FREDERICK - Four years ago, a brash, young conservative not far removed from life as a philosophy major at Dartmouth College surprised everyone - including the minority whip who went down to decisive defeat - in claiming the seat representing the city and many of its outskirts in the Maryland Senate.

Alex X. Mooney ran on a platform saying four-term Republican Sen. John W. Derr was too liberal for the district, that his 16 years in the Senate were marked by "going along to get along" in Annapolis, not by independent thought.

Mooney, now 31, hasn't made what he sees as that mistake during his freshman term.

He has alienated some in his party by taking loud stances against such issues as a gay-rights bill, which he called the "special rights for homosexuals bill." He has been known to filibuster into the night in opposition to legislation such as the gay-rights bill and a 1999 tobacco tax increase. He got himself kicked off an influential committee after he angered the Democratic leadership.

A Montgomery County newspaper, in a poll rating the effectiveness of each state legislator, ranked Mooney 47th out of 47 senators, calling him "a bright kid who's quickly marginalizing himself."

This fall, he is engaged in one of the most expensive, most contentious races in Maryland, defending his seat against a well-respected two-term delegate, Sue Hecht, the only Democrat on the eight-member Frederick County delegation. He calls himself one of the state Democrats' "top targets."

The race has featured some harsh political maneuvering.

Hecht said she has been shouted at, harassed and videotaped at events by Mooney supporters.

Mooney's campaign manager, Erin DeLullo, e-mailed the Hecht campaign pretending to be interested in volunteering in order to spy - for which Mooney and DeLullo have apologized.

Gen-X Strategies of Virginia, a company known to support conservative causes, even bought the rights to several Internet domain names - including www.suehecht.com, www.suehecht.org and www. suehecht.net. to prevent her from using them.

Two incidents that were reported to police - though Hecht said she doesn't blame Mooney outright for them - were the theft of her laptop from the city's Democratic headquarters in a burglary in which nothing else was taken and the vandalization of her car tire at a recent street festival.

"Unfortunately that's what happens when you have candidates backed by extremist groups," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, a Prince George's Democrat. "They're not content with discussing the issues and are resorting to dirty tricks. I've never seen it in my lifetime, that kind of tactics. It's dirty tricks to the extreme and it doesn't belong in Maryland."

Mooney, meanwhile, has complained that a group called the Defeat Mooney Committee was an illegal political action committee supported by his opponent. Hecht denies any involvement with the group, which disbanded in late August.

Mooney also charged that Hecht's Web site once included a section called "Mooney Tunes" - a play on the Looney Tunes cartoons, with him as Bugs Bunny. He said he has also been shouted at and that his car was pelted with eggs by people he figures were Hecht supporters.

"Everyone needs to take a deep breath and get back to the issues," Mooney said during a recent interview. "It's a desperate attempt on her part to avoid talking about this budget deficit she's created."

Budget deficit

The budget deficit is the most important issue in this campaign, according to Mooney. "My first year down there, we had a billion-dollar surplus," he said. "The tax-and-spend liberals spent it all and kept spending into a $1.7 billion deficit."

He points out that he promised not to raise taxes and didn't (except for "accidentally" approving a bill to raise the hotel tax in Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore). He fought off attempts by Hecht, he said, to raise Frederick County hotel and local home sales taxes.

When asked why he is running for Senate, he replied: "Someone's got to fight for conservative policies and values in Annapolis."

Hecht, on the other hand, points to her accomplishments in eight years on the job. She has had 23 bills signed into law to Mooney's zero. She talks about money brought to the county for school construction, attention she has brought to transportation programs, her support of abortion rights and gun safety. She says the budget will be balanced again by the end of the next session as required by law.

She talks of finding ways to fix the problems that come up in her community, like a recent fight against power companies that wanted to relocate to the county without local approval.

"I think people expect something back for their vote," she said. "I have given up my safe seat to give people a choice. Clearly I am the choice for progress."

Big money

District 3 includes the city of Frederick, but also more Republican rural areas to the south and west, high-growth suburbs on the Montgomery County line and two precincts in Washington County. It is majority Republican.

Mooney has raised more than $750,000 for his campaign. He says he needed it all because he knew the Democrats had the money to pour into the district on Hecht's behalf and he had no comparable treasury. "You can always use more," he said.

Besides, he says, by using direct mailings - bashing liberals, gays and what he called "the Kennedy machine" - "to raise $10,000, it costs $5,000."

Hecht has raised about one-third of what her opponent has collected - but 10 times what she raised eight years ago.

"This fella has raised more money than anyone has ever raised - [among] Republicans," said Baltimore County Republican Sen. Andrew P. Harris. "Obviously his principles connect with a lot of people."

Different backgrounds

Mooney grew up in Frederick, one of four children of a Cuban mother who escaped the Fidel Castro regime at age 21 with her 13 brothers and sisters. His uncle, Xavier Suarez, was a two-term mayor of Miami, who was later removed from a third term because of voting fraud.

Mooney went into politics soon after graduating from college in 1993, working for U.S. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett and then the House Republican Conference Committee before moving on to a job with the conservative Council for National Policy. He said he ran for Senate because he saw a chance to unseat the "liberal" representing his hometown. He became the youngest person in the Senate at the time.

Hecht, 54, grew up in Takoma Park and moved to Frederick County in 1976. With her two children in middle school, she decided to go back to college, taking classes at Frederick Community College and at Hood College where she earned a business degree. She went on to earn an MBA from Frostburg State University in 1992.

She served for a decade as director of Heartly House, a private nonprofit group assisting survivors of domestic and sexual abuse.

The tone of the race doesn't surprise Sen. Paula C. Hollinger, a Baltimore County Democrat. "He's always lashing out at somebody," she said. "He's very immature and he's much more interested, I think, in political grandstanding than in legislating. ... Maybe he thinks this is still a college campus, but what we do here is very serious business. This isn't a playground."

Tom Geiser, a 67-year-old Frederick voter, says he is "staying with Mr. Mooney," despite his methods.

"He's doing his best down there," Geiser said. "He's a little harsh, but he's standing up for the conservative side."

Wrong focus

Hecht is troubled that the focus has shifted from the issues to what Geiser called "a lot of little shenanigans."

"Unfortunately, I'm afraid people are going to be so disgusted with both sides that they're not going to come out to vote," she said. "The way this whole thing looks - it's not focused on what we need to do."