Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 13, 1990 TAG: 9007130679
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAXTON DAVIS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Wilder's nominal blend of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism is aimed, presumably, at black candidates for high office all over the country. It is only a thinly disguised attempt at repudiating the unarguably more strident politics of Jesse Jackson, until Wilder's electoral victory last fall the undisputed symbol of black political aspirations in the United States.
But what Wilder says and what Wilder does are entirely different - and often conflicting - things. Virginians of all colors would do well to ask themselves, now that the novelty of Wilder's election to the governorship has begun to wear off, whether he really represents what he says he does after all.
The budget shortfall that Wilder has had to confront since taking office cannot be blamed directly on him, and he clearly has handled the General Assembly and the numerous problems it raises with aplomb. He has not entirely broken the hold on legislation of its senior legislators, but he is the first governor in a long time to outwit and sometimes circumvent them.
But that - apart from the symbolism of his being the first black governor in the United States and, even more, the first black governor of a formerly Confederate state - is about what positive good he has done in office.
His record in the other direction is not so impressive. Almost from the day of his inauguration Wilder became the darling of television news and talk shows, and he was soon engaged in a dizzying round of nationally televised interviews - a sure sign of his novelty, if not, alas, his real worth.
But it did not end there. Soon, hyped by newspapers, magazines and television not only as a new media star but also as a new face in presidential politics, he was gallivanting around the country visiting Iowa, New Hampshire, you name it - wherever 1992 primaries would be held and where he could get in a good glimpse of him now, to be remembered later.
This whirlwind of national politicking, not to mention socializing with the likes of Jane Fonda, Ted Turner and Ronald Reagan, naturally denied as being anything of the kind by Wilder himself, seemed - and seems - at odds with his repeated contention that all he really wants to do is a good job of running Virginia. He was here too little to do anything but wave as he left town for the next stop.
But then came scandal. It was a real scandal too, not merely a weekend story, and it was bound to set off doubts about Wilder even among those who wanted him to succeed.
Records of the State Police revealed that he had made at least 18 trips on the state helicopter that could not be accounted for in his official schedule. Further investigation revealed that on at least several occasions he had used the helicopter to fetch Patricia Kluge, the wealthy separated wife of even wealthier John Kluge, from Charlottesville to places where they spent weekends together. Wilder had named Mrs. Kluge, a generous contributor to his gubernatorial campaign, to the board of the University of Virginia. The helicopter trips seemed, at the very least, a fatal mixing of public and private.
Wilder has stonewalled the questions, as he has stonewalled whether he would repay the state for the more than $20,000 the helicopter trips cost. But in protecting his personal privacy, he has cast a dark shadow on his integrity as governor.
He has cast an even darker shadow over the campaigns of other black candidates for high office: Andrew Young, running a tight race for governor of Georgia; Harvey Gantt, trying to unseat North Carolina's Jesse Helms from the United States Senate.
Not only that. By piling his own careless behavior on top of the disasters caused by certain other black office-holders of the recent past or present - Marion Barry in Washington, Wilson Goode in Philadelphia - Wilder raises questions that bigots and racists are only too happy to hear raised. The cry of "we told you so" is already loud.
It does not help that some of Wilder's defenders protest that criticism of him is "racially inspired." The majority of American Jews have had to learn that criticism of Israel is not "anti-semitic" but principled. Wilder and his admirers need to learn that he must take his lumps like everyone else in politics, white, black, yellow or green, if he is to enter the real "mainstream."
by CNB