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

DATE: THURSDAY, March 5, 1992                   TAG: 9203050490
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHAT THE PRIMARIES SAY ABOUT VOTERS

But results from the first multiprimary day of the season may say something important about the electorate.

That George Bush will be renominated by his Republican Party was reconfirmed. Pat Buchanan is making noise; Bush is winning delegate votes at the nominating convention.

Still, Buchanan's staying power was also reconfirmed: Doing well enough to stay eligible for federal matching funds, Buchanan will continue to bedevil the president's campaign. Perhaps as significant as Buchanan's 36 percent of the vote among Republicans in Georgia, where he had concentrated his campaigning, was his 30 percent in GOP primaries in Maryland and Colorado, where he had not.

For the Democrats, the results reconfirmed the view that it may be a while before a nominee is settled on.

Regionalism, for the most part, continues to prevail. Bill Clinton, governor of the Southern state of Arkansas, won Tuesday's primary in Georgia. Tom Harkin, senator from the Midwestern state of Iowa, won the Minnesota caucus. Jerry Brown, former governor of the Western state of California, finished first in the Colorado primary.

Paul Tsongas, former senator from Massachussetts, came closest to making a breakthrough. But he isn't there yet. Tsongas won the primary in Maryland (but it is arguably part of his region, the Northeast). He carried the caucuses in Washington state (but Harkin took those of Idaho next door). He won the primary in Utah (but trailed not only Brown but also Clinton in the primary of adjacent Colorado). The edge, but no more, goes to Tsongas.

Indecisiveness among the Democrats and the staying power of Buchanan's protest within the GOP both suggest an electorate unenamored of the choices before it. Opinion surveys and exit polls buttress the suggestion.

So did the Democrats' actual delegate count as of Wednesday morning: Uncommitted (218.75) led the field, followed by Clinton (198), Tsongas (110) and the others. (By the way: Actual delegate accumulation, not media speculation and opinion poll results, is what the primaries are chiefly about.)

The level of public dissatisfaction has, obviously, great negative potential. Rumors of recent weeks notwithstanding, the candidate elected (or, if Bush, re-elected) this fall will almost surely be from the field of those currently active. Election by default isn't the best way to start off a presidential administration.

For all that, however, there was also an encouraging sign. Tuesday's primaries and caucuses - continuing a trend begun in the New Hampshire primary - tended to draw heavy turnouts.

Dissatisfaction is not the same as alienation. And driving the dissatisfaction may be less the shortcomings of the candidates themselves than an awakened yearning among the American people for a strong pilot at the nation's helm.

Keywords:
POLITICS