The national Democratic Party this month identified U.S. Rep Charles Taylor, R-Brevard, as one the six worst ethics offenders in Congress and called on the House Ethics Committee to investigate his “shady banking practices.”

“We’ve had just about enough of Charles Taylor’s ethical lapses, his catering to special interests, and his pandering to wealthy cronies,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Jerry Meek said at a press conference in Haywood County.

The Democratic National Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Party has made defeating Taylor a priority in 2006, a pledge that is already being backed up with dollars. An ad campaign targeting Taylor was launched this month in the 11th District.

“In the past, the voters of WNC only had to put up with this kind of negative campaigning a few weeks before the election. Now, even without a candidate, the Washington liberals will be subjecting WNC to a year and a half of negative campaigning,” Taylor said in a written response.

Meek’s press conference was littered with strong accusations against Taylor.

“Charles Taylor has personally profited for years from illegal and questionable business practices,” Meek said. “For too many years, Charles Taylor has laughed all the way to the bank.”

Meek even said Taylor could be “fleecing the Russians as well.” Taylor is the owner of a Russian bank.

The bold language could be the early signs of a new tone from the party, according to Gibbs Knotts, political science and public affairs assistant professor and associate dean of research and graduate studies at Western Carolina University.

“You’ve got Howard Dean heading the Democratic Party right now and there is probably going to be a different style, a more aggressive style. They are going to go after Republicans, in part because what they’ve done hasn’t been working,” Knotts said.

“It’s one thing to whisper about these kind of things, but this is out in the open,” Knotts said upon hearing an excerpt of Meek’s press conference.

Knotts said Dean may be moving the Democrats away from their old strategy of presenting themselves as moderates.

“The parties are a lot more polarized now,” he said.

Knotts said the Democrats certainly have their work cut out though.

“It’s tough to beat an incumbent. He’s got a lot of power in Washington. He continues to do really well in these races,” Knotts said. He said it will be interesting to see just how much money the Democratic Party plans to put into this race.

Value tug of war

Meek’s press conference was also peppered with references to values:

• “Charles Taylor has abandoned the values of those he represents.”

• “Republicans in Congress seem to have lost touch with their values.”

• “If he ever had any, he left his mountain values at the door.”

This language could signal an attempt by Democrats to redefine what constitute values. During the 2004 election cycle, polls showed voters associated “values” with Republicans despite efforts by Democratic strategists to expand the definition beyond issues like abortion and homosexuality.

“The only values Charles Taylor cherishes are stocks and bonds. Charles Taylor’s net worth has grown to almost $60 million while his constituents have lost their health insurance and their jobs,” Meek said.

The language jumped out at Knotts as a precursor to yet another values fight in 2006, this time with the Democrats more on guard.

“The Democrats got hammered so much on the morality thing. So you feel like they are trying to talk more about values,” Knotts said.

But Taylor’s response shows, perhaps, that Republicans will stick to a similar message in 2006.

“So why do the Washington liberals attack Charles Taylor? Because they support gay marriage; he does not. They support partial-birth abortion; he does not,” Taylor stated. “They reject private property rights, but Taylor supports the Fifth Amendment. They vote against the right to keep and bear arms; Taylor thinks that the Second Amendment and the Constitution itself are non-negotiable.”

The accusation

Specifically, Meek cited $1.3 million in fraudulent loans made by Taylor’s bank, Blue Ridge Savings Bank, to one of Taylor’s campaign contributors and the chair of the Republican Party in WNC. The bank president, Hayes Martin — who was also Taylor’s campaign treasurer — pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering for the incident.

“Their sworn court testimony showed that Taylor micromanages all operations at the bank and was in full knowledge of the illegal loans. Yet Taylor successfully thwarted any investigation of himself,” Meek said.

Taylor owns a bank in Russia that allegedly issues loans with interest rates as high as 60 percent. Meek said Taylor’s financial disclosure forms do not adequately address his Russian banking interests.

Taylor has taken at least one trip to Russia in his capacity as a congressman to set up trade networks with a focus on exporting lumber from Western North Carolina. Taylor is a logger in WNC and has vast land holdings.

The response

Taylor said that the liberals are targeting him because he “votes the wishes of the people of WNC and not of the liberal D.C. special interests.”

In his response, Taylor lobbed a few potshots at key Democratic leaders himself. “Howard Dean thinks no Democrat can be a Christian,” Taylor said in his statement, and Sen. Richard Durbin “compares our soldiers to Nazis.”

“Given their propensity for ignoring the truth, and the fact that their only solution to any problem is to attack the Republican Party, it’s not surprising that the DCCC would spend so much money to rehash the same old distortions,” Taylor said.

He called the tactic a “Washington-based, cookie-cutter assault.”