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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 29, 1993                   TAG: 9309290252
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

GOVERNOR HAS ADVICE FOR TERRY

Wilder critiqued Terry's campaign hours before he left town on a two-week foreign trade mission. He's done everything Terry's asked to help her campaign, Wilder said.

Democrats are worried that Terry has blown a once-large lead over Republican George Allen, Wilder said. "I think there is a degree of concern everywhere. The question is how to get by the perception."

Wilder said he tells Terry "every time I see her" to get out among voters more. He questioned the wisdom of building the campaign around her call for a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases.

"I wouldn't base my campaign on it," said Wilder, who has made gun control the major focus of his final year as governor.

Wilder said voters are more concerned about the economy than about gun control.

Terry, who enjoyed a lead of nearly 20 percentage points over Allen in June, is just slightly ahead or even in several polls taken in the past two weeks.

Wilder criticized Terry for her most recent campaign commercial, in which she says she will end cable service and color television in state prisons.

"Let me say here and now the state doesn't furnish those things to inmates," Wilder said. He referred to the campaign ads as "another extension of hyperbole. In jails with those amenities, they are paid for by inmates from profits made at commissaries," Wilder said.

Wilder also came close to accusing Terry of violating legal ethics by criticizing Virginia Military Institute's plan to settle a federal court challenge to its all-male admissions policy.

Wilder, who is backing the VMI board's plan to open a similar program for women at Mary Baldwin College, a private school in Staunton, said Terry's criticism of VMI is questionable because she once represented the school as Virginia's attorney general.

"As a practicing lawyer, you have a duty not to do that," Wilder said.

Terry excused herself from defending VMI against a U.S. Justice Department suit after Wilder announced he opposed the policy. She has since followed Wilder in calling for an end to the gender-exclusive policy at the state-supported school.

On Saturday, while Wilder accepted the Mary Baldwin plan, Terry said it will not correct the unconstitutionality of VMI's policy.

Terry's campaign barely acknowledged Wilder's criticism Tuesday.

Terry maintained a relatively limited schedule of public appearances this summer and concentrated on fund raising for an October blitz of television commercials. She is picking up her pace in the final weeks of the race, said campaign spokesman Jay Marlin.

"When Mary Sue disagrees with the governor, she says so," Marlin added. "The fact that this is going to be a close race has everyone concerned. But if there's a problem it's with false expectations that this was going to be a walk. Elections in this state are always close."

Wilder's comments struck a chord with a number of Democratic leaders who have been arguing privately for several weeks that the campaign needs new direction.

Three party leaders, who spoke Tuesday on the condition that their names not be used, said Terry's campaign has been flat. They said the loss of her comfortable lead has led to some consternation among the party rank and file.

Keywords:
POLITICS