Posted on 09/24/2002 5:27:13 AM PDT by BlackRazor
Congressional race takes a side road on the who's-who issue
By Jayson Larson
A week ago this Saturday, Ron Chapman, the Democratic political candidate for Dist. 5 U.S. Congress, stood on the Henderson County courthouse lawn trying to convince voters he will bring a "common-sense approach" to Washington, D.C.
A little bit later in the day, Jeb Hensarling brought Ron Chapman to Republican Party headquarters to get his endorsement.
Confused? Depending on which campaign you speak to, so are voters.
The Chapman who dished out the endorsement would be the longtime Dallas radio disc jockey whose unmistakable voice was heard on KVIL for 32 years before switching to KLUV in 2000. He is not a voter in the district for which he gave his endorsement, but was willing to lend his name to Hensarling's campaign.
"The person with the name Ron Chapman running for congress ... is not me," the DJ said during his stop in Athens. "I'm not running for anything, and if I could vote in the fifth congressional district, I would vote for the man standing here today: Jeb Hensarling."
The idea of using name recognition to gain votes is nothing new to politics, and it's a ploy Hensarling says his opponent, a retired district court of appeals judge, has been using to his advantage for years. According to information provided by his campaign, Hensarling had a poll conducted that revealed "there are as many voters in the Fifth District who think Ron Chapman is a radio DJ as there are voters who think Chapman is a candidate, judge or elected official."
Judge Chapman said the name confusion issue is not new to him, either. He said he used to live in the same condominium complex as the radio DJ and frequently got his mail. But the Democratic candidate scoffed at the accusation he is riding the radio DJ's name and dismissed it as a non-issue.
"That's almost from the ridiculous to the sublime," said Chapman, who owns a house in Trinidad. "I'm pulling a trick by using my own name. ... It's worth a chuckle. I think Jeb's got to talk about it because he's got nothing else to talk about."
Chapman said he has never been asked if he is the radio DJ, at least while on the campaign trail. He said he has never encouraged the comparison or played upon it. He also said he has no way of knowing how many people might mistake him for the radio DJ on the ballot, but added, "I'll take all the help I can get."
He is now running a 60-second radio commercial pointing out the differences between himself and the disc jockey.
Hensarling said he is all for talking about issues -- and has made several issue-centered campaign speeches in Athens -- but felt like he needed to set the record straight based on his campaign's name-identity poll.
"It was kind of a fun way to illustrate to people who may be confused that these are two different people," he said.
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