Etheridge, Price, Miller

Our endorsements: U.S. Congress

The Triangle and surrounding parts of eastern and central North Carolina are covered by three districts in the U.S. House of Representatives. In each case, there is a Democratic incumbent - very different individuals, but each with his own strengths and collectively an excellent team. Each of them has our editorial endorsement for re-election.

Issues confronting the new Congress - working of course with a new president - will be formidable. The financial crisis and struggling economy. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A health care financing system that has failed many among us. Our representatives must be up to the challenge. These three are.

2nd District

3BOB ETHERIDGE The lanky lawmaker from Lillington is a people person whose political success on several levels has proved his ability to connect with voters' concerns. He represents a district that is mainly small town and rural but that also reaches into downtown Raleigh. At 67, he's seeking his seventh two-year term. He has risen into a leadership post on the House Agriculture Committee and also sits on the Homeland Security and Budget committees. Besides farm issues, his expertise includes education, reflecting his eight years as the state's elected superintendent of public instruction.

Mindful of conservative sentiments in his district, Etheridge doesn't hesitate to break with House Democratic leaders who lean more toward the left. But his record puts him solidly in the corner of ordinary working folks who need jobs, good schools and affordable housing and health care.

The Republican candidate, Selma construction services executive Dan Mansell, 51, lost to Etheridge two years ago. He takes conservative positions on education, energy, taxation and national defense. He makes some reasonable arguments, but not good enough to justify replacing Etheridge. Libertarian Will Adkins of Cary rounds out the field.

FIND OUT MORE: Visit Etheridge's Web site at etheridgeforcongress.org.

HIS OPPONENTS: Find out more about Mansell at danmansellforcongress.com and about Adkins at adkinsforcongress.com.

4th District

3DAVID PRICE There's no other way to put it: The voters of this district should be proud of their congressman, and proud of having sent him to Washington for 20 of the last 22 years. David Price of Chapel Hill is thoughtful, knowledgeable, responsive. His instincts and record are progressive -- even though he sometimes catches flak from the left as a too-prudent pragmatist.

Price, who is 68, surely knows his way around the partisan minefields. He was on the political science faculty at Duke and served as a Democratic Party official before his election to the House in 1986. He lost in the 1994 Republican tidal wave, regained his seat in 1996 and has since risen into the leadership ranks. When the Democrats reclaimed the majority two years ago, he became a subcommittee chairman on the Appropriations Committee, responsible for homeland security spending. He has performed well in that demanding role. He has been a perceptive critic of the Bush administration's war in Iraq, arguing that resources were diverted from more important objectives. He also has been a valuable liaison between the Triangle's research community and the federal government.

Republican opponent William "B.J." Lawson of Cary, a 34-year-old physician and medical software entrepreneur making his first run for office, depicts Price as too willing to support deficit spending and too comfortable with corporate interests. He has some worthy goals. But he does not make the case for replacing a congressman who has performed in outstanding fashion.