Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 30, 1993 TAG: 9305300163
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
\ Salem Del. Steve Agee has gambled his 11-year tenure in the House of Delegates for a chance to win a spot on the Republicans' statewide ticket. Now his political career could hinge on a single speech.
Forget the head-knocking three-way race for governor among George Allen, Clint Miller and Earle Williams. Forget the polarizing debate over abortion between lieutenant governor hopefuls Bobbie Kilberg and Mike Farris.
When a world's-record 14,000 Republican delegates try to squeeze into the Richmond Coliseum for their state convention Saturday, the most intensely fought contest will be for the office most delegates haven't paid much attention to - attorney general.
Republicans would cringe at the comparison, but this race between Agee and Henrico County prosecutor Jim Gilmore might have been designed by Andy Warhol: So many delegates remain undecided, the winner may be whichever candidate does the best job with his 15 minutes of fame - and speaking time - at Saturday's convention.
"Some people say they won't make up their minds until they hear what the candidates have to say," says Anne Kincaid of Richmond, the leader of the state's anti-abortion movement.
And just how many delegates are waiting until the convention starts to make up their minds on who should round out the Republican ticket? That depends on who you talk to:
Virginia Beach state Sen. Ken Stolle: "My feeling would be probably 25 to 30 percent are undecided."
Rockingham County party Chairman Mark Obenshain: "Probably half our delegates are undecided."
Fairfax County party Chairman Pat Mullins: "I'd say up here in Faixfax, 80 precent of ours are undecided on the attorney general's race."
Suffice it to say, a lot.
In effect, Agee and Gilmore have spent more than two years criss-crossing the state, trying to buttonhole every Republican they can find, and now their race comes down to this: A frantic 24-hour campaign while the convention is in progress.
"I don't think a lot of delegates know who the candidates are," Mullins says. "People won't decide anything until we get to the convention. Probably whoever makes the best impression between Friday at noon [when the convention starts] and when we vote on Saturday will be the nominee."
"The pressure's going to be on to give a good speech," says Lynchburg Republican Chairman Mike Harrington, who initially backed Gilmore, then withdrew his support after he met Agee, wrestled for months about his decision, now has finally endorsed the Salem legislator and believes momentum is "surging" Agee's way. "I think what it'll boil down to is who gives a great speech."
This kind of last-minute decision is just one of the hazards of running for an office not many people know much about. It's also one of the hazards of a race that doesn't split cleanly along ideological lines.
"There's no passion in that race," says Steve Haner, an aide to gubernatorial hopeful Williams. "Nobody gets mad at you if you're for the other candidate."
For Agee, that's just fine. In some ways, the convention's volatility represents a tactical victory for him, because early on Gilmore had been considered the runaway favorite. "If you looked at the 1,000 or so people who are there year in and year out at party meetings, then Gilmore probably did have a lead," Agee says. "But add in the other 13,000, and all the dynamics change."
Indeed, the key factor at this convention is its size. Even national conventions usually have only several thousand delegates. But Virginia Republicans,in a bid to energize a party that's gone 0-for-9 in state elections since 1981, have opened the convention doors this year to just about anyone who wanted to show up.
The result is a crowd so large that Republicans have had to make special arrangements with the fire marshal to fit everyone in. The Guiness Book of World Records will even have a representative on hand.
"Clearly, this will be a political event like no other," Agee says. "Just the sheer size and confusion will make traditional campaign events impossible. You try to see as many people as you can in a short amount of time, but you won't be able to campaign one-on-one with everyone. There's just too many of them, and too little time."
That will place a premium on showmanship and razzle-dazzle and campaigns trying to create the appearance, if not the reality, of a stampede.
To help orchestrate all this, each campaign will park a trailer outside the coliseum, a "count room" bristling with telephones and walkie-talkies and fax machines and computers to keep up-to-the-minute lists of which delegates are leaning which way.
Inside the coliseum, each campaign also will maintain a "crow's nest" high in the rafters, from which their convention managers will be able to peer down on the teeming mob and "direct traffic" on where to deploy their armies of field reps - and the candidate and his spouse.
"Conventions take on a life of their own," says Jeff Gregson, a Richmond lobbyist who was the party's executive director during its fabled six-ballot 1978 convention and now will be running Agee's convention operation.
