LA PLUME, Pa. – He said she was “a casual acquaintance.” She said they were extra-marital lovers, but told police that he tried to choke her. His wife says she forgives him. So does President Bush.

In fact, Bush traveled to northeastern Pennsylvania Thursday to help the wayward husband, Republican Rep. Don Sherwood, keep his seat in Congress. Perhaps it’s a measure of the Republicans’ plight that the president would throw his prestige behind a candidate whose marital misbehavior conjures memories of Bill Clinton.

Sherwood’s five-year fling with a woman half his age has all the elements of a bad soap opera, but voter reaction could help decide whether Republicans keep control of the House of Representatives. Polls show Sherwood trailing Democratic challenger Chris Carney in a district that had been considered a lock for the GOP.

Bush gave Sherwood his wholehearted endorsement as he helped the candidate raise more than $300,000 at a fundraiser at Keystone College. The president addressed Sherwood’s adultery head-on by praising the candidate’s wife, Carol, for standing by him.

“It looks like he’s in pretty serious trouble,” said Jonathan Williamson, chairman of the political science department at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa. “If they didn’t need the seat so much, the national Republicans would cut Sherwood loose. This may be one of the firewalls – they have to have this one, even though they’re not all that thrilled with their guy.”

In a letter to voters last weekend, Carol Sherwood accused Carney of exploiting her family’s trauma by casting the congressional election as a referendum on moral values.

“Chris Carney might be trying to make himself look squeaky clean, but we have all made mistakes we regret over the years,” she wrote. “I am certainly not condoning the mistake Don made, but I’m not going to dwell on it, either.”

Bush said he was “deeply moved” by her comments.

“Carol’s letter shows what a caring and courageous woman she is,” he said as the Sherwoods and one of the couple’s three daughters looked on.

The congressman’s marital misdeeds have become a frequent topic of discussion in his conservative, rural district, where the mountains are now covered with trees in shades of yellow, orange and red. Sherwood’s problems started in September 2004, when Cynthia Ore called police to the congressman’s Capitol Hill apartment claiming that he’d choked her for no apparent reason.

She was 29 at the time; he was 63.

Sherwood was never charged, and the matter attracted little attention until the following spring, when Ore threatened legal action and provided details of a relationship that Sherwood had initially denied. The two met in 1999 at a gathering for young Republicans.

“We had such good chemistry,” Ore told the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. “I saw Don as a small-town all-American. He has that pink, rosy skin. When I first met him, he had those big glasses.”

Sherwood, a wealthy car dealer, settled Ore’s $5.5 million civil suit for an undisclosed sum, but his indiscretion continues to haunt him. Carney’s efforts to exploit the scandal and the furor over former Rep. Mark Foley’s sexually explicit Internet messages to congressional pages have added fuel to the issue.

Sherwood has all but pleaded for voters to forgive him.

“I made a mistake that nearly cost me the love of my wife, Carol, and our daughters. As a family, we’ve worked through this,” he said in one of his television ads. “Should you forgive me, you can count on me to continue to fight for you and your family.”

But some Republicans aren’t ready to forget or forgive. Former Sherwood supporter Joseph Lech of Tunkhannock, Pa., Sherwood’s hometown, vented his anger in an ad for Carney.

“This incident with Don Sherwood just cuts right at the core values of our district. I’ve spoken to my daughter about that incident, and she’s disgusted by it,” Lech says in the ad. “I love my daughter tremendously. How can I tell her that I support Don Sherwood and feel good about myself?”

Carney’s efforts to benefit from his opponent’s failings mirror Bush’s references to Clinton’s infidelity during the 2000 presidential campaign. Bush presented himself as a morally upright alternative to the outgoing president by repeatedly assuring voters that he would “uphold the dignity of the office.”

Sherwood admittedly fell short of Bush’s pledge, but White House spokesman Tony Snow noted the congressman’s contrition in explaining the president’s decision to campaign for him.

“Mr. Sherwood has certainly admitted to what has gone on, and the president believes that we’re all sinners, we all seek forgiveness,” Snow said last week.

Pressed on the issue again Thursday, Snow seemed eager to change the topic. He defended the president’s visit, then said: “I’m not going to go any further.”