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August 23, 1987, Section CN, Page 11Buy Reprints
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NHEN Christopher Shays entered the crowded race two months ago for the Congressional seat left vacant by the death of Stewart B. McKinney, he was a reluctant candidate who several times thought of dropping out and barely scraped together enough votes at the Republican convention to qualify for his party's primary.

Then, during the primary, he was considered such a long-shot candidate that The Washington Post all but omitted him from its story on the Fourth Congressional District campaigns, remarking only that Mr. Shays was a liberal state representative who has ''failed to make a clear impact on the race.''

Even after he became the primary's surprise winner, Mr. Shays was still labeled by almost everyone - including himself - as a political underdog. Some early polls placed him as much as 30 percentage points behind the Democratic candidate, Christine M. Niedermeier, a 35-year-old lawyer and former state representative. She was also outspending him by a 2-to-1 margin.

Today the 41-year-old Mr. Shays is a Congressman-elect. He will be sworn in when the House reconvenes Sept. 9.

''I'm really numb,'' he told reporters Tuesday night after his victory speech. ''It just hasn't sunk in yet that I'll be a Congressman.'' Two days later, Mr. Shays headed to Washington to meet with Mr. McKinney's staff.

Political observers credit Mr. Shays unexpected win to his personal diligence and his relentless campaign staff, many of them young men and women in their late teens and 20's, as well as his political strength in his hometown, Stamford, which he won by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

''Shays is the Pete Rose of the Connecticut Republican Party, hustle, hustle, hustle,'' said Robert S. Poliner, the Connecticut Republican state chairman, who called the win ''a tremendous shot in the arm'' for the Connecticut Republican Party and a ''good sign nationally'' for the party.

Others cited the flawed campaign strategy of Ms. Niedermeier, who gave her opponent badly needed recognition by holding numerous debates (something Mr. McKinney was loath to do) and her failure to galvanize the large number of blue-collar and black voters in Bridgeport.

Some also believe that Ms. Niedermeier's narrow loss to Mr. McKinney in 1986 - which gave her high name-recognition in this summer's special election and the appearance that she was the Congressman's heir apparent - came about not because of her own popularity but because Governor O'Neill and Senator Christopher J. Dodd, both popular Democrats, were also on the ballot last year.

''The Democratic Party did everything it could and should do,'' Mr. O'Neill said. ''All people are not electable. You can't win without the right candidate.''

''I'm not really sure it was really a Democrat-Republican issue in the Fourth District,'' he added. ''I think Christopher Shays creamed Christine Niedermeier. I'm sorry for Christine Niedermeier. She ran a good race.''

The Congressman-elect, a seven-term state representative, carried every municipality in the affluent district - which takes in Bridgeport, Darien, Fairfield, Greenwich, New Canaan, Norwalk, Stamford, Westport and part of Trumbull - except Bridgeport and Ms. Niedermeier's hometown of Fairfield, which he lost by only 434 votes out of more than 14,000 cast. He also won 57 percent of the districtwide vote, a figure higher than Mr. McKinney garnered in winning his ninth two-year term last November. Mr. McKinney, a Westport Republican, died of AIDS last May at the age of 56.

Mr. Shays won, 50,518 to 37,293 for Ms. Neidermeier. A third candidate on the ballot was Nicholas Tarzia, a Stamford plumber and follower of the political extremist Lyndon LaRouche who ran as a candidate of the War Against AIDS party. He had 524 votes.

Because the election was being held at the peak of the summer vacation season, the turnout had been expected to be light, perhaps 25 percent. But the returns put the turnout at almost 35 percent.

With the election of Mr. Shays, the six-member Connecticut delegation to the United State House of Representatives remains split, 3-to-3 between the Democrats and Republicans.

Another special election will now have to be held to elect a successor to Mr. Shays in the State House of Representatives from the 147th District in Stamford.

Mr. Shays, who will fill the remainder of Mr. McKinney's term and face re-election in November 1988, is a real-estate broker and a former Peace Corps volunteer who served in Fiji and unsuccessfuly ran for mayor of Stamford in 1983. He is a liberal Republican in the mold of his predecessor and Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr., who held the seat from 1969 to 1971.

Mr. Shays also is known for being an unusually principled, if not always pragmatic, legislator. One of the few nonlawyers to take an active role on the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee, he is strong advocate of strict standards of conduct for judges and lawyers.

He also is perhaps best known for serving a 10-day contempt sentence for refusing to leave the witness stand because he was not allowed to read a statement during a grievance hearing against a Hartford attorney charged with mishandling an heiress's estate.

Mr. Shays's press secretary, Julie Rosson, credited the victory to the candidate's outgoing personality as well as his reputation as a highly principled lawmaker. She added that he was aided by 50 full-time volunteers and several hundred part-time workers who beseeched potential voters in theater lines, in bowling alleys and on the beaches. She said that campaigning on the beaches seemed to be particularly key and was an area ignored by the Niedermeier campaign.

Shays volunteers also packed Metro-North trains heading into New York City Tuesday morning and implored commuters to return from work early enough to vote. They also waited at the train stations later in the afternoon to issue further reminders.

''His victory was a case of old-fashioned politics,'' Ms. Rosson said. ''We didn't have the money, so we did the road show.''

''He's like Stewart,'' said Fairfield First Selectman Jacquelyn C. Durrell. ''The people wanted another Stewart McKinney - and they got one.''

That comment was echoed through the victory celebration Tuesday night by myriad Shays supporters, including Mr. Weicker and Lucie McKinney, the late Congressman's wife. ''I just wanted to say that Stewart McKinney is up there smiling,'' Mrs. McKinney said.

As she finished her speech, however, she glanced down at the floor near Mr. Shays. ''He has two shoes,'' she said. ''It's time he started to fill his own.'' VOTE TOTALS FOR CONGRESSIONAL RACE Following are the results in Tuesday's special election in the Fourth Congressional District. Abbreviations are: D - Democrat, R - Republican and W - War Against AIDS. Shays R Niedermeier D Tarzia W Bridgeport 5,622 9,989 115 Darien 3,674 1,058 21 Fairfield 7,065 7,499 61 Greenwich 7,654 3,490 50 New Canaan 3,049 940 26 Norwalk 5,176 4,762 82 Stamford 12,431 5,594 131 Trumbull 1,995 1,819 12 Westport 3,852 2,142 26 Total 50,518 37,293 524