Suburban race, world spotlight - Foreign media view contest as war gauge

CAMPAIGN '06
Suburban race, world spotlight - Foreign media view contest as war gauge
By Florian Gathmann and John Biemer, Tribune staff reporters. Florian Gathmann is a Arthur F. Burns Fellow who worked in the summer at the Chicago Tribune. He lives in Erfurt, Germany.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published October 16, 2006

The heated congressional race between an Iraqi war veteran and a conservative state senator has become a magnet for foreign media that see it as a reflection of tensions in American politics caused in large part by the war.

Foreign news outlets, including Al Jazeera, the Arabic television channel based in Qatar, converged on a debate Thursday between Democrat Tammy Duckworth and Republican Peter Roskam.

Reporters from Germany, France, Japan and Australia increasingly have identified the west suburban contest for the 6th Congressional District seat as the race to sum up political dynamics across the United States this off-year election.

Amid the standing-room-only crowd of suburbanites at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn were reporters from Agence France-Presse, Swedish TV, Danish Broadcasting, Japanese Nippon Television and two competing Norwegian newspapers.

"Basically, it's a good story," said Kim Riseth, a reporter for Oslo-based Verdens Gang.

Indeed, it has all the elements, starting with Democrat Duckworth, the Illinois Army National Guard helicopter pilot who lost both legs in the Iraq war, a compelling story in itself, politics aside.

To many outside the country, her candidacy encapsulates the turmoil the war has caused in American politics.

Duckworth is one of several veterans running as Democrats this fall as part of a strategy to nullify what many perceive as Republican strength in matters of national security and the military.

"I think that's something we haven't seen in elections before," Riseth said.

Duckworth is pitted against a conservative Republican state lawmaker in a district long held by retiring GOP leader Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee.

Big-name fundraisers have turned out, including President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for Roskam and former President Bill Clinton, who is scheduled to raise money later this month for Duckworth.

One of Germany's largest newspapers, Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung published an in-depth political feature on Duckworth in June--on page 3, the premier spot in German papers.

"Duckworth's story is a unique one so we were happy to have this piece in the paper," said editor Peter Muench. "There is hardly a better case to describe America's political situation at the moment."

Because Japan contributed peacekeeping troops to the stabilization of Iraq, the Japanese are keenly interested in any insights they can glean from a race that some interpret as partly a referendum on the war.

"I thought this race shows the American people are divided, and this area was Republican for 32 years [with]Mr. Hyde," said Aya Imaida, a Nippon TV reporter.

"Of course, I want to convey the message of how the American people think about the Iraq war."

For all those reasons, the race has attracted widespread interest within the United States too, from NBC's "Today" show to Esquire magazine, which singled it out as a "steel-cage showdown that, as much as any race this fall, is a bellwether for where our national politics are headed."

"This has definitely grown into something that no one would have expected," said Ryan McLaughlin, Roskam's campaign manager.

The stories often focus on Duckworth.

"Because of the U.S.' impact in the world, there is always a substantial international interest in our political system," said Duckworth spokeswoman Christine Glunz.

But she acknowledges that she has been surprised by the extent.

Still, the outside attention can be a burden for the campaigns, without much benefit.

"It's interesting," Roskam said of attention from abroad. And then he laughed. "It will influence absolutely no votes."

Given the choice between talking to a major foreign outlet and the smallest neighborhood paper in the district, Roskam said, "It's not a jump ball"--he will always go local.

A piece in an overseas paper, radio or TV station ultimately contributes neither votes nor campaign contributions for the candidates, except maybe a stroke to the ego.

The international camera teams can be a disturbance on the campaign trail. Not every 6th District family willing to welcome one of the candidates into their living room is equally happy to have a foreign TV crew squeezing in with cameras and equipment.

"We have to make sure the people like them to come," spokeswoman Glunz said.

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Florian Gathmann is a Arthur F. Burns Fellow who worked in the summer at the Chicago Tribune. He lives in Erfurt, Germany, and works as an editor at Thueringer Allgemeine newspaper, where he he had a story published on the race.

jbiemer@tribune.com