Wofford banks on health care in re-election campaign

When Senator George Mitchell announced Monday that national health care reform was dead, no one -- except perhaps the president -- was more disappointed than Harris Wofford. Wofford, Pennsylvania's democratic junior senator, put health care on the national agenda, making it a defining issue in his successful 1991 election bid against former U.S. Attorney General and Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh. This was one full year before President Clinton would begin championing the cause in his own campaign. But today Wofford is in a tight race for re-election against Congressman Rick Santorum, a Republican from western Pennsylvania. With his political fate closely linked to the Clinton presidency -- Wofford was a potential Clinton vice presidential pick -- and to health care reform, Republicans consider Wofford one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in America. The GOP needs a net gain of seven seats to recapture the Senate for the first time since 1986. And Republicans are hoping a Santorum victory will highlight Democratic weaknesses, serving as a harbinger of re-election trouble for Clinton in 1996, much as Wofford's defeat of veteran GOP pol Thornburgh in the 1991 special election sent shock waves through the GOP. Before the election, Wofford was appointed to serve a six-month term after Republican Senator John Heinz was killed in a plane crash. Wofford disputes the idea that this November's Senate vote is a referendum of the Clinton presidency. "I don't think Congressman Santorum is going to fool the people of Pennsylvania," the Bryn Mawr resident said in an interview this week. "This race is between him and me and not him and Clinton, as the Congressman seems to think." Santorum has tried to play up Wofford's relationship to Clinton, in recent television ads attacking Wofford campaign adviser James Carville, who engineered Wofford's 1991 upset as well as Clinton's 1992 victory. Santorum has also attempted to characterize Wofford as a Democratic party hack, controlled by the White House. But Wofford said James Carville is not the issue. And Wofford emphasizes that unlike Santorum -- who almost never voted against former President George Bush's agenda during his first term in Congress -- he has voted against Clinton on several significant issues, including the balanced budget amendment, the super-conducting supercollider and the future of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Wofford acknowledges that this November's election has national importance, but he thinks it will send a different message to the country than the one the Republicans are pushing. "Just as in 1991 my election to the Senate signaled people wanted Washington to be shaken up and changed, I think that in 1994 people will be looking to Pennsylvania to see whether or not people want us to go forward," Wofford said, adding that he plans to salvage the Clinton agenda if re-elected. "It's about whether they want someone who represents progress or whether they want someone who represents the failed policies of Bush and Reagan," he added. Wofford blames "Republican obstructionism" and partisanship for derailing Clinton's domestic agenda and killing health care reform. He said Santorum has been "in lockstep" with the GOP leadership in blocking Clinton's domestic program. "We have seen in this last year the most extreme form of petty partisan bickering that has produced gridlock on so many things," Wofford said. "This election is about whether people who want to build coalitions to transcend partisanship or those who want to obstruct and use partisanship to block anything are going to prevail." Wofford said that if re-elected he will try to break roadblocks in Congress by reaching out to moderate Republicans. He is especially concerned about the ultimate fate of health care reform. "Health care is not only a fight I have to continue to win but it is symptomatic of the bitter and petty partisan politics that have gripped the country," the 68-year-old senator said. Ideologically, Wofford's views offer a contemporary twist on traditional New Deal liberalism. During the 1960s, Wofford worked as an adviser to President Kennedy and later helped organize the Peace Corps along with Sargent Shriver. He continues to be a strong supporter of national service programs, including Clinton's Americorps initiative. Wofford says this program is doing more with less government bureaucracy than any programs of Kennedy's New Frontier. He has also supported a Civilian Community Corps -- a new take on the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s -- to help revitalize America's neighborhoods. Wofford was one of the first white students to earn a law degree from the traditionally black Howard University in Washington, D.C. He later served on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission before being brought aboard the 1960 Kennedy campaign as a liaison to the black community. Some historians credit Wofford for helping Kennedy solidify black support in the final days of his campaign, urging him to call Coretta Scott King and express concern for the safety of her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was being held in an Alabama jail. Wofford has a long-time association with the University. His wife, Claire, worked here for many years, most recently coordinating the celebration of the University's 250th anniversary. He is also a friend of former interim President Claire Fagin.

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