Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 26, 1993 TAG: 9303260550
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAXTON DAVIS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THE U.S. SENATE RACE
ONE BEGINS with the undisputed, indisputable fact that Oliver North:
Knowingly broke federal law, while on the staff of the National Security Council, by trading with an American enemy (Iran) and using the proceeds to subsidize, covertly, the officially forbidden guerrilla activities of the Nicaraguan Contras.
Confessed it and bragged about it not only before a congressional investigation but, repeatedly, on the street, in interviews and a book, and on network television.
Was convicted of it and only got off on appeal because of a "technical" violation in his trial of the sort he and his "conservative" supporters ordinarily condemn, loudly and piously, when it is used to reverse the convictions of blacks.
Now, from every indication, North is preparing to run for the Republican nomination for U.S. senator from Virginia to fill the seat presently held by Charles Robb and devoutly coveted by North himself.
Toward the attainment of this noble endeavor, North has amassed, it is estimated, a war chest of $20 million, real money by almost any reckoning - a substantial portion from nationwide contributions to his "legal defense fund," the rest by equally earnest appeals to gullible "patriots" from every corner of a gullible nation.
It is a feat that makes him a serious rival to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell for the 20th century's most convincing proof that P.T. Barnum had it right when he said: "There's a sucker born every minute."
He also mocks homosexuals publicly and smirks about it.
Nonetheless, North is accounted a genuine contender for the GOP nomination, for his high-minded disregard for the U.S. Constitution and his skill at fleecing the innocent combine to make him a dream candidate of the discontented, sanctimonious right wing that bared its fangs so visibly at the Republican National Convention last summer.
The incumbent whom North dreams of unseating has done little, meanwhile, to make it difficult for him.
Robb - who a few years ago, when he was Virginia's first Democratic governor in a dozen years, was the most popular figure in state politics - has wounded himself again and again recently. He offers himself for re-election, assuming he runs, badly battered and boasting a following of dubious loyalty.
Robb's troubles, the mother's milk of tabloid journalism, include involvement in a conspiracy to defame Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder by using an illegally taped telephone conversation. Eventually, Robb was spared indictment, but the failure of a federal grand jury was more like a "Scotch verdict" - not proved - than it was a judgment of innocence; and Robb's enemies, led by Wilder, are using it generously against him.
His political situation was not improved, either, by a Roanoke woman's claim that she had a yearlong sexual affair with Robb. Though Robb denied it, the smear, bolstered by her nude appearance in a Playboy spread, stuck. And all of this came on top of repeated rumors that Robb ran with a high-spirited gang of cocaine-users while governor.
Now enter Wilder, whose role in Robb's discomfiture has been continuous and unremittingly bitter. As the nation's first black governor since Reconstruction, and Virginia's first ever, Wilder has pursued in office a career of revenge relieved only by an occasional dabble into policy, such as his handsomely publicized victory this winter over the National Rifle Association.
It was an important triumph, and Wilder can claim it as being of his making and management. But it does not conceal the fact that his has been a governorship of extreme vindictiveness in which he pursued every real or imagined rival or enemy from his past and hounded him into as near an oblivion as he could find.
And Wilder wants to be a senator too, and to unseat Robb for the Democratic nomination, and then to whip North. North Carolinian Jonathan Daniels got it right when he called Virginia "the cradle of democracy - also its grave."
Paxton Davis is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
Keywords:
POLITICS