Labels abound in quiet campaign to oust Fattah

Rox Republican Stew Bolno says five-term Congressman Chaka Fattah is a defender of the status quo. Citing a record of reforms, Fattah calls his challenger "uninformed."

by MICHAEL J. MISHAK

When Stew Bolno accepted the Republican City Committee's nomination as their candidate to challenge five-term Democratic Congressman Chaka Fattah, he had hoped to convince voters of the costs and dangers of liberal ideology. With little more than a week until Election Day, Bolno has discovered few who want to have that conversation.

Devouring a late morning breakfast at Bob's Diner in Roxborough, the 56-year-old management consultant expressed his disappointment last week over unreturned calls and negative press.

Bolno, who was born and raised in Mt. Airy, has been dealt some poor cards in recent weeks. The League of Women Voters did not respond to his request to speak, he said. Though a Philadelphia Daily News piece gave him credit for his effort, the writer equated his campaign to "tilting at windmills" in a quest to realize an "impossible dream." And in perhaps the harshest blow, the Philadelphia Inquirer endorsed the incumbent Fattah, lending just one paragraph to Bolno, which ended with, "He's just not ready for this job."

Admittedly unprepared for the Inky endorsement meeting, Bolno said the board wasn't really interested in his views.

But besides interviews with two black radio stations, Bolno is hard-pressed to name much other campaign activity (he didn't press one palm during an hour-long sit-down among the lunch crowd at Bob's). As a full-time consultant at Cherry Hill-based Team Builders Plus, he has had to manage his time between work and the campaign trail. Bolno said he's responded to every invitation, but is well aware the odds are "a lot less than 50-50."

Among voters in a district that is two-thirds black and fiercely Democratic, the white conservative candidate may not play well. But Bolno says he already has some support from those in the black community who share his more conservative positions on abortion and gay marriage. The candidate is in favor of banning partial-birth abortions. Both abortion and civil unions are issues for individual states, he said.

The 2nd Congressional District encompasses most of the city's neighborhoods west of Broad Street, including Mt. Airy, East Falls, Germantown, Chestnut Hill, Manayunk and Roxborough.

Still, it seems few have heard of Bolno's candidacy, and many of those who have are discounting the challenger well before the fight.

"It's disrespectful of citizens not to deal with two parties in a serious way," Bolno said. "Clearly, we're not at a point of utopia."

For Bolno, running for Congress is a personal undertaking. Bolno confesses a deep love for Philadelphia, but blames its decline on liberals who have protected a failed system (namely, education) that hinders success.

Though he has no prior political experience, Bolno said he has honed the requisite leadership skills throughout a career of management and teaching. The Germantown High graduate has two master's degrees and has taught at Temple University, St. Joseph's University and the Wharton Small Business Development Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Inspired by President Gerald Ford while he was a buyer for Macy's in the 1970s, Bolno switched parties and has been a proud conservative ever since.

After 20 years of liberal damage through entitlement programs and military curtailment, Bono said, President Ronald Reagan ushered in a conservative era of personal responsibility and economic prosperity. Careful to avoid the perception of a GOP hardliner, Bolno insists he is better defined as a conservative than a Republican. He says he voted for John Street, Bill Clinton and Ed Rendell.

When asked for specific examples of Fattah's so-called liberal failings, Bolno cites two issues: welfare reform and public education.

Despite having a welfare system that claimed more responsibility for individuals than they did for themselves, liberal Democrats fought against its reform, he said.

As for education, Bono said Democrats have consistently defended a system in decline for the last quarter-century, favoring teachers' unions over the needs of students. Liberals, he said, have failed to address the problem at its most basic level. Bolno found a friend in Bill Cosby when the comedian lambasted poor blacks' parenting failures to an NAACP crowd earlier this year. "Bill Cosby was right," Bolno said. "Kids who succeed have involved parents. It has nothing to do with poverty. If parents fail that poses a danger to society."

Unlike his opponent, Bolno supports school choice through voucher reimbursement.

"Liberals do not want poor people to succeed," Bolno said. "They've proven it with their votes. It's almost like they have malevolent intent."

Bolno said he is committed to supporting President Bush and the administration's policies on everything from tax cuts to the war in Iraq. Liberals attempts to "make [Bush] into a hateful man" show their fear and lack of humility, he said.

Though Bolno calls Fattah "a man without influence" who has "done nothing in a major way" for education, the incumbent says he has devoted much of his time and effort to that very issue. Fattah was the architect of GEAR UP, an early college awareness and preparedness program, which provides five-year grants to states and partnerships for services at schools with a high percentage of low-income students. The program has spread to 48 states and is currently funded at $1.8 billion. About 20,000 students in Philadelphia are currently enrolled in the program, Fattah said in an interview. Lauded by Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, the program had the support of more than 90 percent of Republicans in Congress, he said.

Also, Fattah said he had fought for and won programs for college retention and job training. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, Fattah said he works to secure funding for the city's schools. Through his recent CORE scholarship initiative, students from public, private and parochial schools will receive as much as $3,000 in their freshman year to fill tuition gaps after financial aid.

Fattah is opposed to tuition vouchers, which he sees as a diversion of public funds into private education. A voucher system could hurt public education, he said, and would not deliver educational equity to disadvantaged communities.

"I have been a leader in school reform," Fattah said. Citing improved test scores and a new teacher contract agreement, Fattah said his efforts are working. "I have not done anything other than lead. My opponent is uninformed. [Bolno] is going to earn what votes he deserves on Election Day. We'll see what the voters in the district think. The fact that the Republicans would nominate him should be taken into consideration by voters in the district."

Defending his vote against welfare reform, Fattah said his objection was based on his work as a 12-year state legislator prior to his election to Congress. Fattah said he was the primary sponsor and author of a welfare reform bill in the Pennsylvania legislature, but that the federal bill "carelessly took people off the rolls" without consideration for a potential downturn in the economy. He also called the imposed limits "unwise" and "arbitrary."

Active in both Washington and the 2nd District, Fattah most recently petitioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency to fund repairs for Cresheim Valley Drive, which suffered extensive damage from two separate storm systems.

When told of Bolno's criticism of his stance against drilling in the Alaskan oil reserve, Fattah said, "Bolno's in a class unto himself."

Fattah said the war on terrorism is "off-track" and sees the war in Iraq as a "diversion." With $200 billion expected to be spent on the Iraq war, homeland security is being sorely neglected, he said. Securing the nation's chemical and nuclear plants and its ports should be a primary concern for the commander-in-chief, he said.

Fattah's current legislative priorities are attracting attention and appear to be gaining traction. The incumbent has authored a bill (the Student's Bill of Rights) that would hold states accountable to the secretary of education for providing resources like up-to-date textbooks and ensuring high standards for teacher qualifications and curriculum.

With mortgage foreclosures at a 50-year high, Fattah has proposed a foreclosure release bill that would afford families' time to regain their economic footing before losing their house to a sheriff's sale.

Fattah's most progressive measure is the Transform America Transaction Fee, which calls for the elimination of all federal taxes on individuals and corporations in favor of a transaction fee that would be charged whenever money changes hands. Projecting as much as $200 billion in savings to the Internal Revenue Service, Fattah said excess revenue would be directed to public education, financing as much as 50 percent of total expenditures.