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CNN Live At Daybreak

In Light of Finally Admitting Romantic Relationship, Congressman Gary Condit's Constituents Wonder

Aired July 09, 2001 - 07:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Chandra Levy's parents aren't the only ones who want Congressman Gary Condit to speak out about the case.

CNN's Frank Buckley went to Condit's Modesto, California, district and talked with some of his constituents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you doing? You doing all right?

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Gary Condit scene avoiding reporters and ducking cameras is not the Congressman Condit they recognize in the farming communities and small cities of California's central valley; Condit Country, they call it, where Gary Condit has been either a city councilman or an assemblyman, a country supervisor, or a congressman all of his adult life. He has never lost an election. He is supported by Democrats and Republicans.

SANDRA LUCAS, COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CHAIRWOMAN: The Congressman Condit that I'm seeing portrayed is really not the man that we know in this area.

BUCKLEY: Sandra Lucas is the chair of the local Democratic Party Committee and has known Condit for 20 years.

LUCAS: He is a man of integrity. He has not sold the boat for pork projects. He doesn't believe in that. So he has a tremendous amount of integrity, and I believe that's gotten lost in this media circus around Chandra Levy.

BUCKLEY: Also lost, say supporters, their view of the congressman, with little said of Condit's advocacy for agriculture, local pride in his rise to influence with the so-called Blue Dog group of conservative Democrats, his reputation for strong constituent service.

On Condit's media silence, some suggest he has never had a comfortable relationship with reporters.

JOHN EDGELL, FORMER CONDIT STAFF MEMBER: He's not the first to jump out and hold six press conferences a day, and there is a reticence towards the press, and I think, given the nature of the coverage on this developing story, his reaction has been just to provide less information, which I think has had its own inverse set of results.

BUCKLEY: In the continuing absence of a Condit appearance, his constituents are left to wonder what or who to believe.

MAYOR CARMEN SABATINO, MODESTO, CALIFORNIA: There's a confusion, you know, there's a point where, yes, I believe this, and now we're in a period, I think, of I'm confused by this.

BUCKLEY (on camera): What many people here continue to say is they want to hear an explanation from Condit himself -- not from his lawyers or spokespersons, but from the man they first chose to represent them in the city council some 30 years ago, a man who is now their congressman -- a man they think they know.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Modesto, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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