The Gerrymander That Didn't Work

...It's not one of those suburban districts that you can just move into," says Royal Masset, a longtime Republican strategist and former political director of the state GOP "Waco especially is very insular...

...Perhaps even worse, the National Republican Congressional Committee reportedly has backed off expected financial support as polls show Edwards comfortably ahead, and election trackers like Congressional Quarterly have reclassified the race from "Leans Democratic" to "Democrat Favored...

...The son of a World War II veteran who attended Texas A&M University, a college in District 17 with strong military ties, Edwards broke into politics working for fellow Aggie (as A&M grads are known) Olin E. "Tiger" Teague, longtime chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs...

...After the debate, Edwards notes the cuts Taylor mentioned amount to one-thousandth of a percent of the federal budget...

...In actions that led to the Navy Commendation Medal with "V" for Valor, Capt...

...He's pro-military...

...After all, President Bush, who votes in District 17 at his Prairie Chapel Ranch near Crawford, received nearly 70 percent support in the district in 2004...

...Edwards has fought doggedly to shield Waco's V.A...

...hospital, which employs more than 700, from closure, and he continues to voice support for the Patriot Act...

...Edwards relentlessly attacks Taylor for his shallow roots in the 17th, which snakes southeast more than 150 miles from Fort Worth's southern suburbs to Houston's outer reaches...

...Taylor operates an investment company, Van-Anne...

...He's pro-everything...

...Chet Edwards has figured out how to campaign in McLennan County, and as long as it's the center of a congressional district, he's going to be tough to beat...

...That seat probably goes Republican if he retires...

...He moved into District 17 from Dallas last summer, to the town of West—about 15 miles north of Waco, which Edwards calls home when he's not in Washing-ton—in McLennan County...

...The Veterans of Foreign Wars PAC has endorsed him, and his position as ranking member of the House Appropriations Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee clinches his attractiveness as an advocate for the military...

...They know who the new people are...

...That year, the GOP and groups like the Club for Growth spent heavily on Edwards's opponent, 10-year Republican state representative Arlene Wohlgemuth, whose state district lay in the northern portion of the newly drawn District 17...

...Back on former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's watch in 2003, state Republican lawmakers scripted Edwards's exit from Congress, when they redrew congressional boundaries so as to retire five Democrats from the Texas delegation...

...Necessary components of a good tax cut, according to Edwards, are that it be "fiscally responsible" and "fair to average working families...

...His other work experience includes brief stints with the real estate giant Trammel Crow and the management consultancy McK-insey & Company...

...One concerns taxes...

...People are going to vote their values," Taylor says...

...While GOP operative Masset and veteran political observer Will Lutz, managing editor of the conservative Austin-based political newsletter the Lone Star Report, both concede Edwards may look like a prime Republican target on paper, they agree the picture is different from the vantage point of central Texas...

...Taylor says he feels he's neutralized that criticism by noting Edwards has moved multiple times to run for office...

...He is "very hesitant," though, to pledge to back every tax cut, calling it "morally wrong" to saddle future generations with America's $8.5 trillion national debt...

...Yet Lutz offers hope for the GOP...

...Edwards has voted against all of Bush's major tax cuts and scores Ds and Fs with the National Taxpayers Union...

...In November 2004, four of those Democrats—Charlie Stenholm, Martin Frost, Max Sandlin, and Nick Lampson (now a contender for DeLay's old seat)—fell by decisive margins...

...But he enlisted in the Marines, leadBeth Henary Watson is a writer and editor in Texas...

...Edwards survived...

...His record has improved in recent years, though...

...Edwards knows the region well enough," Lutz says...

...In 2005 Edwards and 41 other House Democrats voted for the Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act, a bill that has foundered in the Senate...

...I don't think voters in our district want to replace that kind of proven leadership with a freshman who's going to be on who knows what committee," says Edwards, who also sits on the budget committee and has a track record of funneling dollars to his district for local projects...

...Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have visited Texas to drum up support and local dollars for Taylor...

...Fort Hood, the largest active duty armored post in the United States, was in his old district, and he maintains a loyal troop of "Vets for Chet...

...Edwards has also supported permanently extending the marriage penalty relief in Bush's 2001 tax cuts, and he counts at least 70 times he has voted to cut taxes...

...The Taylor camp insists the strong support for Republicans generally in this stretch of small towns and medium-sized cities means there are potential votes behind most doors they knock on...

...The eight-term incumbent and former state senator also has voted to keep assault weapons illegal, falling afoul of the National Rifle Association...

...Even Republican political observers say the outsider label should have been expected...

...He earned a "B" from the NRA's political arm this election cycle and trumpets the gun group's decision not to fire off an endorsement of his opponent, a change from previous elections...

...Taylor often claims the "moral authority" to comment on veterans' issues as a Marine, still in the Ready Reserve, but Edwards, too, is well versed in military and veterans' matters...

...Denouncing federal pork in Cle-burne, Taylor names common targets of conservative ridicule like the "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon," a 100-foot fish painted on the side of an Alaska Airlines jet paid for with a half-million dollars in federal money, and Alaska's ill-fated "bridge to nowhere...

...He knows the politics...

...He calls the abstruse tax code an "inexcusable burden" on businesses...

...Taylor led a platoon that rescued 31 wounded soldiers under hostile fire and participated in the rescue of POW Jessica Lynch...

...If you want higher taxes, please vote for my opponent," he tells the audience in this working-class community of about 30,000...

...Liberal votes that Edwards's opponent is trying to use against him include his support for San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi for House speaker in 2003 and 2005, although Edwards will not commit publicly for the next speaker's race...

...I think some people would say Edwards is out of step...

...Taylor also boasts of his more conservative stances on cutting government spending, family values, illegal immigration, and Second Amendment rights...

...But the effort failed: Edwards won reelection 51 percent to 47 percent, a near-copy of his spread against a Republican two years earlier when he represented District 11...

...This November, Republican hopes lie in Iraq war veteran Van Taylor, a political neophyte who's playing up his military service, as well as his traditional values, which he says make him more representative of the district than Edwards...

...Where he runs into PR trouble, as Edwards and supportive editorial boards have noted, is in the details...

...While still in the Marine Reserve, he earned his MBA from Harvard Business School—a degree he shares with Edwards—then took a tour of duty in Iraq...

...I think the mandate that Edwards has is a personal mandate, not a policy one," he says...

...Edwards also co-chairs the House Army Caucus and the USO Congressional Caucus...

...Born to Midland oil money, Taylor no doubt had many options after he graduated from Harvard in 1995...

...Taylor, who is 34, is 20 years Edwards's junior...

...In Cleburne, Taylor harps on what he says are five major philosophical differences between Edwards and himself...

...Recently Edwards received the Award of Merit from the Military Coalition, which represents 36 groups, and the "Inspirational Leadership" award from the Military Order of the Purple Heart...

...by Beth Henary Watson Cleburne, Texas Congressman Chet Edwards wasn't supposed to be at this debate, a forum at Cleburne High School that drew more than 200 on a drizzly mid-October Sunday...

...Every mayor in Johnson County, in the northern part of the district—a stronghold for Edwards's rival in 2004—has endorsed Edwards...

...Lutz notes an initial redistricting plan split the Waco area, which would have made reelection tougher for Edwards, but that map lacked support from key state senators...

...ing a reconnaissance platoon, then working as an intelligence officer...

...That plus the fact that the incumbent plays fairly well in the College Station area makes Taylor a man without a "beachhead," as Masset puts it...

...You'd hardly know he was a Democrat until he goes and votes liberal on everything," says strategist Masset, who once ran a congressional campaign against Edwards...

...He, almost more than any other Democrat, will do anything to get reelected...