Even Mrs Hillary Clinton could not change Mr Jim Moran's mind when he decided to break ranks with most of his Democratic colleagues and vote for a full impeachment inquiry into her husband. The vote was no great surprise, as Moran had been publicly expressing his outrage ever since the president admitted he had lied over his affair with Ms Monica Lewinsky.
The Irish-American Democrats in Washington were so angry with Mr Moran, whose grandparents came from Co Mayo and Co Cork, that they withdrew the $500 fun ding for his re-election campaign telling him that "the president has been so good for Ireland and you have been so mean to him".
The pugnacious, blue-eyed Mr Moran (53) concedes that his stance has hurt him with the Democratic base in north Virginia just across the Potomac from Washington which he has represented since 1990. His Republican opponent, Ms Demaris Miller, hopes she can benefit from it.
In an interview with Mr Moran after he appeared on a radio programme with Ms Miller, he told The Irish Times about the phone call he got from Mrs Clinton trying to persuade him not to vote for the Republican motion for a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry. "I was very blunt with her. I even said that if she were my sister, I'd take that guy behind the house and break his nose and she was real sweet about it.
"She said: `I love you Irish Catholic-type guys - so emotional. If I had had a big brother like you, maybe my life would have turned out very different.' She's a real strong and smart person. I still feel badly that the president really humiliated her with his conduct," Mr Moran said.
However, she did not shift Mr Moran, a former stockbroker whose Irish grandfather laid cables in Boston and whose grandmother was a housemaid to the Brahmin families on snobbish Beacon Hill. "Hillary gave me a strong legal argument. She's a brilliant woman but I'm not so influenced by legalisms. I sort of reach my own conclusions of what's right and wrong," he explained.
"It's wrong to get involved with other women when you're married, especially with young girls who work for you. It's wrong to lie under oath when you swear to God that you're going to tell the truth."
Mr Moran regrets his break with Mr Clinton over the Lewinsky affair. "He has been wonderful for Ireland. I've been over there with him. I could not be more appreciative or congratulatory of the president. I just wish he would focus exclusively on those kind of issues and be a little more self-disciplined."
Mr Moran is confident he will hold his seat against the challenge from Ms Miller, an energetic former nurse with a PhD in psycho logy who campaigns in a red pickup truck. She attacks Mr Moran for favouring gun-control, his cautious stance on the threatened social security system and on taxes.
Mr Moran's strength is his intimate knowledge of the constituency, with its mix of federal employees working at the Pentagon, affluent Washington suburbs and low-income housing estates in Alexandria where he was once may or. Since he defeated a Republican incumbent in 1990, the constituency has been redrawn to include additional Democratic areas.
He doesn't believe his break with the president, whom he strongly supports in most policy areas as a centrist "new Democrat", will lose him his seat. "I know how hard I work for what I want and I would not want to be someone campaigning against me. I never lost yet. I don't intend to lose this election."
Has he any regrets about pounding the president? "I get angry too fast . . . I wear my heart on my sleeve. I got disappointed with the president. Basically, he lied to me, he humiliated his family. I believed in him, he disappointed me." However, he does not regret his vote on the wide impeachment inquiry pushed through by the Re publican majority. "It was the responsible thing to do. I don't have any ambivalence about that."