Democrats counting on stem cell stance in November

Democrats counting on stem-cell stance in November

By Jill Zuckman, The Chicago Tribune, March 26, 2006

WASHINGTON - As state Rep. Linda Stender tries to oust Republican Rep. Michael Ferguson from his congressional seat representing north-central New Jersey, she hopes the promise of embryonic stem cell research, and Ferguson's opposition to it, gives her a distinct advantage.

"If you know anybody who suffers from diabetes or Alzheimer's or has had a spinal cord injury, I think that you want to see a cure," Stender, a self-described "progressive," said in an interview. "There are people in my family that have been affected by terrible diseases. And I choose to put my faith in science to find a cure, and the promise of a cure appears to be in stem cell research."

Ferguson, a strong opponent of abortion, is clear in his opposition to stem cell research for moral reasons. But he insists he always has been a champion of medical and biotechnology research _issues important to the sizeable health care industry in his district_during his five years on Capitol Hill.

"I just think efforts to politicize this issue are misguided and will ultimately be unsuccessful, and that's because of my very strong record in field of health care," Ferguson said. He said his mother survived bone marrow cancer for six years thanks to scientific advances.

Democrats around the country are counting on the stem cell issue to give them a boost in November's congressional elections. On Monday, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., who heads the Democratic effort to retake the House, will visit New Jersey to join Stender in unveiling Internet ads targeting Ferguson and six other Republican candidates, including Illinois state Sen. Peter Roskam and Rick O'Donnell in Colorado, who oppose stem cell research.

"This is just another example where the president and people in Congress could care less for everyday folks out there," said Ed Perlmutter. Perlmutter, who has a daughter with epilepsy, is in a Democratic primary race in a district outside Denver and hopes to challenge O'Donnell in the fall.

The Democrats plan to push the issue especially hard in districts that are home to large medical or biotechnology industries, as well as politically moderate areas where a Republican officeholder has played a large role in opposing stem cell research.

Emanuel said the issue allows Democrats to appeal to women and to talk about their bigger message - that Republicans represent the status quo and are beholden to special interests, especially the religious right, while Democrats represent change and progress.

"The notion that you would stop us from finding that cure is fundamental to whether you will offer new priorities or the old priorities that got us here," Emanuel said.

But Republican strategists insist that such a specific issue will not decide any race. Rather, they say, the outcome will rest on larger concerns about Iraq and the economy. Carl Forti, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which seeks to win House seats for Republicans, dismissed the stem cell issue as the Democrats' latest obsession, one of a long series of hoped-for magic bullets.

"House races tend to be much more about pocketbook issues," Forti said. "I can guarantee you that there will not be a competitive House race in the country where stem cells are discussed in the paid media," meaning campaign advertisements.

The issue drew headlines early in President Bush's tenure when, in one of his first major decisions, he prohibited federal funding of embryonic stem cell research beyond certain existing stem cell lines. Since then, the issue has increasingly roiled Congress and has sparked debate in many states about whether to allow the research at all, regardless of the funding source.

On one side of the issue are advocates for people with cancer and other diseases, desperately hoping for a cure, who believe that using the versatile cells from human embryos provides the best chance for treating a range of diseases. On the other side are people, many of them strongly anti-abortion, who are morally opposed to destroying human embryos in the process of obtaining the stem cells.

The embryos are harvested from fertility clinics, and stem cell research advocates say they were going to be destroyed anyway.

Opinion polls suggest that voters support such research by a 2-to-1 ratio. Independent voters with the power to decide elections increasingly favor it as well, according to Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron who specializes in religion, said the problem for Republicans is that their coalition is divided over the issue, with a vocal minority adamantly opposed. Many Republicans are loath to alienate that minority.

"If you look at the core religious conservatives, Catholics and evangelicals, it seems unlikely that they would vote for the Democratic candidate, but they might stay home," Green said. "And that's always a problem in a close election."

The margins in the November congressional elections are likely to be extremely tight as Democrats try to eke out the 15-seat gain that would give them control of the House of Representatives. In the Senate, Democrats need to pick up six seats to win control, and they already are pushing the stem cell issue in Missouri and Maryland.

The issue could draw more attention if the Senate votes this spring, as many senators hope, on legislation to undo Bush's restriction on federally funded research. Last May, after four hours of emotional debate, the House passed a bill to overrule Bush's edict and expand the work beyond existing embryonic stem cell lines.

But the president has promised to use what may be his first veto to reject the measure. He and opponents of the research say that embryos, which are used to harvest stem cells, are human life and should not be destroyed.

The stem cell debate is playing out on the state level as well as the national scene. In Missouri and Wisconsin, state legislators have tried to outlaw all research on embryonic stem cells.

In Missouri, the issue is threatening to dominate the Senate race between Jim Talent, the Republican incumbent, and Claire McCaskill, the Democratic state auditor challenging him. Voters are expected to consider an initiative in November to amend the state constitution to protect the research.

"I think it's one of these issues that every candidate is going to have a position paper on it and it's going to be a question in every debate," said Jennifer Duffy, a political analyst with the non-partisan Cook Political Report.

"In places where (a referendum) is on the ballot, like Missouri, it's going to make a difference," Duffy added. But in most other races, she said, the Iraq war, ethics, health care costs and the economy are more likely to be important.

Nonetheless, candidates like Perlmutter and Stender say they plan to keep emphasizing their support for embryonic stem cell research.

"The Republican opponent here opposes any expansion of stem cell research," said Perlmutter, referring to O'Donnell. "There is a clear difference between the approach I'm taking and the approach he's taking. For him to not be willing to support that puts him out on the extreme." Neither O'Donnell nor his staff returned calls seeking comment.

Similarly, Stender said the issue provides a clear difference between her and Ferguson.

"I think he is completely wrong on this issue and he is out of step with the overwhelming number of people in this district and this state," Stender said. "It's consistent with his right-wing ideology, and he is hurting families."

Ferguson, however, said he has worked hard to promote scientific research in New Jersey precisely because he knows firsthand that it is important to families.

"I do an enormous amount of work on health care issues, partly because we have a major health care industry in our state and frankly because my heart is in it," Ferguson said. "I've seen the positive impact that advances in health care can have on people's lives."

This version of the report appeared in the Boston Globe

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