Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 2, 1992 TAG: 9203020235
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Let's be clear on one point: City Councilman David Bowers, the Democratic candidate for mayor, isn't the only one appealing subtly or otherwise to class divisions.
When Bowers says he wants to "take back City Hall," he presumes to speak for those somehow dispossessed.
But what about those for whom keeping Bowers from City Hall seems a goal only slightly less urgent than, say, avoiding nuclear armageddon?
What message does that send?
Willis "Wick" Anderson, the corporate lawyer and GOP mayoral candidate, says he doesn't want his campaign to be viewed as part of a stop-Bowers movement.
"There are enough issues to keep us busy," he says.
Exactly right.
On the other hand, Roanoke lawyer Chip Magee told a reporter at last week's Republican meeting (which nominated Anderson and a full slate of City Council candidates) that Bowers himself is enough to fire up the GOP challenge.
As he solicits contributions to Councilwoman Elizabeth Bowles' re-election campaign, Magee observed: "Business leaders . . . all say, `Yeah, sure, I'll give you $100, but what are we going to do about David Bowers?' "
What are we going to do?
That kind of patronizing attitude is what sets on edge the teeth of the far greater number of Roanokers who can't afford to pony up $100 for candidates of their choice, and who presumably don't belong to the "we" with whom those solicited by Magee identify.
It's a self-defeating attitude for Republicans. (If it turns out to be pervasive among the opposition, what you do about David Bowers is watch him get elected.)
More important, it's self-defeating for Roanoke.
If the campaign is reduced to a contest of class caricatures between a champion of resentful have-nots and a defender of nervous haves, important things will get lost in the scuffle: among them, not only a debate about Roanoke's future, but the truth that in this city we all need each other.
Bowers demonstrates awareness of this truth when he suggests that, should he win, he'll convene an economic summit bringing together Roanoke's business leaders and others to discuss prospects and plans.
Granted, some of his rhetoric and some of his supporters have focused paranoid resentment on a particular class of people, while implying that the interests of one class must contradict those of another.
But maybe some of Bowers' opponents are doing the same thing. Maybe their anxiety about the Democrat betrays just a bit of paranoid fear regarding a particular class of people and, likewise, an assumption that class interests must be in conflict.
Granted, Bowers and his backers seem more enamored with the notion of taking back City Hall than engaged with the issue of what to do when it's retaken.
But maybe some other Roanokers, feeling threatened, are more focused on stopping Bowers than on considerations of where the city needs to go.
Let's put this in perspective. Both parties should stress the common interests, and appropriate goals, of all residents. And neither his supporters nor his opponents should view Bowers as preparing to lead angry mobs to storm the streets of South Roanoke.
He is simply running for mayor.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB