Demo Presidential Candidates Being Lobbied For Visits To Bucks

March 10, 1992|by HAL MARCOVITZ, The Morning Call

Although the Pennsylvania primary is more than a month off, Bucks County Democratic leaders are lobbying the presidential candidates hard for commitments to visit the county as part of their campaign swings through the state.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Peter H. Kostmayer, D-8th District, said the congressman's office has been in touch with the campaign committees of former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and former California Gov. Jerry Brown with invitations for the three remaining candidates to visit Bucks.

In addition, the state chairmen of the Tsongas and Brown campaigns are Bucks County residents, so there will be a measure of influence in high circles by the time the Pennsylvania primaryrolls around.

"He'll be here, I guarantee it," says Thomas Lingenfelder, a gallery owner from Doylestown who is the state chairman of the Brown campaign. "We have a nucleus here of enthusiastic people. He's got to come here."

The state chairman of the Tsongas campaign is Robert Quinn, the husband of Bucks County Commissioner Sandra A. Miller. Quinn grew up in Lowell, Mass., a few blocks from the Tsongas family.

On the Republican side, party leaders are hesitant to predict a visit by President Bush or Vice President Quayle.

"I just don't think they are going to target Pennsylvania at all," says Keren McIlhinney, vice chairman of the Bucks County Republican Committee. "I think Bush figures he'll be in good shape in Pennsylvania; I think he's going to swing through most of