ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 15, 1996 TAG: 9612160022
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
WITH MONEY NO OBJECT and the balance of power at stake in the state Senate, rivals Dels. Allen Dudley and Roscoe Reynolds attack and counterattack in a style not seen from the man each wants to succeed.
The candidates for Virgil Goode's vacant state Senate seat both say they can provide the same type of immensely popular leadership he did.
But Dels. Allen Dudley and Roscoe Reynolds sure haven't campaigned like him.
Goode campaigns like he's at a church social. Dudley and Reynolds are involved in a political street fight.
Goode said he's amazed at the amount of money being poured into the campaigns for the seat he vacated when he was elected to Congress last month.
Reynolds - who's been endorsed by Goode, a fellow Democrat - says he'll have raised $150,000 or more before the five-week campaign culminates with a special election Tuesday. Dudley, a Republican, says his campaign will surpass $200,000.
The totals are more than many General Assembly candidates raise during regular campaigns that last much longer.
There's so much attention on the race because the stakes are so high. If Dudley wins, Republicans will hold their first majority in the now-deadlocked Senate in more than 100 years.
With big hitters in both parties cheering the candidates on, Dudley and Reynolds are engaged in a nasty war of charge-countercharge.
There have been so many jabs back and forth that there's no way to clarify them all before the election.
But one thing is easy to explain: Each candidate believes the other has sacrificed the truth to get elected.
"Allen, if I were you, I'd be afraid Santa Claus would put switches and coal in my Christmas stocking," Reynolds said at a candidates' forum Tuesday at Patrick Henry Community College. "I can understand why you would distort my record. But now you're distorting your own."
A day later, when informed that Reynolds was holding a news conference to rebut some of the charges against him, Dudley said, "While he's at it, I hope he tells everybody why he's lying."
Dudley says Reynolds, a former prosecutor, is soft on crime.
Reynolds says Dudley, a former teacher, hasn't stood up for education funding.
The brevity of the campaign has forced Reynolds and Dudley to be aggressive to get their message to voters. Many believe voter turnout will be sparse at best, so both camps are scrambling to make sure the most dedicated Republican and Democratic loyalists go to the polls.
The campaign has been so frenzied at times that while one candidate was holding a news conference to respond to a charge, the other was holding his own to bring up something else.
"It'll be over Tuesday," Dudley said, "and it sure has been fun."
With so much money in hand, they've been able to inundate voters with television, radio and newspaper advertising as well as direct mail.
A Franklin County man said he went to his mailbox one day last week and found two letters from Dudley. The next day, he got two from Reynolds.
The mailings have generated much ill will between the campaigns.
Almost all of them have been attacks on the other candidate.
One sent out for Dudley is headlined: "Roscoe Reynolds is no Virgil Goode."
One supporting Reynolds reads: "When our children needed Allen Dudley, he just wasn't there."
The Reynolds campaign was so agitated by Dudley's tactics that it put together a 40-page packet that included complete histories of certain General Assembly bills.
In response, Dudley campaigners provided their own packet.
The tone of the Senate campaign has magnified the differences between the two men, who agree on many issues: no expansion of Virginia's lottery; abolition of parole; gun rights; and the idea of welfare reform, to name a few.
The men also share a competitive fire that's become evident in the past few weeks. But they project it in different ways.
Some think Dudley lacks charisma. But it takes time to gain Dudley's trust. He's not one to jump into his life story with somebody he doesn't know. After spending some time with him, a quick and dry wit emerges.
He's calculating, which has a lot to do with the fact that he's a banker. Dudley can rattle off numbers with relative ease. He knows legislative bill numbers and how much things cost, and he always has a keen eye for what the odds are.
Dudley weighed the numbers and made a publicized stand during last year's General Assembly that wasn't well received by many of his Democratic peers. He said the state's deal with Trigon Blue Cross Blue Shield shortchanged taxpayers.
The insurance giant gave the state $175 million for the legislature's approval of its stock-conversion plan to become a publicly traded company.
Dudley, after doing some math, argued that Trigon, according to accrued interest, actually owed the state more.
In the end Dudley lost, and the General Assembly approved the $175 million deal. Dudley still thinks the state got the worst of the bargain.
You won't hear him yell and scream about it, though.
Dudley, 49, rarely changes his tone of voice and you usually can't tell what he's feeling by looking at his face.
"Take a chair, for example," says Dudley's wife, Virginia. "Allen always says if it's got a back and four legs, you can sit in it. It doesn't matter what it looks like, as long as it works."
Reynolds, on the other hand, has a voice that can boom like a Baptist preacher's. He's much more animated, and it's not hard to figure out his emotions.
During the forum last week, Reynolds, 54, looked at his family in the audience several times and shook his head in disgust at comments made by Dudley.
However, his emotion doesn't mean he's helter-skelter.
"Roscoe has the most integrity of anyone I've ever met," said Carolyn Beale, a longtime friend and campaign strategist.
Reynolds was Henry County's commonwealth's attorney for 16 years, so he's no stranger to tough situations.
Asked to compare the rigors of a campaign with prosecuting a murder trial, Reynolds thought a minute.
"They both take a whole lot out of you," he said. "But you finish a murder trial in a few days, and, with the way things are these days, you have to campaign all the time."
One of the criticisms of Reynolds is that he doesn't always stand out as a strong leader in Richmond.
Reynolds disagrees.
Take this story, for example:
During the 1995 General Assembly session, Dudley and Goode put in a request for money to finance a new park project at Smith Mountain Lake involving land owned by Franklin County.
But, as a swipe at Goode, who had made Democratic leaders mad by voting against one of their proposals, the money was taken out of the budget at the last minute by the conferees who make the final decisions.
Goode says he wasn't surprised, just a little disappointed.
He relayed his feelings to Reynolds.
Even though it had little to do with his district, Reynolds picked up the phone and called Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, the House majority leader.
At the time, there was much talk about the upcoming General Assembly elections and which party would control the House and Senate.
Reynolds told Cranwell that he was thinking about retiring and letting the Republicans have his seat.
Then Reynolds said he'd like to see the Franklin County park money put back in the budget.
The money - with several thousand dollars added - was there when the budget plan was adopted.
"I've worked with Virgil Goode for a long time," he said. "You've got to stand up for what's right."
LENGTH: Long : 144 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Reynolds, Dudley. color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS GENERAL ASSEMBLY MGRby CNB