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

DATE: SUNDAY, March 22, 1992                   TAG: 9203230154
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARGIE FISHER EDITORIAL WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

THE VIRGINIA GOP'S SEESAW HISTORY

FEW BOOKS please me so much as those about people I know personally, about events that I saw for myself, history I was there for the making of; especially, books written by people I know personally. (And I admit to the conceit: It's a kick when my name shows up in these books. It somehow validates my 30-plus years as a journalist.)

In recent years, my friends, the authors, have included reporters Dwayne Yancey with this newspaper, Donald Baker with The Washington Post, and Margaret Edds with The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star of Norfolk. All three found rich material in Gov. Doug Wilder's rise through the ranks of Virginia Democrats.

Now comes another friend, Richmond attorney Frank B. Atkinson, with the other side of the story. In "The Dynamic Dominion" that's just reached the bookstores, Atkinson focuses primarily on a half-century of seesawing Virginia Republicans.

This book is a dandy - though the jacket hype, "fast-paced thriller," is a stretch. It's anything but fast-paced. But, remember, this is Virginia - where change of major consequence rarely comes in crisp clips.

It was Atkinson's purpose to explain why, how and by whose hands the once-moribund state GOP emerged and evolved to bring two-party competitiveness to Virginia. It's a fascinating tale of incredible ironies, unholy alliances, political pratfalls - and of courageous heroes and toadying humbugs in both parties.

But it is a long story - he spent 12 years just researching it - and Atkinson refuses to hurry through the telling.

Atkinson is a GOP activist, a veteran of several election campaigns, including the unsuccessful gubernatorial bids of Wyatt Durrette in 1985 and Marshall Coleman in 1989. But he writes with unfailing even-handedness. It is hard to imagine kinder, gentler, fairer descriptions of Democrats who've run over GOP candidates, even had the Democrats themselves penned the descriptions.

And by no means does he whitewash the GOP. Tweaking Republicans for their addiction to internecine warfare, Atkinson writes: "Virginia Republicans did not accept passively their adverse political situation in the Old Dominion; instead they made matters markedly worse by fighting bitterly among themselves almost continuously. . . . Unable to compete effectively with the Democrats, state Republicans seemed determined to stay in fighting form by battling each other."

Would that have been 1990, after Democrats had blown away GOP opponents in three consecutive races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general? Nope. This was back in the early '40s, when, as the old joke goes, Republicans could hold their state conventions in a phone booth.

Virginia Republicans, of course, have come a long way since then. And as Atkinson clearly documents, it's been Republicans from this part of the state who charted and often led the way.

Call the roll: Alderson. Butler. Coleman. Dalton. Dawbarn. Garland. Giesen. Holton. Huffman. Obenshain. Poff. Wampler.

Indeed, in no small measure, "The Dynamic Dominion" is the story of mountain-valley Republicans' political heyday in Southwest Virginia. (I lost count of the number of GOP conventions in Roanoke where "pivotal" events occurred to help shape today's commonwealth.)

The book stops before the 1991 election, in which Republicans made impressive gains in the Democrat-controlled General Assembly. But now, as the GOP is beginning to think past this year's presidential election to the 1993 governor's race, these words from Atkinson seem no less true:

"Twelve years after the death of Richard Obenshain, the Virginia Republican Party in 1990 was still searching for a leader or leaders capable of forging and sustaining a consensus about the party's mission."

Right he is. Where is that leader?

At the moment, though Sen. John Warner is toying with the idea of running for governor in '93 - and, doubtless, will get the nomination if he wants it, because he's the only Virginia Republican who's been able to win statewide elections in more than a decade - the state GOP seems to be wandering still in the wilderness.

I don't know what effect, if any, Atkinson's book will have, but my hunch is that it will make many Republicans nostalgic for a Dalton.

Ted, that is.

"As the Republican nominee for governor in 1953, Dalton was a different sort of Virginia candidate. . . . Possessed of abundant grace and wit, Dalton had a special knack for dealing with people. . . . The central themes of the Dalton campaign were two: to establish a real two-party system in Virginia, and to provide `a progressive, yet sound, government which will be responsive to the needs of the people.' It was the latter theme he pounded home," writes Atkinson.

Ted Dalton "was an extraordinary man," Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Charles McDowell tells Atkinson for the book. "He could make you laugh and then cry about Virginia's failures and problems and the warts on Virginia, and then could speak . . . with a pride that made you so proud to be a Virginian you'd want to stand up and wave and shout."

And, as Norfolk newspaper columnist Guy Friddell puts it in Atkinson's book:

"Dalton's way was to take an issue, decide where the right lay, and stand there."

Oh, for such a leader, Democrat or Republican.

Atkinson's book is a trove of historic information and valuable insights - not just for political junkies of both parties but for everyone who is interested in Virginia's past, present and future.

But for state Republicans, in particular - unless they want to return to days when they could hold their conventions in a phone booth - it ought to ring bells and whistles for the "genuine reform" that the author thinks is necessary.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB