Boehner poised as speaker-in-waiting

October 21, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The new GOP congressmen first posed in cowboy outfits. That looked silly, so they switched to shirt sleeves and ties. “The Gang of Seven,” reads the caption on their old, bold poster. “We’re changing Congress. Join the fight.”

Nearly two decades later, 60-year-old John Boehner, the sole remaining House member from those upstart freshmen, is poised to claim victory: If Republicans win control in the Nov. 2 elections, he is expected to become the chamber’s suavely dressed, Camel-smoking, golf-loving, bronze-tanned speaker.

Boehner, now the House minority leader, was little known outside his home district until President Barack Obama began holding him out as the personification of backward and elitist Republican policies. In return, Boehner is drawing heavily on his blue-collar upbringing as he travels the country offering the GOP counterpoint to Obama’s campaign pitch.

In this duel of definitions, Boehner, one of 12 children of a working-class family in Ohio, tells of mopping the floors in his father’s bar at age 10, of the skills required to deal with all the characters who walked in the door of Andy’s Cafe, of toughing it out in night school while turning around a failing small business.

“If there’s one thing I hope you learn about me, it’s that I’m a regular guy,” Boehner tells one audience.

“I’ve got two brothers that are unemployed; I’ve got two brother-in-laws that are unemployed,” Boehner tells a TV interviewer. “I understand what’s going on out in America.”

“I’ve had every rotten job there ever was, but I gotta tell you, I was grateful to have every single one of them,” Boehner says in a speech.

It’s all meant to counter the “G-T-L” refrain of Boehner’s critics, who try to keep the focus on just three things: Boehner’s love of golf, his head-turning tan and his close ties to lobbyists. The three all feed into Democrats’ characterizations of Boehner as a country club Republican who’s looking out only for corporate bigwigs.

“It tells a story about where his priorities are,” says Justin Coussoule, his longshot Democratic challenger in Ohio’s 8th district, which runs along the Indiana border and takes in suburbs of Cincinnati and parts of Dayton.