Monica MOnica

^AP-Monica Monica,0298

^Not THAT Monica: Dr. Monica Monica running for Livingston's seat

NEW ORLEANS (AP) A congressional seat being vacated because of fallout from the Monica affair could be filled by a woman known to her friends as Monica Squared.

"This is not a politically cute trick," 48-year-old ophthalmologist Dr. Monica L. Monica said of her plans to run for the House seat held by fellow Republican Bob Livingston. "I was Monica long before the other one was. It's on my driver's license."

That's the actual name she was given by her father, Elihu Root Monica.

"I asked him, `Did you stutter, or what?' He said, `I loved you so much and felt so much honor in the name that I named you twice,"' Ms. Monica recalled.

Ms. Monica has been politically active and is among the doctors on the Louisiana Health Care Review Organization, which works on Medicare initiatives.

Watching Livingston's resignation announcement on television, she recalled, "I said, `This is ridiculous. Somebody's got to get in there, somebody's got to start advocating and becoming positive and bringing out the best they can in the medical system, education, the environment."'

The night before the House was to elect Livingston as speaker, he announced that he would leave Congress within six months because Hustler's Larry Flynt was about to publish details about his adulterous affairs.

The only other person to say he will definitely run is former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Ms. Monica's grandfather, an Italian immigrant, named his four sons for famous Americans: Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Russell Sage, Elihu Root.

Ms. Monica said: "I will take my name and make it as individual and as honorable as it was given to me by my father."