washington, DC.

He spent a rainy Saturday afternoon in Duluth in late September at a Democratic-Farmer-Labor picnic designed to charge up the party’s base and get out the vote for Minnesota Democrats running for federal office. At the rally and in an interview, he ticked off some of the federal legislation a Democratic majority would introduce in 2007:

• Increase the federal minimum wage, unchanged at $5.15 an hour since 1997.

• Increase federal funding to help reduce college tuition.

• Protect private sector pensions, with the same rules applying to highest and lowest-paid employees.

Obey also is trying to protect incumbent Wisconsin Gov. James Doyle, who is challenged by Obey’s fellow congressional traveler from Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Green Bay Republican.

“(Doyle) dealt with the nation’s No. 1 budget deficit per capita, and did it with a recalcitrant (Republican majority) Legislature,” Obey said.

He accuses Green of contributing to the budget woes of Wisconsin, Minnesota and many other states by supporting irresponsible Republican budgets in five of his six years in Congress that cut domestic spending.

“The only one he opposed was the last one, after he decided to run for governor,” Obey said.

The challengers

At age 26, Reid, a Superior native, barely passes the minimum age (25) for holding a House seat. He moved to Rice Lake in 2005 after returning from Washington where he worked for conservative and Republican causes.

Most recently he was the press secretary for U.S. Rep. James Ryun, R-Kansas. Before that, he served for three years as the legislative liaison for the Heritage Foundation, leaving the conservative think tank as its deputy director for U.S. Senate relations. Reid couldn’t be reached for comment for this story.

His Web site, www.friendsofnickreid. com, details an agenda with a good dose of Republican orthodoxy. He’s pro-life, pro-gun, against gay marriage, supports lower taxes, the Bush national security/anti-terror campaign and drilling for oil and gas in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. He also supports the universal healthcare model that’s being implemented in Massachusetts by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney.

While their philosophies are widely dissimilar, Reid and Green Party candidate Miles have found common ground in their efforts to force the incumbent to take their campaigns seriously. Both were eager to participate in a debate faculty at Nicolet Technical College in Rhinelander were organizing. Obey refused and the college’s administration set conditions that killed the effort, Miles said.

“Obey calls the shots, he’s just not accountable to the people,” Miles said, noting an irony: the overlap of many values shared by both Democrats and Greens. “I’m challenging and outdoing him on his issues,” Miles said.

He’s campaigning for broader access to healthcare; further campaign finance reform; greater public funding of K-12 education and to offset rising tuition costs at public universities; labor law reform to make union organizing easier; opposition to privatizing Social Security; tougher future language in trade agreements to protect human rights and the environment; and reduced reliance on foreign oil.

Miles wants to go faster and further on some of these issues, most clearly on the alternative energy front. “We need something akin to a ‘Manhattan Project’ to develop renewable energy, including manufacturing of windmills and photovoltaic panels.

“I’m telling you, there’s a boatload of money to be made. All the windmills are coming from Denmark now because you cannot get them from U.S. suppliers,” he said.

Miles has practiced sustainable farming near Luck for the past 20 years. Using some of those renewable technologies, he’s taken two of his farm buildings “off the grid.”

Further details about the sustainable eco-village he’s created are available on his farm Web site, www.anathothcommunityfarm.org. His campaign Web site is www.milesforcongress.com.

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