Posted on 10/28/2002 5:50:29 AM PST by Theodore R.
5th District race getting aggressive Posted on October 28, 2002 T he campaign for Louisiana's 5th Congressional District seat has gotten personal.
First, the Republican National Campaign Committee bought two TV ads attacking Democrat Rodney Alexander, a state representative from Jonesboro.
Then, last week two of the Republicans in the race turned on each other, with state Sen. Robert Barham of Oak Ridge buying a TV attack ad against former U.S. Rep. Clyde Holloway. By the end of the week, Holloway retaliated against Barham with a TV ad of his own.
The election is Nov. 5
"During the last two minutes of a close football game, everyone gets pretty aggressive," Barham said.
"I think you're seeing the same thing here."
Alexander, Barham, Hollo-
way and Republican Lee Fletcher of Monroe are considered the front-runners in the seven-candidate race. Incum-
bent U.S. Rep. John Cooksey, R-Monroe, is giving up the seat to run for the U.S. Senate.
Alexander said he expected the Republicans to team up against him.
"When you're leading in the polls, you expect them to come with something," said Alexander, referring to his own poll taken late last month. "It makes you wonder who these people are in Washington telling the people in the 5th District how to vote. I don't think it's done a lot of damage to our campaign."
Holloway said he was "surprised and disappointed" that Barham fired an attack ad at him.
"He's either not the man I thought he was or he's taking bad advice from his campaign staff," Holloway said. "It's a definite sign of desperation from Robert. He knows going negative is probably his only chance of making the runoff."
Barham said he didn't go negative until he discovered Holloway's supporters were attacking him while making campaign calls in a phone bank. Holloway denies that any of his staff made negative remarks about Barham in any phone calls.
"Clyde was clearly the one who broke the agreement (about not attacking each other) with the phone bank," Barham said. "I was disheartened that he chose to do that."
Fletcher said he won't go negative, although Barham and Holloway both said Fletcher has already done just that on his weekly campaign radio shows in Monroe and Alexandria.
"They're fighting and we're working," Fletcher said. "My hope is the people will see who's running a clean campaign and respond."
Voters can expect to see even more attacks this week.
"There might be something else coming," Barham said.
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