"It's literally minute-by-minute,putting down rumors, making snap decisions on where Steve and Nancy [his wife] need to spend their time. If a rumor gets started, it can spread pretty quickly, so rumor control will be a big part of what we do. There will be all kinds of rumors about so-and-so joining forces."
Whatever the outcome, this will be bruising finish to a race between two candidates who once were law school classmates - and friends. Gilmore was a guest at Agee's wedding. The day the incumbent Henrico commonwealth's attorney died, Agee was on the phone to Gilmore, encouraging him to seek the post.
And now?
"Anytime you compete politically, there's always a strain," Gilmore says.
"That's an understatement," Agee says.
Politically, there may not be much difference between the two on most issues. Both have put together coalitions that defy easy categorization. Generally, Gilmore gets pegged as the conservative and Agee as the moderate, although that may have more to do with style than substance.
Early on, Gilmore rounded up support from such key conservatives as Morton Blackwell, the guru of the state's hard right. But he also was endorsed by Tom Davis, the moderate chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. "We had an organizational meeting in Northern Virginia the other day, and someone said it was interesting to see all these people supporting the same candidate," says Gilmore's campaign manager, Bryan Slater.
Agee began with a solid base of moderates in Western Virginia, but lately has reeled in some surprising endorsements from key conservatives in the eastern part of the state - notably anti-abortion crusader Kincaid and former gubernatorial candidate Wyatt Durrette.
Last week, former Gov. Mills Godwin offered warm words about Agee at a Williamsburg event, although Godwin cautioned he wasn't making any endorsements. Agee also claims that Virginia Beach religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has pledged to vote for him at the convention, although a spokesman for Robertson's political group, the Christian Coalition, says Robertson will remain "publicly neutral."
Paradoxically,because the race doesn't turn on a single, divisive issue, the rhetoric has sharpened, as both sides jostle for any advantage they can find.
In recent weeks, Gilmore has distributed cartoons that depict "Flipper Agee" as a porpoise leaping through a carnival barker's hoop and label him "a liberal" with a long list of suspect votes in the legislature.
Agee blasted back with brochures showing an empty chair and a vase of dead flowers, accusing Gilmore of neglecting his duties as commonwealth's attorney. And he charged that Gilmore's list of "liberal" votes is so riddled with errors - one bill Gilmore claimed was a vote in favor of state-funded abortions actually dealt with the Virginia Egg Commission - that "bad research like this would get you laughed out of court."
If Gilmore winds up winning, it will be because the hard-charging prosecutor got an early start, and because his hammering that Virginia needs a law-and-order attorney general who's "fought on the front lines" against crime strikes a more responsive chord with conservative audiences.
If Agee wins, the reasons why will be more complicated - part style, part electability, part a result of getting on the right side of local political rivalries elsewhere in the state that few but the participants fully understand.
Ultimately,though, the key to the convention's outcome may be "the Farris factor" - and the perennial issue of abortion.
Farris, a little-known Loudoun County lawyer, has energized the party's religious right and is said to command about 4,000 of the convention's delegates who have turned out solely to back him for lieutenant governor.
"A lot of the Farris people are new to politics and don't know who to believe," Kincaid says, "and for governor and attorney general, they don't see people totally marrying their views. So how do they decide?"
How, indeed. Their answer could tip the balance - so both Gilmore and Agee have targeted "the Farris people" for special attention.
It's here that the early convention wisdom of an easy Gilmore victory has been scrambled.
Rightly or wrongly, many anti-abortion leaders believed that Gilmore would run as an anti-abortion candidate. Instead, his position, by his own description, has turned out to be not much different from Agee's: Each says he would support a 24-hour waiting period and parental notification, each says he'd oppose other restrictions on abortion during the first trimester; each says he'd generally oppose abortion after the first trimester, with only some exceptions.
Gilmore insists he's been consistent. Nevertheless,he's being whipsawed by some anti-abortion leaders who feel he's flip-flopped. In the end,
though, the convention could turn on something as simple as how loud each candidate's floor demonstration is. "That's going to be the most exciting thing that's going on," says Obenshain, a Gilmore supporter. "I sure can't predict."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB