On one trip back home to the 4th, Rep. Shays started the day in Bridgeport. He met a prostitute with AIDS, her teeth falling out, her body badly deformed. The woman's troubles seem to parallel the hard times of Shay's native city, a decaying former whaling community that earned notoriety in 1991 when then-Mayor Mary Moran tried to have the city declared bankrupt.

Then Shays climbed in his car and drove 32 miles to attend a polo match fundraiser in Greenwich, where he rubbed elbows with some of the wealthiest people in America.

The contrast highlights the split personality of the 4th. The district includes the affluent white-collar communities of Connecticut's "Gold Coast," along Long Island Sound, but it also has Bridgeport, a city plagued by poverty, where one neighborhood was dubbed Mount Trashmore because of its three-story garbage pile. (The eyesore finally was removed in late 1992 after dominating the area for two decades).

Taking in Bridgeport as well as better-off Stamford and Norwalk, the 4th has the largest urban population of any Connecticut district. Bridgeport produced one-quarter of all munitions used by the Allied forces in World War II; its strategic importance made it one of two Connecticut cities to be protected by Nike missile bases in the 1950s and early 1960s.

But as the missiles shielded Bridgeport from external enemies, the city deteriorated from within; population shrank in the 1970s and remained static in the 1980s, standing at 142,000 according to the 1990 census. Its residents were also among the neediest in Connecticut; 15 percent fell below the poverty line.

The city's economy could get a boost with the resuscitation of the University of Bridgeport. Its enrollment dropped from about 8,000 to 2,000 in the 1980s, but then the institution was bought by the Unification Church, headed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. While grateful for the bailout, some locals are wary of the church's intentions.

Voting and unemployment data reflect the contrasts in the 4th. Bridgeport voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential contest, although George Bush carried most of the other communities in the 10th. Jobless rates in Stamford and Norwalk frequently have fallen below the state average, while Bridgeport's unemployment (near double digits through much of 1992) routinely has led Connecticut.

The dominant political force in the district are the Republican-minded upper-crust towns along the coast, which are a short drive or train ride from New York City. Most of the towns have GOP mayors, and together they host dozens of corporate headquarters and their officers. Stamford has one of the largest concentrations of corporate headquarters in the nation, including well-known names such as Pitney Bowes, GTE, Champion International and Xerox.