The House: Personalities on Stage

Halloween in Houston

Before the 70 first-graders at Stephens Elementary School north of Houston could perform a Halloween pageant for their families last week, Democratic Congressman Bob Eckhardt and Republican Challenger Jack Fields, 28, put on their own show.

Fields, a vice president of his family's cemetery company, started by declaring: "Eckhardt represents everything that is wrong with this country. He would destroy the free enterprise system and destroy the work ethic." Charged Fields of the seven-term incumbent: "He voted nine times for busing [to desegregate schools]. He voted against the B-l bomber. He voted for gun control. He voted to give tax dollars to Communist countries."

Eckhardt, 67, looking like a rumpled professor in his tweed suit and bow tie, but sounding like a Southern populist, replied that many of the charges were false. Said he: "I have never voted for a statute that would call for forced busing. I have never been for gun control, and I helped beat registration of rifles and shotguns." He claimed that the campaign ("the dirtiest I've ever encountered") was the work of ghosts hovering behind the scenes. Said he: "The $600,000 raised by oil companies [for Fields] is being used to repeat absolute lies. They're not concerned with gun control and these other things. They're concerned about their pocketbooks."

Eckhardt has long tilted at the oil companies, fighting for continued price controls on some categories of oil and for a strong windfall-profits tax. This year these positions have come back to haunt him. Oil executives and many of the Sunbelt migrants to his district dislike Eckhardt's liberalism. But in east Houston, where most of his district's 30% blacks and Hispanics live, Eckhardt has strong backing from those who work in the huge refineries. As he said last week at a union hall while introducing Senator Edward Kennedy, who was on a Texas swing for President Carter: "My supporters make the riches but don't share in the profits."

The challenger, an athletic political novice, has worn out four pairs of shoes while knocking on 20,000 doors in 18 months. He has got strategic and financial help from the national Republican Party, including prepackaged issue papers designed to appeal to conservatives on matters like school prayers (favored) and abortion (opposed).

Fields, who claims that only 20% of his money comes from oil-related contributions, will outspend Eckhardt by $600,000 to $150,000. "I've got a hell of a race on my hands," admits Eckhardt. "In the past, I've beaten a challenger who outspent me 3 to 1, and now I'll see if I can beat one who'll outspend me 4 to 1."

Star Wars in Los Angeles

Only in the land of Tinsel Town could there be such a race. The Republican incumbent, Robert Dornan, 47, is a former B-movie actor and Emmy-winning TV talk show host. His challenger is Democrat Carey Peck, 31, son of Gregory Peck and a former Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal and Senate aide. The set: a onetime Republican stronghold that includes the Los Angeles suburbs of Santa Monica, Venice and Marina del Rey. Voters run the gamut from Ronald Reagan to Jane Fonda. Allows a Republican official: "The district is eccentric."