Name recognition an issue in 7th District

Craig Williams has a difficult job ahead of him.

Who?

Exactly.

Williams, a relatively unknown Republican candidate in the Seventh Congressional District race, is the first to acknowledge that his biggest challenge might be name recognition.

The former federal prosecutor and Marine is running against U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak.

Though Williams says he feels his "name ID" is a challenge, meeting voters is his solution.

"When I meet people, I convince them, overwhelmingly," Williams said.

Two years ago, Sestak was the unknown running against longtime incumbent Curt Weldon. Weldon was facing fallout from voter frustration over the war and the Bush administration, along with a federal investigation into whether he used his office to win clients for his daughter's lobbying firm.

Now, Sestak has the advantage of incumbency, the excitement of an energized Democratic electorate, and, again, voters frustrated with the Bush administration.

Adding to that is the faltering economy.

"This year, it is not war; it is the economy, and it is helping Democrats more than Republicans in polls that I've seen," said G. Terry Madonna, political pollster and analyst at Franklin and Marshall College.

Sestak voted for the $700 billion financial bailout plan on both rounds. He calls economic security his "No. 1 issue."

"My last election was about economic security. Iraq was a poster child where people had such angst over what was going on over there," Sestak said.

He estimated that 50 percent of the families in the district earn less now than they did in 2001. They are faced with skyrocketing health-care premiums and higher education costs, he said.

"This financial crisis has merely just brought it on to the front page - an everyday reality," Sestak said.

Williams called the first bailout package thin on consumer protection, and he sees flaws in the concept of throwing money at the problems.

"I'm still fundamentally and philosophically opposed to the idea of federal government having ownership or shares in large companies, especially those extending mortgages," Williams said.

Though the region is trending Democratic, Republicans maintain a lead over Democrats in the Seventh District, which includes much of Delaware County and parts of lower Montgomery and eastern Chester Counties.

As of Oct. 21, almost 39 percent of the voters in the district registered as Democrats, and 49 percent registered as Republicans.

Williams, 43, served in the Gulf War and is a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. He attended Duke University, the University of Florida College of Law, and Columbia School of Law, where he earned a master's degree in legal philosophy. He works for the law firm of Saul Ewing.

As a federal prosecutor, Williams served on the Joint Terrorism Task Force. During active duty, he served as deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He lives in Concord Township with his three children and his wife, Jennifer Arbittier Williams, a federal prosecutor.

Williams, whose family lives in Alaska, is a friend of GOP vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin. During a campaign stop in Media last month, Palin took time to tape a radio commercial for Williams.

Sestak, 56, a former vice admiral, served 31 years in the Navy and is the highest-ranking former military officer ever elected to Congress. The Delaware County native graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, and earned a master's degree in public administration and a doctorate in political economy from Harvard University. He lives in Edgmont with his wife and daughter.

As a freshman in Congress, Sestak focused on his five pillars of national security: education, health, economics, energy and environment and defense security.

"The most important thing my staff and I do is constituency services," Sestak said. He estimates that his office, which is open seven days a week, has handled about 9,000 requests for disability benefits, citizenship applications, service-academy nominations, and more.

Those contacts might help Sestak the most, Madonna said. Voters, he noted, don't always vote on issues.

"That stuff matters. Visibility. Accessibility. Constituent service," Madonna said.