Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 26, 1990 TAG: 9003270004
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL McALLISTER THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, W.VA. LENGTH: Long
"It looked like a match made in heaven," recalled Russell L. Isaacs, the Charleston business executive who introduced the two at a civic function about 25 years ago. "They were such a handsome couple."
And for 23 years Dee and Gaston Caperton clearly seemed the model pair to many West Virginians. Dee was the family's stylish political activist who won a seat in the state legislature; Gaston was the modest millionaire insurance executive better known to Democratic politicians here for his checkbook than his political views.
Then, three years ago, to the shock of his close friends, Gaston Caperton announced that he, too, would become a politician and would run for governor. Spending more than $3.2 million of his own money, he easily beat three-time Gov. Arch Moore, a Republican, by a stunning 3-2 ratio in the 1988 election.
It was a stellar start for the Democratic novice, now 50, whose only previous office was treasurer of his freshman class at the University of North Carolina. But the move into the governor's office proved more than his marriage could stand.
Barely four months after taking his oath and fresh from a series of sweeping legislative victories, the governor stunned many here with the announcement that he and his wife would seek a divorce. Coupled with the impact of hefty food and gasoline taxes he had just secured, the divorce started Gaston Caperton's political fortunes tumbling.
What followed "plays like a soap opera," according to Joseph R. "Joe Bob" Goodwin, a former state Democratic chairman and a longtime friend of the Capertons. Not only did the divorce renew questions about the governor's personal life that Moore had raised during their often ugly campaign, it simultaneously revived Dee Caperton's political career and may have put her on a collision course with her former husband's plans to seek a second term in 1992. If so, the governor could be derailed by his own money.
The ink was still fresh on the Caperton divorce decree in the Kanawha County Courthouse when Dee Caperton was back in court. In a 22-page lawsuit that portrayed her as a politically savvy former beauty queen and the governor as a "political neophyte known to a scant 3 percent of West Virginia voters" when he embarked on his political career, Dee Caperton accused her ex-husband and his campaign manager of defrauding her of millions of dollars' worth of stock in the family insurance company.
She accused them of coercing her into selling her shares for about half their market value under the threat of an indictment for a "technical" violation of state law. She demanded $12 million in damages.
In West Virginia, where the numbers after a governor's name have come more often from federal prosecutions than years in office, where two of the past Senate presidents were convicted in Gaston Caperton's first year in office of extorting bribes and where the state attorney general and state treasurer were run out of office for misconduct, the allegations caused a sensation. Despite his denials, the charges seemed to contradict Gov. Caperton's carefully nurtured image as a newcomer with no ties to the state's often corrupt past.
He was able to deal with new rumors about his sexuality by letting it be known that he was seeing Rachael Worby, the executive director of the Wheeling Symphony. Moore had challenged Caperton during a campaign speech in which he urged him to "come out of the closet" and state his views on taxes.
Although Dee Caperton settled her lawsuit out of court, reportedly for more than $10 million, the governor's aides acknowledge that her charges damaged him. The month after the suit was filed, voters delivered a crushing blow, rejecting by lopsided margins three constitutional amendments the governor had proposed to revamp state government. "It was a referendum on Caperton," said House Speaker Chuck Chambers, a fellow Democrat.
In January, Dee Caperton returned to the political stage, declaring that she would run for treasurer in this spring's Democratic primary. The post is one of the elective offices that her ex-husband had tried to have changed to an appointive position in one of the defeated constitutional amendments.
In an interview while barnstorming the state in a blue van emblazoned "Dee Caperton," she brushed aside suggestions that she would have difficulty working with the governor. "I tell people at every stop that we have a cordial relationship and that we can work together."
Still, Dee Caperton's campaign and the possibility that she will challenge her former husband in the 1992 gubernatorial primary are favorite topics of conversation here.
"West Virginia politics is like going to the stock car races," said Gordon C. Morse, the governor's press secretary. "Most people say they are going to see who wins, but in their heart of hearts, they want to see who crashes."
There is little doubt that Gov. Caperton, an introspective man who rises at 5 a.m. to read spiritual tracts by the Dalai Lama and others, has crashed. In the latest example of his mounting troubles, the state's largest teachers union, which was the first to endorse his gubernatorial bid in 1987, snubbed him repeatedly during an 11-day strike that swept the state this month and questioned his ability to deliver on promised pay raises.
