Incumbent Hall Tosses Hat Back in the Ring

In 1994, Democrat Bill Clinton's first midterm election as president, Republicans seized control of the House for the first time in 40 years and Republican Sue W. Kelly went to Capitol Hill, the newly minted representative of New York's 19th Congressional District.

 In 2006, Republican George W. Bush's second midterm as president, Democrats regained control of the House for the first time since '94, with John J. Hall replacing Kelly in the 19^th District. He won again in the 2008 Obama landslide and announced last weekend that he's running again.

 But in 2010, Democrat Barack Obama's first mid-term, voters in the sprawling 19^th C.D. are being asked whether he's still the one they want representing them or whether they would prefer, say, Republican Nan Hayworth.

"I firmly believe we need a change of leadership in Congress," the Mount Kisco mother of two and retired ophthalmologist insists.

 In announcing his bid for re-election, Hall said, "This election is about making sure that all Americans are moving toward a better tomorrow, not just the privileged few." A Dover Plains resident, he kicked off his campaign in Mount Kisco Saturday. Hall was unavailable Monday to discuss his strategy for the midterm election campaign.

It's axiomatic in national politics that the party in control of the White House will at least lose seats, if not control, in one or both houses of Congress at the midpoint of the president's term. Hayworth acknowledges the incumbent's historic handicap but says she looks to unseat Hall on "positive" issues. "There is a mood I have definitely heard in District 19 . . . that we're starting fresh," the challenger says.

Still, with an unemployment rate sitting stubbornly at about 10 percent and a deficit growing on average at better than $4 billion a day, incumbents and challengers alike sense a restive electorate. "We need to take a much different approach," Hayworth says. "We need to do that by controlling what the federal government spends."

 For their part, Democrats point to an economy in shambles when Barack Obama took office a year and a half ago. After eight years of Republican rule, they maintain, the nation teetered on the brink of another Great Depression, and only a number of bold steps—like the deficit-worsening stimulus package—staved off economic disaster.

 "We cannot afford to go back to disastrous Republican policies that have put profits in front of people and thus compromised the important values that our great nation was founded upon," Hall says.

 The 19th Congressional District covers northern Westchester County, all of Putnam County, southern Dutchess County, and parts of Rockland and Orange Counties.