The House: Political Genes and Reaganomics

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Glen Warner, the Republican candidate for Ohio's Eleventh Congressional District seat, likes to tell the story of two doctors treating a man with acute appendicitis. One tells the patient he will need an operation; it will be painful, but he will not die. The other offers the man morphine. In Warner's view, Democratic opponent Dennis Eckart is the man with the morphine and the wrong prescription for the district's ailing economy. To Eckart, Warner is a man who would trifle with people's lives for the sake of economic theory. Says Eckart: "We need a government that cares about working people."

The district clearly needs a fix of some kind. Once one of the state's fastest-growing areas, with an enviable mix of farming and light and heavy industry, it is suffering the worst battering since the Depression. Unemployment among workers, nearly 50% of them blue collar, is running above the state average of 12.5% in four of the district's five counties.

Warner, 42, an executive in his family's plastics corporation in Ashtabula and former G.O.P county chairman, served in the Baptist ministry until nine years ago. Now he preaches economic salvation through Reaganomics. He favors an extension of unemployment benefits as a temporary remedy but otherwise counsels patience. "We have paid 70% of the cost of a revitalized economy," he insists, "and if we switch theory and people now, we lose that investment."

Now 32, Eckart is a "boy wonder" who served three terms as a state representative and two years as a Congressman from Cleveland's suburban 22nd District before losing his seat through redistricting. Determined to return to the House, Eckart moved his family 20 miles to the Eleventh District. Despite charges of carpetbagging, he handily won the Democratic nomination in the June primary, taking 56% of the vote.

A pragmatic liberal, Eckart supports a nuclear freeze and handgun control. He has been pressing hardest on the unemployment issue, telling voters he favors federally funded job-training programs. Eckart is believed to have a slight edge, but the race is very close. The district's congressional seat has been in Republican hands for 20 years, but that has been largely due to the popularity of Representative J. William Stanton, 58, who is retiring because of poor health. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 34% to 21%. Says State Republican Chairman Michael Colley: "It's a horse race."