Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 19, 1993 TAG: 9403170001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ray L. Garland
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
While Noland and Hancock are in the autumn of highly successful careers, unlikely to be much helped or hurt by their association with politicians, Vagelos and Sculley have been on the down escalator since their man won.
Dr. Vagelos is out as chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. and Sculley no longer heads Apple Computer. But only the first could be related to Clinton. That would be the president's bashing of the big drug companies in preparation for his proposals radically changing the delivery of health services.
When Clinton was nominated, Merck shares sold for $50, representing a total market value of $55 billion. As this is written, Merck is selling for $30. You can make the case, albeit tenuous, that the naive political judgment of Dr. Vagelos cost shareholders in his company $22 billion! Losses in Apple have been proportionately greater, but can hardly be blamed on the president.
Clinton and Gore got high-tech boys like Sculley salivating by promising an industrial policy that would favor certain cutting-edge technologies at the expense of traditional industries. During their celebrated ``New Democrat'' phase, they needed saps like this to divert attention from the bedrock liberalism that was their real platform. Once in office, however, they needed villains to sustain the populist, soak-the-rich rhetoric which is now their stock-in-trade.
One of the greatest changes in American politics has been the neutering of business, which is now prepared to oppose natural friends and support natural enemies on the sole criteria of which is more likely to win. Common Cause has repeatedly shown Democrats receiving larger helpings than Republicans of campaign cash from business.
Increasingly, business seems to be adopting the ultimately self-destructive posture that Winston Churchill ascribed to those statesmen who tried appeasing the dictators in the years before World War II: ``They hope by feeding the tiger that the tiger will eat them last.''
Clearly, the Virginia situation is different. When it comes to issues of concern to business, the General Assembly is still a fundamentally conservative body. But even here, business doesn't always see the fallout from supporting even ``good'' Democrats.
A Southside entrepreneur told me recently how he followed the Virginia tradition of supporting Republican candidates for president and Democrats for governor. He could see no connection between a succession of Democratic governors and a state congressional delegation that has gone from only one Democrat when the last Republican governor departed in 1982 to eight now.
Since all recent candidates for governor have seemed friendly to business, there's no fear factor. But the governorship is also the fount of honor. There are more than 3,000 appointments to boards and commissions within the gift of a governor.
A governor's nod is also an easy way to gain appropriations for projects as diverse as Roanoke's Explore, Richmond's Museum of Fine Arts and the Norfolk Port Authority. A friendly governor can run interference with bureaucrats on undertakings both public and private. With permit processes as complex as they are, almost no large venture can go forward without the major politicians on board. Bottom line? Those holding substantial positions in their communities simply don't like the idea of being at cross-purposes with the governor of Virginia.
For some time, the smart-money boys who don't care what you call a thing so long as they have a piece of it have pegged Terry as the probable winner. And she's doing everything possible to reinforce the image of inevitability by calling attention to all the industrialists, financiers and developers in her corner, and the big bucks she has in the bank.
None of this should come as a surprise. Terry and allies like Del. Alson Smith have been working this project for more than eight years. As attorney general during most of that time, she had the luxury of flattering these people with personal calls when she wasn't asking for anything.
The conventional wisdom is that George Allen, the Republican candidate who was tied down for months in a costly battle for his party's nomination, must soon demonstrate he can close the fund-raising gap or accept the fact that he can't win. Perhaps. But Allen's chances have always depended less on what he does and more on how swing voters feel toward Democrats in general. Recent special elections, including the one held last month in Arkansas to fill the vacant office of lieutenant governor, are showing a strong anti-Democrat tide.
Before it's over, Allen will get enough money to wage a respectable media effort. But just as important as the money will be the message. With so many bigwigs dumping buckets of cash in Terry's coffers, he might take a page from the Democrats' own book and give them a whiff of populism, playing off the very thing now seen as his handicap. So long as his poll numbers go up, they won't really care what he says; they'll give money.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB