Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 14, 1993 TAG: 9303140082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
GOVERNOR'S RACE HAS FAMILIAR RING
When Douglas Wilder was running for governor in 1989, Virginia was crawling with reporters from around the country writing about what a great irony it would be if Virginia elected the nation's first black governor.Every story, it seemed, described Virginia as "the Capital of the Confederacy," by which journalists meant to imply the Old Dominion was a backwater breeding ground for rednecks, a place locked in the last century.
It made you want to go write stuffy, condescending stories about race relations in their states.
Four years later, Virginia Democrats are uniting behind Mary Sue Terry as their presumptive nominee to succeed Wilder.
So here is a formula for out-of-state writers on the 1993 race: Virginia, a state that refused to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, has a chance to elect its first woman governor.
Not that Terry's run for governor will attract anything like the attention Wilder's did. For starters, Wilder broke ground for blacks. Elections of women governors are rare but have happened in a handful of states, including at least three in the South.
Also, Terry is nowhere near as good a story as Wilder. She has not risen from a devilish mixture of wily politics and outright combat with party leaders, as Wilder did.
Her march has been steady and deliberate. She stepped aside when Wilder's turn came, cultivating insiders while taking care not to push ideas that ruffled the establishment.
Terry learned at the knee of a master of the genteel but hardscrabble politics of Southside Virginia, the late Speaker of the House of Delegates, A.L. Philpott of Bassett.
Her traditional philosophy, coupled with her historic candidacy, helps explain why Terry stands now as the consummate establishment politician, groomed and approved to a degree rarely seen in Virginia since the demise of the Harry Byrd machine in the 1960s.
She is, in a term that may make her shudder, a true Southside Virginia populist.
Don't confuse that with the firebrand Southern populist, the "keep-the-big-boys honest" style of former Lt. Gov. Henry Howell of Norfolk, for instance.
Southside populists are a different sort. They are protectors of the little guy, all right. But at the same time, they're friends of business. The difference is that to the Southside politician, business means the town hardware store or car dealer. On the state level, it means the Main Street Richmond law firms, stockbrokers and bankers. These businessmen provide jobs and wealth for Virginia and for voters.
It doesn't mean protecting big companies in Michigan or Connecticut. Southside populists see no conflict between cultivating Virginia business leaders while suing Ford Motor over faulty ambulances or attacking insurance companies with excessive Virginia rates, as Terry has done. Why should Virginians pay higher rates to cover losses in North Carolina?
With Virginia Republicans still at war for the soul of their party, Terry's simple talk of protecting our own, rich or poor, makes business leaders "comfortable" - to use one of her favorite words.
That's traditional Virginia politics. Republicans, seeking to exploit the national sentiment for change, lambast Terry for it. To them, she is the latest in a line of Democrats who've grown stale and arrogant.
Which brings in Terry's unique position as a woman candidate. Her politics may be traditional, but to the voter who wants change, she is new. She need not mention her womanhood for it to count with voters who care.
Anyway, what do Republicans find in the 1992 returns, when Virginia went Republican for the sixth straight presidential election, to support arguments that Virginians are hungry for change?
Terry has potential liabilities. She's faced weak opposition twice, so she hasn't really been tested in a statewide race. She's no great debater, and being attorney general didn't allow her to establish an economic record.
Republicans should remember, though, the hard edge to the politics Terry learned. Southsiders may be gentle patricians to their flock, but they show no mercy to enemies. It's a lesson Terry learned from Philpott as he turned his scowl on her efforts as attorney general to push a legislative agenda; to him, attorneys general had no business messing with legislation.
The next eight months will test how well Terry's mentors prepared her. But few Virginia politicians in modern times have started in such a favorable position.
Rob Eure covers state politics from the Roanoke Times & World-News bureau in Richmond.
Keywords:
POLITICS