Bush to campaign for troubled lawmakers

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

Fri Oct 13, 4:20 PM ET

A congressman who admitted to having an affair and a senator accused of using racial slurs will get some political help from President Bush next week.

Bush will make campaign stops Thursday in Pennsylvania and Virginia to help the two troubled Republicans as the GOP struggles to maintain its endangered grip on the House and Senate.

"The President has made a commitment, and he's going to fulfill the commitment," White House press secretary Tony Snow said Friday.

Bush's appearances are intended to give a boost to four-term Rep. Don Sherwood (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., and Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record), R-Va.

Sherwood had one of the safest seats in Congress as his conservatism played well in his heavily Republican, rural district in northeastern Pennsylvania. Democrats didn't even bother fielding a candidate in the last two elections.

Then last year Sherwood admitted to a five-year extramarital affair with a woman 35 years his junior. He settled a lawsuit claiming he had choked her.

"Mr. Sherwood has certainly admitted to what has gone on, and the president also believes that we're all sinners, we all seek forgiveness, and in this particular case, he's supporting Don Sherwood's candidacy," Snow said.

Allen has spent weeks rebutting accusations he used racist language and liked Confederate symbols. The furor began Aug. 11, when the senator called a volunteer for his opponent "macaca," considered by some to be a racial slur, during a political rally.

"George Allen is not a bigot. Period," Snow said. "And you've had a number of black leaders who've come forward to make the point.

"So the president, absolutely, supports his candidacy," Snow said.

Snow suggested that Allen's opponent, Democrat Jim Webb, was vulnerable for things he has said. Webb, a former Navy secretary under President Reagan, argued in a 1979 magazine article that women are not fit to command men in battle and criticized their admission to the U.S. Naval Academy.

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