
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 26, 1990                   TAG: 9007260495
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

DEL. STAFFORD

IN HIS political campaigns, Del. C. Jefferson Stafford of Pearisburg - Jeff to those who knew him - never gained this newspaper's editorial endorsement. He did not harbor the hatefulness that sometimes hides behind the skirts of respectable conservatism. Still, his extremely conservative views struck us as too cramped, too limited in vision, too ready to dismiss any role whatsoever for government to play in the affairs of Virginia.

Yet Stafford, who died this week at age 51, had no trouble getting the support of his constituents. As a Republican in a Democratic legislature, and as a Republican from an area that is neither intensely conservative nor particularly Republican, Stafford on occasion found himself the target of redistricting that substantially altered the boundaries of his district.

It didn't matter. From 1971 on, he could count on big majorities in his home county of Giles to win election after election to the House.

The key, we suspect, was more than simply his affability, his knack for disagreeing agreeably. It also was his straightforward, steadfast loyalty to principles as he saw them.

In these days when politicians bend to the slightest hint of a changing breeze in public opinion, Stafford was uncharacteristic: You always knew where, right or wrong, he stood.

by CNB