Party Crasher

Since Congresswoman Karen McCarthy's drunken fall on a Washington, D.C., escalator in March, chatter about her political future -- or possible lack thereof -- has been growing louder. The tumble alerted the press and Kansas City's newspaper-reading public to a problem McCarthy couldn't deny.

With the gash in her head healing, McCarthy pleaded for forgiveness, labeled herself an alcoholic and spent a month drying out at a clinic in Arizona.

According to a May 21 story in The Kansas City Star, McCarthy is back on the job in Washington, "working to restore balance to her daily routine" and looking very pretty. "People say I'm glowing, I look beautiful, I'm smiling all the time," she told reporter Steve Kraske. "This has been an extraordinary journey, a very exciting and positive journey for me." Kraske reported that McCarthy told him she was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

But the scarlet AA letters that McCarthy has sewn onto her power suit strike some political observers -- and recovering alcoholics -- as disingenuous. One of the tenets of the "fellowship," as its participants call AA, is a ban on naming the group publicly.

"The traditions say not to make this a public display," says one Kansas City political aide who also is a recovering alcoholic. "I would hope it isn't just for public relations and that she's serious about her sobriety."

McCarthy tells the Pitch that she doesn't remember her exact conversation with Kraske, but she insists she's respectful of AA's tradition of anonymity. "I talk about my 'journey,' that's how I reference it," she says. "What I do recall from the conversation was [Kraske's] honesty and genuineness. Who said 'AA' out loud, I don't know."

Other questions surround McCarthy's public meltdown. The day before the Star story, a much different account landed on congressional desks. On May 20, the weekly insider D.C. newspaper The Hill ran a front-page story about how morale in McCarthy's office had "reached an all-time low" following her return from rehab. (The next day's Star story included a paragraph acknowledging The Hill's account.)

The Hill reported that McCarthy had repeatedly called her D.C. staff from rehab to blame them for her drinking problem and that the harsh words had continued upon her return. "She's back to screaming at her staff," the paper said, quoting an unnamed Democratic source. "Everyone's paranoid about being fired."

McCarthy tells the Pitch that she called her staff from Arizona "when there were issues [she] needed to discuss with them." She granted Kraske an interview on the same day The Hillpublished its story, though she says she reads neither The Hill nor its competitor, Roll Call.

She has reason to avoid them. Last June, Roll Call reported that "two sources familiar with the scene" had spotted McCarthy "on the House steps 'screaming her brains out' at her chief of staff, Phil Scaglia."

"You don't care about me!" she reportedly yelled. "My staff doesn't care about me! Nobody cares about me!"

Now McCarthy is warding off charges of ethics violations concerning $25,000 she agreed to pay Fenn & King Communications for a "management and operational audit" of her office. (The political consulting firm stuck around to help McCarthy's staff during her desert retreat.)

McCarthy says she planned to pay the company through her campaign fund, which she believed other members of Congress had done in the past. But after she learned that House members are not supposed to use campaign funds for official government business, McCarthy issued a press release saying she'd pay half the contract through her congressional office budget.

"With my seniority and with my committee assignments, it's becoming more and more important for me to have those 'best practices' in place," she tells the Pitch, referring to Fenn & King's contract to enhance her office's efficiency and redesign her Web site.

But that might not wash, either. House rules prevent representatives from hiring consultants through their congressional budgets, and McCarthy's strategy was criticized by Ohio Representative Bob Ney, the Republican chairman of the House Administration Committee, which approves such expenses. The rules prohibit McCarthy from spending tax dollars for management or legislative purposes, Ney's spokesman Brian Walsh tells the Pitch.

McCarthy says Ney didn't understand the nature of the contract. "He was given a hypothetical of consulting rather than contract services," she says. She adds that her office has clarified the situation for Ney. "We are awaiting his word," she says.

Back in Missouri, McCarthy's tribulations have earned her an increasingly rapt audience.

Republicans are letting themselves dream that they might actually defeat her in next year's election. Before last fall, Democrats could count on McCarthy holding her office as long as she wanted it -- Missouri's 5th Congressional District has been dominated by Democrats since before World War II. "The wheels are falling off quickly, it seems," says Scott Baker, spokesman for the Missouri Republican Party. "They've got this momentum heading toward disaster."

In recent memory, Baker and his fellow Republicans have pretended that the 5th District didn't even exist. Democrats ruled the territory that covers most of Jackson County and a sliver of Cass County, leading Baker to believe his party's campaign dollars would be better spent elsewhere.