BALTIMORE -- Name a U.S. House race in Maryland that is one of the tightest in the country, will help decide who controls Congress, is costing both national parties huge sums of money, and pits an admired, battle-tested Republican woman against a younger, up-and-coming Democratic man.
Hint: It isn't necessarily the scramble between Rep. Constance A. Morella and state Sen. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. in Montgomery and Prince George's counties.
Barely a half-hour north on Interstate 95, an equally pitched battle is being fought between former representative Helen Delich Bentley and Baltimore County Executive C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger. The contest matches a gruff-talking conservative, who has remained an icon for Reagan Democrats since stepping down in 1994, against a cheerful bear of a man, who has led Maryland's third-largest jurisdiction for eight years -- sweeping every precinct in his last election.
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The seat is being vacated by Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who is running for governor. Maryland Democrats gerrymandered both Morella and Ehrlich's districts to cut the GOP's six-seat majority in the House and initially considered the election an easy win for Ruppersberger.
But Bentley's out-of-retirement bid derailed any early celebration. Since September, national Democrats have spent more than $1 million on television spots attacking her votes against tax credits for working families and expanded Medicare benefits.
The national GOP last week launched commercials of its own, beginning a $600,000 ad buy that portrays Ruppersberger as a tool of developers and insensitive to workers' interests.
With polls showing the race dead even, party heavyweights are parachuting in. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) campaigns with Ruppersberger today, and former New York City mayor Rudolph Guiliani arrives for Bentley this weekend.
Maryland's 2nd District stretches south to Anne Arundel County and northeast to Harford County, but its heart is Baltimore County. It circles three-fourths of the Baltimore Beltway, taking in a flavorful stew of brawny union neighborhoods, mostly black inner-city enclaves and soccer-family suburbs.
Bentley, now 78, represented this area in Congress from 1984 to 1994 -- after 24 years covering it as a television host, editor and reporter for the Baltimore Sun assigned to the city's port. Tooling around in a station wagon with a "BUY USA" license plate, her blue-collar background, ethnic Serb roots and pro-union protectionism made her a hero to dock- and steelworkers.
In 1987, the congresswoman grabbed the national spotlight when she smashed a Toshiba radio with a sledgehammer at the U.S. Capitol after the Japanese manufacturer sold U.S. submarine secrets to the Soviets. After the Persian Gulf War in 1991, she mused that the United States should "nuke" Saddam Hussein.
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Bentley, who possesses a dockworker's vocabulary, has not mellowed in her latest campaign.
"I still have that vim for all the issues important to me," she said at a forum in Timonium, listing a national missile defense system and a "national industrial base in America . . . not in China, not in Singapore, either."
Ruppersberger, 56, has sought to offset his opponent's charisma by focusing on Democrats' kitchen-table themes -- chiefly the party's prescription drug plan for seniors and defense of Social Security.
"We're right on the issues," he said. "Polls show we're right on the issues.
After 16 years as county executive and council member, Ruppersberger is well known locally in his own right. A gregarious handshaker who makes friends easily on the campaign trail, he legally changed his name to Dutch early in his career because it fit better on a bumper sticker.
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Still, he limped out of a tough, five-way primary last month with barely 50 percent of the vote. In the general election campaign, he has highlighted the support of popular Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley.
"When the mayor of Baltimore or the county executives come to see me, I know what they want because I'm trying to get it right now," Ruppersberger said, touting his own county's management and job growth. "I've been working with federal government, state government my whole career."
Bentley's age has become an increasingly sharp focal point in the race. If elected, she would be the second-oldest House member.
"Helen Bentley retired eight years ago. I've been actively governing Baltimore County seven days a week," Ruppersberger says in a stock campaign line.
Fellow Democrats such as Del. Robert A. Zirkin (Baltimore County) are blunter: "No disrespect, but I think you need youth and vigor and energy to represent this district," which spans four counties, a city, two Army posts, a port and an airport.
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Bentley counters that her nonstop campaigning shows she has plenty of energy. "Look at Strom Thurmond," she said, invoking the senator who in five weeks will turn 100. "I'm in better health at this age than Strom was."
Ruppersberger's greatest vulnerability appears to be a local issue, his support for a revitalization initiative in a high-crime neighborhood southeast of Baltimore that would have taken homes and businesses for redevelopment. The measure failed 2 to 1 in a 2000 referendum.
He also has suffered from a fuzzy message. At first, he first emphasized his "fresh perspective," until Bentley fired back that he was untested. Ruppersberger now stresses his executive experience.
Bentley has no trouble communicating. Asked what would decide the race, she said flatly, "Integrity."
Her previous political career ended with a failed bid for governor in 1994. In luring her back into the fray, GOP House leaders promised she would return with seniority intact to the Appropriations Committee. President Bush also helped out, handing potential party rival Ellen R. Sauerbrey -- who defeated Bentley in that '94 primary -- an ambassadorship to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.
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She is benefiting from coattails. Ehrlich is clobbering the Democrats' gubernatorial nominee, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, by 20 percentage points in the district, pulling crossover votes to Bentley. The polls have seesawed repeatedly, though, and the latest survey shows Ruppersberger ahead 47 percent to 43 percent.
"The fact of the matter is, Democrats are having to spend money to shore up or compete in a seat they've already counted as a victory," said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Steve Schmidt.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, one of Maryland's senior Democrats on Capitol Hill, doesn't argue the point. "The 2nd District, I think, is made to order for Dutch Ruppersberger," Hoyer said. "It ought to be tight -- but not this tight."
County Executive C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, center, greets Delaino Johnson at the Cherry Hill Shopping Center. His bid was initially seen as an easy win. Former representative Helen Delich Bentley's decision to come out of retirement set up a battle for the congressional district.