"We're paying a price for him having to learn on the job," said Agriculture Commissioner Cleve Benedict, the only Republican to hold a statewide office. "You can bet that we're going to have some Republicans who can smell blood," said state GOP Chairman Edgar "Hike" Heiskell. Former legislator Clyde M. See Jr., who lost to Gaston Caperton in the 1988 Democratic primary, predicted that the governor will have "serious opposition" within the party if he runs for a second term.
The West Virginia Poll, taken by three news organizations in the midst of the teachers strike, found that only 1 percent of those surveyed rated Caperton's performance as excellent. Thirteen percent described his work as good and 29 percent as fair, while 53 percent considered his job rating poor. It was the lowest overall score any governor has received since the poll began rating the state's chief executive in 1981.
Being West Virginia governor never has been easy - even when times are good. These are not good times.
The state's population has fallen to 1.8 million from 1.9 million in 1980, enough to force the loss of one of its four U.S. House seats after the 1990 Census. As workers have fled the state, the number of schoolchildren has dropped by more than 40,000 in the past decade.
No change, however, has been as dramatic - or traumatic - as the widespread loss of mining jobs, once the economic backbone of the state. They have dropped to 34,400 from 68,000 10 years ago and may go lower as the result of proposed revisions in the Clean Air Act.
"This is a Third World country, a Third World state," groused Don Marsh, editor of the Charleston Gazette. "Why does disaster keep befalling us? We're bankrupt. If we were a business, we'd be in Chapter 11."
That has been the theme of many Gaston Caperton speeches. But many West Virginians seem unconvinced of the state's financial straits and are unwilling to praise Caperton for his efforts to resolve the crisis.
"People in this state have a terribly cynical view of politics and that view has been richly deserved," said Goodwin, the former Democratic chairman.
Many of the state's fiscal problems were compounded by Moore, who in his folksy style assured the public that there were few problems under the state capitol's gold-gilded dome and that he was firmly in control of the few that were. He is under investigation by the same federal prosecutor who has brought corruption charges against four legislators and about 45 other state and federal officials here in recent years.
When Gaston Caperton assumed office in January 1989, his staff discovered millions of dollars in unpaid bills, many of them stuffed in boxes under desks in the governor's office, according to Morse.
Millions more in state income tax refunds had gone unpaid for lack of cash and the teachers' retirement fund was broke. Caperton demanded that these problems be resolved immediately and the Legislature swiftly voted nearly $400 million in new taxes - the largest tax increase in the state's history.
Caperton had run on what many said was a no-tax pledge, but once in office he discovered the situation was worse than Moore had even hinted. "I know Gaston had no idea of the depth of the hole that had been dug for him," Isaacs said.
For all the rhetoric of Caperton's "Partnership for Progress," the state's economy is no better off. Unemployment remains at 9.1 percent - well above the national average of 5.9 percent. "Everything is still busted, as we say in West Virginia," groused Republican Heiskell.
An independent group that monitors the state budget said Caperton's revenue projections are about $29 million off, raising the possibility of deeper cuts in state spending or higher taxes. That prospect now seems likely, after legislative leaders ended the teachers strike by promising to consider demands for higher pay.
The teachers strike, as much as any recent event, illustrated the governor's naivete in dealing with pressure groups. His decision to rush into public meetings with the teachers when the strike threat surfaced made his role in the dispute - not the teachers' demands - the focus of public attention.
But as the negotiations grew from a planned one-day session to a three-day ordeal, the stakes grew higher and the unions finally abandoned him for the legislative leadership. The West Virginia Poll showed that 57 percent of those surveyed sided with the teachers and only about one-third with Caperton.
It was particularly frustrating for the governor, who says he has done more for education than any other recent West Virginia governor.
"The thing you could be most critical about me is I'm not a good politician," he said. "If you judge me on what we have accomplished, what I have done, I think I'd get an A. If you judge me on our ability to communicate that, I'd give myself a C-minus or a D."
Morse, his spokesman, put it this way: "This has been the education of a politician."
Keywords:
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by CNB