THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9408120059
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REALPOLITIK
Occasional dispatches on the offbeat side of Virginia's 1994 U.S. Senate
race.
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 146 lines
DOUG WILDER'S campaign tour of the commonwealth was just three hours old. Already it was 1 1/2 hours behind schedule.
Shred the schedules. Stop the clocks.
The man obviously can't tell time.
Wilder launched the trip in Richmond at 1 p.m. Saturday and jumped in a red Ford Taurus sedan bound for Farmville - 90 minutes away. He waved to supporters who were chanting ``Go, Doug, go.''
He went.
But by 4 he had still not arrived.
It was a sun-drenched, cool afternoon and a small band of reporters stood idly on a Farmville street corner - in front of the appropriately named Landsharks restaurant - waiting for Wilder to appear.
``We're on Wilder Time now,'' sighed Tyler Whitley of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Whitley, a longtime political reporter, has been on the Wilder campaign trail - and Wilder Time - before.
``He's fashionably late,'' explained Wilder supporter James Ghee, a Farmville lawyer and former president of the Virginia NAACP, who had been interviewed and re-interviewed by the bored members of the media standing beside him on the street corner. ``Doug's always fashionably late.''
The local radio station, WFLO, was there. So was a reporter from the Farmville Herald. Whitley and the Virginian-Pilot were there. A writer from the Orlando Sentinel was tapping her foot and staring with disbelief at a fax from Wilder's office promising that the candidate would appear on that very corner at 2:30 p.m.
Even Ghee began to look perplexed after waiting nearly two hours. He was tapping his watch and craning his neck to get a better look down Farmville's Main Street when Wilder and two campaign aides coasted to the curb in a white Ford Taurus Station wagon.
Wilder was smiling.
``We had to switch cars,'' explained Daniel Conley, a Wilder aide.
The entourage entered the Green Front Furniture warehouse where unsuspecting shoppers were wandering through the cavernous complex of giant tobacco warehouses converted into discount furniture showrooms.
Seasoned campaigner that he is, Wilder dived into the crowd, introducing himself politely but not begging for votes.
Anyone ragging on Robb got a hug from the former governor.
But even for the uncommitted there was handshaking and hugging. And lots of time for talk. Talking with those who could never cast a Virginia ballot, residents of Maryland, California and Arkansas.
Time for talking with people too young to cast a ballot.
``Hello, honey, what's your name?'' Wilder asked, bending down to a 3-year-old moppet with neat rows of braids in her hair.
``Loren,'' she replied.
``Loren,'' Wilder repeated, giving the girl a big hug. ``I have a daughter named Loren.''
Her mother stepped up.
``We named her Loren after your daughter. Same spelling. L-O-R-E-N,'' said Sharon Murphy, a Virginia Power employee from Chesterfield, furniture shopping with her husband and mother.
She told the governor that her cousin, Gail Fulton Ross, had painted his portrait.
``I have it hanging in my home,'' he gushed, sensing a committed Wilder voter. ``My, my, it's a small world.''
A small world indeed.
As Wilder picked his way through rows of sofas, tables, bedroom suites, armoires and settees, it looked as if the world were getting smaller and smaller.
Everyone he approached seemed to have met him somewhere before.
``I took your picture at the Virginia Diner once,'' said one woman, hugging Wilder.
``You don't remember me, but I sat next to you at a dinner in Mechanicsville one time,'' said another.
``I know you. I know more about you than you know about yourself,'' declared Peggy Smith of Charles City, resting on a step and too exhausted to rise as Wilder passed by. ``I know you just bought property on the James River for $75,000.''
``Good to see you Peggy,'' Wilder said, stopping for a quick chat.
As he moved toward the warehouse exit, Wilder eyed a well-dressed middle-aged man and woman. Shades of Ozzie and Harriet.
``Hi, I'm Doug Wilder, where you from?'' he asked.
``We're from Michigan,'' the man replied.
``Well, I'm running for Senate. You may have a few friends in Virginia who will vote for me,'' Wilder said hopefully.
``Actually, I'm a congressman from Michigan,'' said Rep. Joe Knollenberg of Detroit - a Republican.
``That's great,'' said Wilder, pumping the congressman's hand harder and slapping him on the shoulder. ``I'll be up in Washington in January. We'll be working together. See you then.''
Off to a Charley's restaurant where Wilder circulated around the bar, sipping a Diet Coke, shaking hands with patrons who were watching a NASCAR race on television sets suspended from the ceiling.
The campaign staff quietly suggested he change his clothes for an evening fund-raiser. Wilder was dressed casually in a Ralph Lauren red-and-white-striped sports shirt, black slacks and shiny new cowboy boots.
Wilder demurred.
``We're going over to the Wal-Mart,'' Ghee announced.
At the store, a half-dozen shoppers recognized Wilder and surrounded him. These people had never heard about the new phenomenon of Wal-Mart Republicans.
For the next 45 minutes Wilder posed for Polaroid photos with store employees, shook hands and signed autographs.
About to leave, Wilder spied one last potential voter, a shopper pushing a basket curiously loaded with rolls of toilet paper. Perhaps she was preparing for the coming U.S. Senate campaign.
``I'm Doug Wilder,'' he said, extending his hand over the toilet tissue.
``Nice to meet you. I must tell you, I can't in good conscience vote for that Chuck Robb again,'' said the woman, offering her hand.
She never said she was voting for Wilder. But a beaming Wilder hugged her.
It was late, and the former governor had less than an hour to eat dinner, change clothes and get to the fund-raiser about 10 miles out of town. But he was reluctant to leave the endless supply of voters arriving for late afternoon shopping at the Farmville Wal-Mart.
Leaning on the station wagon in the late afternoon light, the campaign aides looked bemused. It took Wilder half an hour to cover 50 feet of Wal-Mart parking lot. A walk on Wilder Time.
Along the way he encountered a Christian musician who wanted to give him a cassette. A young boy named Marshon who wanted his autograph. An elderly couple who declared their fealty.
``Do you know of any reason all these people would have for coming up to me and lying?'' Wilder asked, lingering for another minute before turning toward the anxious aides.
He was within spitting distance of the Taurus when he encountered a retired prison guard from Powhatan Correctional Center who claimed to hate Chuck Robb. Wilder shook hands with the guard, Wilbur J. Jamerson, slapped him on the back and strode toward the Taurus.
A man in cowboy boots riding a car named after a bull. Could such symbolism have been lost on the voters of Farmville?
The engine was running before Wilder even opened the car door. With the little hand on the seven and the big one on the twelve, it was time for Wilder to hit Charley's for a quick dinner. Somewhere outside Farmville, on a prosperous chicken farm, time was standing still as a group of well-heeled people cooled their heels.
But Doug Wilder was making one more pass through Charley's bar, still wearing his cowboy boots.
No use looking at the clock. He was on EWT.
Eastern . . . Wilder . . . Time. . .
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES
CAMPAIGNING< by CNB