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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 15, 1993                   TAG: 9309150254
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

TERRY AD RETURNS FIRE AT ALLEN

George Allen, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, is using the National Rifle Association to do his "dirty work," Mary Sue Terry, the Democratic nominee, claims in a new television advertisement.

The commercial, which began airing statewide Tuesday night, represents a stepped-up attack on gun control, one of Terry's central campaign themes. It shows her lined up in cross hairs as an announcer intones, "Now the gun lobby is going after Mary Sue Terry, running TV ads, doing George Allen's dirty work."

The NRA has been running a TV commercial suggesting that politicians who favor gun control are cynically playing on the public's fear of violent crime. Terry favors a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases; Allen opposes waiting periods.

Terry's ad, which campaign consultant Tom King described as "comparative," also alleges that "George Allen tried to hide $40,000 in contributions from the gun lobby."

Allen's campaign quickly labeled the ad negative on Tuesday.

"All this amounts to is that the handlers of the former front-runner are showing their fangs," Allen spokesman Ken Stroupe said. "We always expected the Terry campaign to go negative, but it's a surprise she's resorted to dirty campaigning this early."

Stroupe said the ad "misrepresents the NRA's involvement in this campaign. It implies a relationship that is not there."

King disagreed. "Nobody in fairness can say it's anything but a comparison ad," he said. "Both their positions are accurately stated, and the distinction is great; but if the George Allen campaign is going to call anybody negative, they ought to look in the mirror."

Aside from the $40,000 in contributions, which were made to the Allen campaign by the NRA and other sportsmen's groups through a political action committee called Virginians for Responsible Leadership, the NRA is holding a clay-shoot/picnic fund-raiser for Allen this Saturday in the Fauquier County village of Remington.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB