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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 9, 1993                   TAG: 9303090329
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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NO FIGHTS

IF BEDFORD County prosecutor Jim Updike's campaign for attorney general is as dead as news reports now indicate, Virginia Democrats are in for a dull nominating season.

But what else is new? Not since 1985, when then-Attorney General Gerald Baliles topped then-Lt. Gov. Richard Davis for the gubernatorial nomination, have the Democrats had a genuinely close fight for a statewide nomination.

This year, Attorney General Mary Sue Terry is unopposed for the party's gubernatorial nomination. Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer is unopposed for renomination to his current post. And by virtue of Updike's failure to "prefile" sufficient numbers of supporters as prospective delegates to the state convention, the nomination for attorney general may go by default to Arlington lawyer Bill Dolan.

For Virginia Republicans, it's a different story. Three of them - former Congressman George Allen, Northern Virginia businessman Earle Williams and Shenandoah Valley legislator Clint Miller - want their party's gubernatorial nomination. Two - veteran party activist Bobbie Kilberg and religious-righter Mike Farris - want the nomination for lieutenant governor. And two others - Salem Del. Steve Agee and Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney James Gilmore - want the GOP nomination for attorney general.

You'd think it was the Republican label, and not the other brand, that had won every state election since 1977. The political past, the GOP aspirants are presumably thinking, is not political prologue.

Keywords:
POLITICS

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