Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 7, 1995 TAG: 9511070032
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A little tip: Jim Smith, manager of Hofheimer's Shoe Store in Christiansburg, recommends black wingtips as the shoe to wear for candidates campaigning door to door.
"It's just a very business-like, conservative shoe," he says. "It's traditional, a sign of strength and stability." Wingtips come in different styles now, he said. Some are even quite comfortable.
A little vanity: Eleanor Hawkins, who served on Montgomery County's electoral board for 23 years and worked the polls for 40, says she's seen people try to register to vote without meeting one of the requirements: giving their age. "I'd tell them they had to give their age," she says. "Then they'd walk off and say, 'Well, I won't register.' Isn't that strange?" Hawkins, by the way, is 83.
She also recalls an election year when a particularly rude voter entered her polling place. "This man came in to vote and there was a line. He got real ugly and belligerent. He was drunk. Well, he was determined to go to the head of the line and cast his vote before anyone else. They took him to jail and he didn't get to vote."
And you thought baseball season lasted a long time: "I have been through 11 elections," says Robertine Jordan, who has been commissioner of revenue in Montgomery County for 44 years. "I'm always interested in elections and the people running. But election time can get to the point where everyone is glad when they're over. This year, everyone started campaigning so early and it's been such a long season. I think the candidates and voters are ready for this to be over."
What's hot: Del. Morgan Griffith, whose 8th District covers all of southern Montgomery County, says knocking on doors is in. "That's always in. Handouts and radio and TV are in. I think parades are in - little local parades," said the Republican, who's running unopposed. "Community dinners are in. Auctions - I think they may be on their way in."
Larry Linkous, who is challenging Del. Jim Shuler for a house seat, held an auction earlier this year featuring Republican memorabilia. One item up for bid in the fund-raiser included breakfast with House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Candidates often host golf tournaments to raise money. And one candidate this year - a Democrat across the state - held a putt-putt tournament. "I probably shouldn't tell you that because I want to do that next time," Griffith said.
What's not: We thought this would be an easy stat to get from the candidates: How many babies did you kiss this year? Maybe we've been watching too many reruns of "The Andy Griffith Show."
But we're not in Mayberry these days.
"I don't kiss babies anymore," confesses state Sen. Madison Marye. "Parents don't like for you to kiss babies."
His opponent, Pat Cupp, wouldn't comment on the number of babies he's kissed, if any. But he does tell a pretty good yarn about how a potential voter tried to get him to kiss her pet pig at the Prices Fork Fair earlier in the fall.
"I have no intention of kissing a pig, you've got that on the record," Cupp confirmed.
While kissing babies is out, Griffith says that playing with babies is always in. "It's fun, too," he said.
Also out: campaign potholders.
Resting up: We asked Samuel G. "Ted" Timberlake, who is stepping down from the Giles County supervisors after 16 years, how it feels to sit out an election. "It's pleasant," says Timberlake, who's stepping down because of ill health. "I had had enough. If I can't do it in 16 years, I'll never get it done."
Timberlake says he ran for elections in the past by promising only what he could deliver. And he used only four election signs each year in his campaigning. The number of signs posted in yards and on highways this year boggle his mind.
"I don't see how they have the time to devote to putting up those stupid signs," he says. "If they don't win, I don't know how they're going to get them all down."
In case of a tie ... In 1987 Lindsay West and George Gray tied in their bid for the District G Board of Supervisors race in Montgomery County.
To settle the tie, the elections board put each candidate's name in separate film canisters and drew one canister from a paper bag. Gray's name was drawn.
Every vote counts: In 1990, a referendum in Pulaski on a $4 million project to restore the burned-out county courthouse failed by one vote, 3,670 to 3,669. A scaled-down restoration plan passed in a referendum the following year.
Every vote counted for Councilwoman Polly Corn and newcomer Jim Cox in Radford in 1990, too. Initially, it looked as if the two had tied in a Radford City Council race. Then, election officials discovered that the absentee ballots had not be counted. Corn won by 9 votes after the recount.
Who am I? Tracy Howard of Radford recalls this gem in a recent Registrar Association Newsletter. It concerns U.S. senatorial candidate Oliver North's visit to a nursing home in Southwest Virginia just before Election Day. "Several residents were brought out to meet him," the story goes. "He approached an elderly lady in a wheelchair and said, `Do you know who I am?' The lady studied him for a moment, then said, `No, sir. But if you go to that desk right over there, they can tell you.'"
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB