U.S. CONGRESS LaTourette, Cafaro battle to represent 14th District
This may be the only competitive congressional race in Ohio, an expert says.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
MENTOR -- He's a five-term congressman in a district redrawn by fellow Republicans to ensure his re-election bid. She just moved into the district, is 26 years old and has never run for office.
Yet the 14th Congressional District race pitting U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, a Concord Republican, against Democrat Capri Cafaro of Hunting Valley may be the only competitive U.S. House race in the state this year.
"She's a quality challenger, which is something LaTourette hasn't had in years," said John Green, director of the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics. "It looks like the making of a good race, probably the only good congressional race in Ohio."
LaTourette said Cafaro isn't the most serious challenger he's faced. That honor goes to Tom Coyne, who was the mayor of Brook Park when he challenged the congressman in 1996. LaTourette got about 55 percent of the vote that year.
Wealth factor
But LaTourette said he is aggressively running against Cafaro, primarily because of her personal wealth and willingness to use it for her campaign.
"When you have an unlimited amount of money, you can do a lot of things," he said. "I can't find that she has any experience at any job that wasn't delivered by her family. I marvel at people who don't learn the ropes before they decide to play in the Super Bowl."
Cafaro is the daughter of J.J. Cafaro, an executive with the Cafaro Co., one of the nation's largest real estate and shopping center developers, and one of the Valley's wealthiest families.
If Cafaro beats LaTourette in November, she will be the youngest female elected to Congress.
Cafaro easily won a five-person Democratic primary in March. She acknowledged that money played a part in her victory. She used $211,560 of her own money, or 90 percent of the amount she raised. Though she plans to continue spending her money, Cafaro also will raise cash from donors.
The race is expected to be among the most expensive in Ohio, Green said.
"People will vote for the candidate who has the best position on issues, and not who makes the most TV commercial buys," said LaTourette, who has almost $700,000 in his campaign war chest as of the most recent federal filing, through March 31, compared with about $5,000 for Cafaro.
When asked if a wealthy person can relate to the middle class, Cafaro said, "How did JFK and FDR relate? I have the same vested interest as anyone in Northeast Ohio: to make our area a better place."
Her biography
Cafaro said she won the primary because her message of improving Northeast Ohio through a regional approach involving the current Democratic House members in the area resonated with voters. LaTourette is the only Republican House member from Northeast Ohio.
LaTourette, a former Lake County prosecutor, criticizes Cafaro's r & eacute;sum & eacute;. But she said people did the same thing to Tim Ryan of Niles before he defeated U.S. Rep. Thomas Sawyer of Akron, an eight-term incumbent, in the Democratic primary for the 17th Congressional District seat.
Born in Youngstown, Cafaro attended the former Kennedy School in the city.
"You did work at your own speed, and I was finished with the eighth grade by the age of 12," Cafaro said.
She went to high school in Washington, D.C., and returned to the Valley to finish her senior year at Ursuline High School. Except for a few classes at Ursuline, Cafaro spent her high school senior year taking courses at Youngstown State University.
At age 15, she went to Stanford University, graduating from the California school in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in American studies.
After graduation and until late last year, Cafaro spent most of her time in Washington, D.C. Cafaro listed her parents' Liberty home as her address when she filed to run for the House seat. She recently moved to Hunting Valley, an exclusive community of about 800 people in Cuyahoga County. She is renting a home there.
Cafaro received a master's degree in international relations from Georgetown University and worked for a year each as an aide to U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and old family friend, and then-U.S. Sen. Al D'Amato, a New York Republican.
She went to work in 1998 for USAerospace Group, a Virginia-based company owned by her father that developed laser-guidance technology.
The company went out of business in 2000, with Cafaro's father convicted of conspiring to provide an unlawful gratuity to then-U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. Traficant was sentenced to eight years in prison for, among other illegal activities, accepting bribes from USAerospace officials.
Cafaro spent 2000 working on the Al Gore presidential campaign and then three years as a self-employed public relations consultant, doing much of her work for free.
Included in district
The congressional district includes seven northern townships in Trumbull County as well as all of Ashtabula, Geauga and Lake counties, and portions of Portage, Summit and Cuyahoga counties.
Chris Paulitz, a National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman, said the Cafaro-LaTourette race is barely a blip on the GOP radar screen.
"Voters aren't going to replace a longtime congressman with someone who's never had a job," said Paulitz, who has a personal interest in the race because he's a Hubbard native. "Without her money, we wouldn't even pay attention."
But Dan Trevas, Ohio Democratic Party spokesman, said the district is very much in play.
"It's a tough district, and we feel she has a good message and is well-prepared to run a strong campaign," he said.
Cafaro criticized LaTourette for portraying himself as a moderate, "but when push comes to shove, he votes with his party. He's been with his party on key votes and the Republican Party isn't representative of the people of Northeast Ohio."
Among Ohio's 12 Republican House members, LaTourette said he's voted against the president the most but admitted it only adds up to about 20 percent of the time.
Seniority, labor
LaTourette said his seniority and being in the majority party allows him to do more for Northeast Ohio than Cafaro, who would be a freshman in the minority should she beat him.
Cafaro also criticized LaTourette for supporting labor about 40 percent of the time. She said she would support labor 100 percent of the time.
"Nobody's right 100 percent of the time," LaTourette said.
Cafaro opposes LaTourette's plan to add Mahoning, Trumbull and Ashtabula counties to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
"It won't help with long-term economic development," she said.
By joining the ARC, the counties could receive money for improvement projects, LaTourette said. He noted that Cafaro has a basic misunderstanding of what joining the commission will do for those counties.
"It benefits you by allowing you to obtain money for projects," he said. "She doesn't know what the hell she's talking about."
skolnick@vindy.com