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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 4, 1992                   TAG: 9203040305
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MUSSER HONORING POLITICAL PLEDGES

This judgment is not based on any consideration of what kind of mayor Musser, if elected, might have made.

Nor is it based on the impact of Musser's decision on what now is a two-man contest between Councilman David Bowers, a Democrat, and former Mayor Willis "Wick" Anderson, the Republican nominee.

Neither, for that matter, is it based on any evaluation of the wisdom of the Democratic Party's requiring candidates for its nominations to sign statements that they don't intend to oppose the winners of those nominations.

The point is that such a statement, good or bad, was signed by Musser as a candidate for the nomination that Bowers eventually won. Technically, perhaps Musser's running as an independent would not have violated the pledge: Intentions, after all, can change.

But that is precisely the sort of weaseling that gives politics and politicians a bad name. For deciding against it, Musser is to be commended.

As for the impact on the Bowers-Anderson contest, the conventional wisdom holds that an independent Musser candidacy would have boosted Anderson's prospects and diminished Bowers'. That, anyway, was what the chairmen of both parties were saying before Musser's announcement: A Musser candidacy, it was reasoned, would split the Democratic vote.

That reasoning is questionable. It is just as possible that Musser would have split the anti-Bowers vote, giving Bowers - with a core constituency of loyalists - the electoral advantage.

Musser made it clear in his announcement Tuesday that, while he won't run against Bowers, neither will he support the nominee. Indeed, his raising the possibility that he might resign from council after the May election suggests the intensity of Musser's dislike for Bowers. While wondering why Bowers has produced such a reaction in a longtime colleague, you have to figure Musser might have taken some anti-Bowers votes from Anderson.

It's a mistake, moreover, to overestimate the role of party affiliation in a municipal election. In a city of Roanoke's relatively small size, local-government candidates can make themselves known personally to a significant share of the electorate, and can communicate with the voters more or less directly.

In any case, this is all conjecture. The impact of Musser's announcement on the mayoral race cannot be measured with any confidence. For now, the bigger point is that Musser in deciding against running as an independent avoided a frontal assault on a statement he had signed to qualify as a candidate for the Democratic nomination.

However much accompanied by petulant reluctance and political calculation, Musser's announcement honored a pledge, kept a commitment. There ought to be more of this.