Consitutents React to Condit Letter

M O D E S T O, Calif., Aug. 23 -- Never before has one letter had so much buildup in Modesto, Calif., than the one Rep. Gary Condit mailed to his constituents today, in which he denied he had any connection to Chandra Levy's disappearance.

In the three-page message, mailed Wednesday to about 200,000 of his constituents in California's Central Valley, the Democratic congressman defends his long silence, lashes out at the media and maintains he has cooperated fully with police.

Today mail clerks in this California farm town sorted more than 150,000 small white envelopes paid for by the congressman's campaign committee and personally addressed to his constituents, the names culled from lists of past contributors.

On a local talk radio station, the host joked that by the end of the day dozens would end up on the auction site E-Bay.

At the Eleventh Street Barbershop, the customers weren't impressed.

"It's too late. It's all after the fact," said Bert Lippert, as he waited for the barber to finish his son's back-to-school brush-cut. "This all should have come out in the first week."

Barber Larry Powell says a lot of his customers feel that way. "Marginal [Condit] supporters like myself have probably already bailed," he said, dragging the clippers through the second-grader's hair. "I don't think there's anything [Condit could say] that's going to bring people back."

Across Modesto, people are tired of the story. Most plan to watch Condit address the Chandra Levy matter tonight for the first time with ABCNEWS' Connie Chung. But most seem to feel guilty about watching, as though the scandal has tainted their community as well.

"I'll probably watch," said one man who preferred not to be named. "But I'll be watching baseball first."

At Blondie's Café in Condit's hometown of Ceres, the men at breakfast were still inclined to give their congressman the benefit of the doubt. They can empathize. One group of three men who declined to be interviewed on camera agreed that any man would deny an extramarital affair.