Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 11, 1993 TAG: 9303110428
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
GOLDMAN
LIKE HIS ally in the governor's mansion, state Democratic Chairman Paul Goldman has been a mixed blessing for Virginia.Without question, Goldman - who announced this week that he'll resign the unpaid party chairmanship effective March 20 - is a shrewd political analyst and operative. More than anyone except the candidate himself, Goldman engineered the campaigns that carried Douglas Wilder from the state Senate via the lieutenant governorship to the highest state office.
It was Goldman, too, who suggested last spring that Democratic presidential nominee-to-be Bill Clinton turn to another Southerner (not Wilder) for his running mate. As things turned out, the Clinton-Al Gore ticket would have won without carrying a single Southern state. But Clinton did name a Southerner; Gore did prove a campaign asset; the Democrats did make electoral-vote inroads in a region on the verge of becoming rock-solid Republican in presidential elections.
In different ways, both Goldman and his mentor Wilder have brought several breaths of fresh air to Old Dominion politics. In the case of Wilder, who bears the mien and manner of courtly Virginia, the political newness was race. In the case of Goldman, a brash New Yorker, mien and manner themselves are the difference: "Courtly" is the last word most people would use to describe him.
That's fine by us. By the 1980s, Virginia was no longer the museum piece described by V.O. Key in his famous book 35 years earlier on Southern politics. But a musty odor still pervaded, and Goldman and Wilder have helped dissipate it.
As party chairman, though, Goldman has proved less adept than as political operative. Wilder isn't party-hearty; Goldman's personal loyalty to the governor gave low priority to, and sometimes conflicted with, the chairmanship's party-building duties.
Dissatisfaction with Goldman among many party regulars exemplified the animosity between Wilder and some Democratic legislators - and, for that matter, echoed tensions in the Republican Party between lawmakers and the party apparatus.
The condition of the parties is important for more than just party members themselves. When governors and legislators of the same party march to entirely different drumming, the result can be not simply cacophony but public-policy paralysis. And when personality replaces party as the basic organizing principle of politics, accountability suffers: Anything bad is always some other guy's fault.
The fresh air that Goldman brought to Virginia politics helped draw more people into the system, made more Virginians interested in how and by whom they're governed. But the breeze sometimes has blown too stiff, whisking out traditions of value along with the junk.
Keywords:
POLITICS