In the 2004 Presidential campaign, the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party, the area’s two congressmen are off to the races—one at a canter and one at a gallop.

For Congressman Steve Israel, a Democrat representing the Second Congressional District, one of the key issues he plans to talk about is Medicare, but he is quick to add: "not because it’s important to George Bush or John Kerry but because it’s important to my constituents."

Republican Congressman Peter King from the Third Congressional District takes a different tack. He’s going to make George Bush’s reelection one of his major goals.

"I will definitely be a strong supporter of the President," he says, "because the major issue is the war on terrorism and President Bush is the leader of the war on terrorism…this is the defining issue of our time. So the question is who do we want to be Commander in Chief in the war of terrorism." This echoes the mantra of the President’s national reelection campaign.

Bush will need all the support he can get here in New York and on Long Island. His is a campaign that has been rarely heard from in New York. Bush-Cheney TV campaign ads are almost non-existent.

King agreed that New York was going to be "neglected" not just by Bush, but by Kerry, too. The action this year, the pundits are sure, is elsewhere. "Go to Pennsylvania or West Virginia and that (campaign ads) is all you see," King said.

So, Bush is expected to need strong support from local Republicans like King since New York is a state that traditionally votes Democratic in presidential years, one of the so-called "blue states." But even worse for the Republicans, normally banner GOP areas like Nassau and Suffolk have gone into the Democratic column in the last two presidential elections, something unheard of a decade ago. (Lyndon Johnson, in 1964, was the first and only Democrat ever to carry all 62 New York counties). This is graphically illustrated by the fact that King is now the only GOP congressional representative out of the five from Long Island.

So confident are the Democrats of a Kerry victory here in November that Suffolk party chairman Richard Schaffer is providing volunteers to help Kerry win states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. These Democratic volunteers work with the Long Island Progressive Coalition that operates phone banks in a former private home at 90 Pennsylvania Ave., Massapequa and in Broohaven. Lisa Tyson, the coalition’s director, said her group is one that has joined with others across the country to identify, register and get to the polls those they believe favor Kerry.

Israel, for his part, plans to share his election campaign headquarters with the western Suffolk headquarters for Kerry. But he is quick to point out that he will not be positioned tightly on the political compass.

"I’m pretty independent. I’ve never been partisan. When I can work with them (the Republicans) I always will," Israel says. "But when they enact policies that hurt my constituents, that’s when I am going to oppose them." But for most of his constituents, he said, being a "centrist" is what they want. "That’s what they are," he said.

Israel, trying to get a prescription bill through Congress, took a lot of heat in public meetings a year ago when he voted for the original Medicare prescription drug bill, the only New York Democrat who did. The original bill passed the House by one vote. He later voted against the amended, final version that President Bush signed and many seniors oppose because they think the Republicans sold out to the drug companies.

Israel also voted to give Bush the authority to go into Iraq, but there he now parts company with him he says, for "not equipping our troops with the resources they need to stabilize Iraq over the long term." Israel said he has talked to a number of Long Islanders who served in Iraq "who didn’t have proper armored vests, didn’t have adequate night-vision goggles…didn’t have the supplies and resources they should have had."

King, whose district includes southwestern Nassau county, Amityville and parts of Babylon said be believed Bush is going to run better this time than in 2000. "His strong response to 9/11 is one reason," King said. A lot of people in his district are survivors of 9/11 victims "and they strongly support the President for the actions he has taken."

As for Iraq itself, King said, "I’ve been over there and seen so many of the things that people are concerned about…every school is open, every hospital is open, there’s a free press, there’s television, there’s cable television…at any given time 99 per cent of the country is stable. A lot of good work has been done."

Americans should not be surprised, he said, that in a country of 23 million that there are still holdouts and guerrillas and terrorists fighting against U.S. troops and the interim government.