Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 5, 1993 TAG: 9301050424
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
DEL. MILLER TIES GOVERNOR BID TO GOP PRIMARY
CLINTON MILLER, a longtime Republican legislator from Shenandoah County, declared his candidacy for governor Monday. That's no surprise, but his challenge to the way the GOP selects its nominee could be.
Clinton Miller admits to being an underdog.
In fact, to hear even some of his strongest supporters talk, he's the third man in what effectively is a two-man, or even one-man, race.
"Oh definitely," said Roanoke developer Gilbert Butler Jr., who joined Miller on his around-the-state announcement tour Monday. "I'm the first to say [former Rep.] George Allen has the nomination if there's a convention."
But there is that if, and Miller helped make it the Republicans' talk of the town Monday.
Perhaps it's a sign of just how far back Miller is running that the biggest wrinkle he threw into the nomination contest wasn't his declaration of candidacy, but his blast at a nominating system he described as "tainted."
This is minutia, to be sure, but it's the kind of sticky little detail that can gum up the whole works of a political machine:
For four decades, Virginia Republicans nominated their candidates at a convention. In 1989, Republican leaders, angling to head off Marshall Coleman from winning the nomination, switched to a primary. It didn't work. Coleman won the nomination anyway, and the bad blood spilled in the public-bloodletting of a primary helped weaken Coleman in the fall election.
So this time around, Republicans are going back to the convention system.
But Monday, a Washington law professor who's been advising President-elect Bill Clinton surfaced in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He suggested that a Clinton Justice Department might look askance at Virginia Republicans, having tried a primary once, now reverting to the more restrictive convention system. "A potential violation of the Voting Rights Act," he called it.
Next thing you know, here's another Clinton - this time, the Republican Miller - devoting a considerable portion of his announcement-day speech to rip his party's selection process, and practically calling for a primary.
For Miller, the primary ploy is a way to try to reshuffle the cards after being dealt a weak hand.
He'll concede that Allen may hold an insurmountable lead among the party leaders who dominate conventions - a lead that big-spending Northern Virginia businessman Earle Williams has been trying to overcome. But Miller believes he would appeal more to the independent voters who will determine the election in November - and who just might be persuaded to vote in a primary.
Many Miller supporters are convinced that Allen, who has surrounded himself with many of the same consultants who advised Coleman, is simply Marshall Coleman II - quick with a quip that can rouse Republican partisans, but too sharp-tongued to appeal to moderates.
"We have to have a candidate who can reach out to independents and conservative Democrats," Miller said. "If George Allen were to conduct the kind of campaign in concert with his statements he's made on the chicken and roast beef circuit, where he constantly refers to all Democrats as liberal, tax-and-spend, wasteful, arrogant elitists, there's no way he can pick up the necessary votes to win, so he'll be in the low 40s, I'd say."
Miller, a 20-year veteran of the General Assembly, also portrayed Allen as a lightweight who wouldn't be able to match the likely Democratic candidate on the issues. "From his performance in the General Assembly, I don't see any evidence of great capability to carry a campaign to Mary Sue Terry," Miller said.
There's another reason why Miller would like to see a primary. In a convention, it takes a majority to win; in a primary, only a plurality. Front Royal Del. Andy Guest spoke grandly of Miller's being able to sneak through by mobilizing the moderate Republicans in Western Virginia. "I see him giving them a focal point once again," Guest said.
There's a catch to Miller's primary pitch, though. The Republicans' governing body voted last month to hold a convention, and it was nearly impossible Monday to find any Republicans outside the Miller camp who would even entertain the idea of changing.
But spokesmen for Allen and Williams admit they have "no idea" what would happen if someone were to lodge a complaint with the Justice Department.
Neither does Emory & Henry College President Tom Morris, a political analyst who's studied the intricacies of the Voting Rights Act. "Theoretically, it's a legitimate issue," he said. "But I find it difficult to believe a persuasive complaint can be made."
The reason: "You have to relate the complaint to black voters," Morris said. "You can't have anything to do with the traditional arguments of conventions vs. primaries. The Voting Rights Act is not interested in that sort of argument. It's just interested in minority opportunities. My reading is, participation by blacks in the Republican Party is miniscule regardless of the method used."
But Miller supporters say the primary flap is not just a one-day story. "The issue of the primary is just starting to emerge," Butler said, "and my prediction is it will emerge to become a front-burner issue, and I predict Clinton Miller will be a major player."
\ CLINTON MILLER\ REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE\ \ Age: 53.\ \ Profession: Lawyer.\ \ Public service: Commonwealth's attorney, Shenandoah County, 1968-72; Virginia House of Delegates, 1972 to present.\ \ Education American University, undergraduate; Washington and Lee University School of Law.\ \ Personal: Married, three children.\ \ Of note: Worked his way through college as a rockabilly singer and had a Billboard Top 100 hit in 1957 with "Bertha Lou." Still plays guitar as a sideline.
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