DOVER: MAN HOPES TO UNSEAT EMERSON

BELL CITY - Offering himself as someone who will represent the concerns of average working people, Johnny Dover, a Bell City factory worker, filed last week for Congress from the 8th District.

"I think the people are just looking for an average working guy," said the 40-year-old Dover, a Democrat. "If I can win the primary, I feel like I've got a good shot in November."

For the last eight years, Dover has been employed by the Golden Cat Corp. plant in Bloomfield, which makes kitty litter.

"I've done a lot of things in my life," said Dover. "Most of the people in Washington are lawyers, and we know that hasn't worked."

Dover has worked on farms, been self-employed with a heating and air conditioning business and has worked as a union carpenter.

"What they need in Washington is a dose of the real world," he said. "We just don't need any more people who have been raised up there and stay 20 years and don't know what's going on in the real world."

Dover filed on Monday, one day before incumbent U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson revealed that he had been told by the House Ethics Committee that six checks he wrote on his House Bank account were held for insufficient funds.

Now that Emerson's revelations have come out, Dover is convinced that people in the 8th District are ready for change in 1992.

"That's just another example of Congress being out of touch with the real world," said Dover. "They do not live by the same rules as the rest of us; the time is right to clean out Washington and put in average working people."

Emerson has filed for a seventh two-year term in the House. He is challenged in the August Republican primary by Earl Durnell, a farmer from Cabool.

Asked why he decided to run, Dover explained, "The mood of the country is to throw the incumbents out. This seems to be the year to do it."

At the time Dover filed, the only Democratic candidate in the race was Thad Bullock, a retired Cape Girardeau businessman who has unsuccessfully sought his party's nomination five times before.

Since there were no seasoned politicians in the race, Dover thought it would be a good opportunity to win the nomination. With the revelations about Emerson's bad checks, Dover now feels other candidates will enter the race before the March 31 deadline.

Dover ran in 1988 and finished fourth in the primary behind Wayne Cryts, Riley Bock and Bullock. Dover believes many of the voters who wanted a working man turned to Cryts instead of him. He is hopeful many of Cryts' 1988 voters will look to him in 1992.

A native of Bell City, Dover plans to travel the 8th District as much as possible the next few months. The type of primary campaign he runs will depend on whether any other candidates enter the race.

He anticipates a low-budget campaign, since he has decided not to accept contributions from political action committees.

Some of the issues he plans to talk about during the campaign are provisions for a national health care plan, fairer trade arrangements with Japan, increasing the production of ethanol, reducing the influence of PACs, and providing "less foreign aid to countries that don't appreciate it.

"I'm calling myself the people's candidate because I am a factory worker," said Dover. "The average working man needs someone to start working for them. I'm telling everyone to think it over and vote for Dover."