CANDIDATES LEAVE SPACE FOR A 3RD PARTY

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

DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993                   TAG: 9302210049
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
CANDIDATES LEAVE SPACE FOR A 3RD PARTY
Where is Ross Perot when we need him?
Virginia Republicans appear headed for another season of spectacular disarray. Their anti-abortion wing is re-emerging as a too-powerful force in nominations, and their biggest financiers are threatening to keep the checkbooks closed if the gubernatorial nominee takes positions on the fringe.
In the hallways and backrooms, Republican faithful still chant the mantras of the Reagan revolution. The coalition of gun owners, Christian conservatives and big business won for Ronald Reagan and will win in Virginia, they insist.
Never mind that since Reagan's election in 1980, Virginia Republicans have had only two statewide winners: former Sen. Paul Trible, who effectively was drummed out of politics in 1989, and Sen. John Warner, who consistently confronts the right wing and avoids their positions.
"It's a fact of life that Republican candidates for statewide office who are pro-life stand a better chance of winning party races in Virginia," anti-abortion leader Walt Barbee wrote in a recent letter informing candidate Earle Williams he won't get anti-abortion help because of his moderate abortion position.
George Allen, who has captured the anti-abortion wing, leads the field of three candidates for the nomination. But this year, the rift between moderates and conservatives on abortion is spreading to a dangerous level.
A group representing some of the party's major givers decided after a recent meeting that they would prefer either of Allen's rivals - Williams and abortion rights advocate Del. Clint Miller of Shenandoah - to him, raising the alarming possibility that the financial backbone of the party might refuse to bankroll him.
The money boys don't dislike Allen; they dislike his coddling factions that turn off mainstream voters.
"I'm a little distraught by the reports" that the GOP's financial backbone is not for Allen, said former 5th District GOP Chairman Don Moseley, a moderate who has fought the anti-abortionists but is also backing Allen. "They've watched losing campaigns before. They have legitimate concerns."
Meanwhile, Democrats are revving up as smooth a machine as they have run in decades. Mary Sue Terry has no obstacles to the nomination - she even has won the warm endorsement of Gov. Douglas Wilder. She has the backing of a broad establishment coalition, even picking up some GOP donors.
Among nearly all Democrats and a surprising number of Republicans, it is a race that already appears decidedly to Terry's advantage. It's all very neat, maybe too neat.
Thus comes an opening for a Perot-like third party candidacy.
When Perot lost the presidential election last fall, he promised that he and his volunteers would stay involved under the banner of "United We Stand."
Virginia, one of only two states with statewide elections this year, provides the Perotists with a chance to make good on the promise.
What they need is a candidate. Just for argument's sake, look at Williams. He has promised to support the GOP nominee, but he fits the Perot profile.
He has been trashed by Allen in recent weeks because as head of defense contracting giant BDM Corp., Williams contributed to Republicans and Democrats. That's a sin, Allen says.
Williams, rather thickly, defends bipartisan contributions as a cost of doing business with the federal government. To independent-minded voters, such gifts might just cast him as a man who thinks the job is more important than politics.
Williams also followed a Perot-style career path. In 20 years he took BDM from a fairly small firm to one of the largest defense contractors on the Capital Beltway, creating lots of jobs.
Although Perot's showing in Virginia was not as good as his 20 percent nationally, the 14 percent he got here certainly adds up to more people than the estimated 15 percent of the GOP formed by the religious right.
A crippled GOP and a Democratic Party that surely will be vulnerable to the fallout from President Clinton's call for tax increases and Wilder's continuing tepid popularity could provide fertile ground for a Perot message.
Rob Eure covers state government and politics in this newspaper's Richmond bureau.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB