Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 19, 1993 TAG: 9304190032
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
George Allen doesn't call his race for governor a campaign. It's an insurgency.
Of the three Republicans running for the party's nomination, Allen's rhetoric is designed to be the Allen most inflammatory in rallying opposition to Democrat Mary Sue Terry.
He peppers his speeches with red meat for partisans starving after 12 years out of power in Virginia. He promises to veto tax increases, to take control of schools away from the "meddling bureaucrats who are incessantly pestering" and return it to parents. He rails against the "liberal, establishmentarian, social-engineering Democrats."
And it appears to be working. Although his rivals dismiss Allen's claim that he has the nomination in hand, all agree he is the front-runner to win at the GOP's June 4-5 convention.
For the 41-year-old Allen, this This is the third and last in a series of profiles of the three Republican gubernatorial candidates. is all heady and unlikely stuff, considering that 18 months ago he had just moved from the House of Delegates to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he planned to make his mark for at least half a dozen years.
Allen won a special election in 1991 to finish the term of retiring 7th District Rep. French Slaughter.
"Right after the election, some people were suggesting that I run for governor, but I was really thinking that if I wanted to do it, I would wait until 1997," Allen says.
Then came the twist that forced Allen to rethink. Days after his election, Democrats in the legislature redrew congressional district lines and lumped Allen with fellow Republican Rep. Thomas J. Bliley of Richmond, a veteran, in a district dominated by Bliley's home base.
Allen remembers a party gathering in Roanoke, in early December 1991, where the buzz was all about what he would do next. He was the object of everyone's advice: run against Bliley, move to another district, consider any of the three GOP statewide slots this year.
Allen says he spent 1992 "really thinking about whether I wanted to do this. You have to have that inner drive. That's what impels you when you're tired and it's late and you had a bad day."
Allen had few bad days in the early going. He was immediately embraced by most GOP county and city chairmen; he won the backing of the party's most successful strategist, M. Boyd Marcus; and his campaign manager, Mike Thomas, is one of the best in Virginia at caucus politics, picking up supporters one by one.
But since the New Year, Allen's campaign seems to have stalled. A high-profile, high-dollar push from Northern Virginia businessman Earle Williams, coupled with Allen's failure to pick up financial support to match his popular backing, dimmed his hopes for an easy ride to the nomination.
Since he, Williams and the third entry, Del. Clinton Miller of Shenandoah, have begun joint appearances, Allen has also been subjected to relentless jabs and attacks - many of them thinly disguised efforts to show that Allen simply doesn't have gubernatorial stuff.
Miller attacks Allen as immature. Williams says he lacks experience, and draws upon a litany of Allen's recorded votes and quotes to show he has waffled on issues like abortion and taxes.
In a recent letter in praise of Williams, sent to Republicans statewide, Robert D. Kilpatrick, retired president of CIGNA Corp., described Allen as "all hat and no cattle."
Allen has ignored it. There's a split-second flash in his eye when he's asked how he feels when his opponents suggest he's essentially just a dumb jock.
Does it make him angry?
"If it does, I'd never admit it," Allen says as the easy smile and manner return almost instantly. "I understand why they are doing it: you assassinate the character of the leader. But I think it's more important for people to know what my ideas are. I just don't like doing it, especially with fellow Republicans."
True, George Allen is a junior, the son of legendary football coach George Allen Sr. True, he chews tobacco and wears cowboy boots every day. True, he played quarterback at the University of Virginia for teams with forgettable records. And yes, while his law school classmates spent summers interning for law firms, Allen worked on buckaroo ranches out West.
But he also majored in history and graduated with honors. He passed up the World Football League for UVa's law school and won a clerkship with former U.S. District Judge Glen Williams of Abingdon, whose accomplishments in Southwest Virginia Republican politics rival the feats of Allen's father in football.
"He's bright and tenacious," says Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, who sat beside Allen in the House of Delegates for six years. "George can detach himself from the emotion of the environment, but he's not easily dissuaded."
Stosch says Allen worked tirelessly on favorite issues as a state legislator, particularly bills to strengthen penalties for violent crime and to establish a workfare program in the state.
Allen's idea to give proceeds from the sale of assets confiscated from drug dealers to local law enforcement was approved by voters in 1990. He also introduced the measure that strengthens the capital murder statute in cases of killings during attempted robbery.
In his year in Congress, Allen met with little success. He joined the Republican effort for a balanced budget initiative and introduced several spending reductions to the budget.
Allen admits he didn't come to politics at the dinner table. His father was a football man first and last. But the elder Allen knew a couple of big names. He coached at Whittier College and knew its most famous alumnus, Richard Nixon. And George Sr. knew Ronald Reagan when he coached the LA Rams and Reagan was governor of California. Their friendship prompted Coach Allen to take his son on a campaign bus ride with Reagan in his 1976 race for president.
"My mother just thinks politics is a demeaning thing to do. But coaching and politics do have some things in common," Allen says. "There is competition. There are strategies. You develop a game plan, if you will, and stick with it."
The two careers are similar in another way, Allen says. "You can win and still get fired."
Allen began his political work before he graduated from law school, heading Young Virginians for Reagan in 1976. The next year, as he drove Williams to courtrooms around Southwest Virginia, Allen heard colorful tales of rough-and-tumble coalfield politics.
Allen considered practicing law in Los Angeles, where his parents had moved, but decided he preferred Virginia. He bought a historic building just off Charlottesville's courthouse square and renovated it himself.
But he had not hung his shingle out a year before he was in politics again. Allen ran for the House of Delegates against Jim Murray, an entrenched incumbent and committee chairman. He lost decisively. Three years later, Allen tried again, and this time, upset Murray by a handful of votes.
Democrats targeted Allen as a single-termer. They should have respected his determination.
During his first session, Allen drove from Richmond to Nelson County every Thursday night for a town meeting in the strongly Democratic county. The work paid off and Nelson became Allen's for the remainder of his career, assuring his seat in the assembly.
Keywords:
PROFILE, POLITICS
by CNB