Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 16, 1992 TAG: 9203160085
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Goodlatte is afraid he's going to miss something.
Every few minutes, he breaks away from his conversation by the water fountain and darts around the corner to see who's speaking inside the North Cross School auditorium.
Unfortunately, it's still not his turn. An interminable slate of candidates for Republican Party offices - state party chairman, district party chairman, national Goodlatte committeeman - must speak to the Roanoke County GOP mass meeting before Goodlatte gets his turn at the podium.
It's like that a lot in Goodlatte's race for Congress.
While three Democrats slug it out in a high-profile contest for their party's nomination to succeed retiring Rep. Jim Olin, the all-but-confirmed Republican nominee must wait for his turn in the spotlight.
His supporters confess that in some ways, Goodlatte's status works against him. "Name identification is a big objective of most of what you do," says Goodlatte's one-time boss, former Rep. Caldwell Butler. "I think the Democrats will have a name ID Goodlatte will not have when their convention is over, so he's got to work on that.
"The advantage it gives him is he can go around the district and build an organization so when the nitty-gritty gets there, he's got it done."
So that's what Goodlatte is quietly doing. These almost-nightly speaking engagements to the party faithful from Roanoke County to Rockingham County aren't attempts to win folks over - they're already won. The 39-year-old Roanoke lawyer, a one-time aide to Butler, a former district party chairman, a delegate to every GOP district and state convention since 1978, is as close to "Mr. Republican" as one can find in the 6th District.
Instead, the idea is to make sure volunteers are fired up for the fall.
Goodlatte is also busy squirreling away money (he won't say how much), and starting to make some appearances with the November election in mind. Speaking to a dairy farmers' group in Botetourt County. Handshaking his way through a Ford dealership in Staunton. Breakfasting with business leaders - and potential contributors - in Lynchburg.
"I'm just chomping at the bit to know which one of the Democrats it will be," he says.
Not that it matters.
The outlines of the fall campaign are reasonably clear, regardless of who Goodlatte's opponent will be.
All three Democrats - John Edwards, John Fishwick and Steve Musselwhite - can be expected to talk up middle-class tax cuts and health care. Goodlatte will be talking right back, about health-care reform and tax incentives to spur growth.
What's looming is a clear-cut, ideological choice that will in many ways mirror the presidential campaign.
"The middle-class tax cut is simply a scheme to buy votes," Goodlatte says. "What's needed are incentives to create growth in the economy. We need to review the regulatory burden placed on businesses and individuals." And he supports a capital gains tax cut.
As for health care, "We don't need socialized medicine. We don't need more government involvement in the health-care industry. That's part of the problem now." Goodlatte believes incentives for competition, not federal mandates, are what's needed to hold down rising health-care costs.
With no incumbent in the race, both sides - Goodlatte and a Democrat to be named at a later date - can also be expected to run against Washington, always an easy target. The Democrats will run against 12 years of what they'll call trickle-down Reagan-Bush economics. Goodlatte will run against the Democratic Congress.
In fact, he already is.
Goodlatte stirred the speech-numbed Roanoke County GOP mass meeting last Thursday night with an exhortation about how voters are "tired of bounced checks, tired of overdue restaurant tabs."
But before Goodlatte can formally get down to the business of seeking Olin's seat, there is this matter of Lynchburg businesswoman Donna Vance Erikson, who also wants the nomination.
Republican leaders in Lynchburg had never heard of her until recently - she only moved to the city about a year ago. But that hasn't deterred Erikson from running.
She's succeeded in making a lot of noise - buying radio time, churning out press releases challenging Goodlatte on first one thing and then another, embarking on a two-day "media tour" of the district.
But she shows no evidence of running a serious campaign where it matters - within the Republican Party machinery. She's not assembling slates of supporters to run for seats as delegates at the May 16 convention in Natural Bridge, a campaign's most fundamental task.
For that reason, Republican leaders generally regard her as little more than a nuisance candidate. "An ice cube's chance in hell," is how longtime Roanoke County GOP activist Trixie Averill dismisses Erikson's chances.
Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans stagger their mass meetings over a month's time, starting in Salem last Monday and ending in Amherst County on April 10. With the biggies in the Roanoke Valley and Lynchburg voting early, Goodlatte figures to have the nomination mathematically in hand by next week.
Nevertheless, the Goodlatte campaign, sensitive to Erikson's penchant for publicity and eager not to make anyone mad, plans to treat her gently. When Lynchburg Republicans meet Wednesday night to select delegates, the Goodlatte campaign plans to see that anyone seeking a seat at the convention is chosen - even any delegates Erikson happens to file - just to keep everyone happy.
For Goodlatte and his supporters, the real campaign comes this fall, when they try to reclaim a House seat that's been in Democratic hands for a decade.
With the presidential election to drive turnout, and Virginia's record of voting reliably Republican in presidential years, "it's the Republicans to lose," Butler says.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB