Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 25, 1993 TAG: 9310290358
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Now it's time to get serious. For voters of the 14th Legislative District to oust the Vinton Democrat, majority leader of the House and chairman of its Finance Committee, would be akin to committing an act of self-mutilation.
Sure, Cranwell sometimes comes across the aggressive schemer. But it is in part because the former Virginia Tech footballer plays the game of legislative politics so hard that he's so much an asset to Southwest Virginia.
Cranwell's GOP opponent, Bud Brumitt, is a pleasant man who's earned credit for entering a race that a few months ago seemed hopeless. In forcing the usually unopposed Cranwell to hit the campaign trail, Brumitt has performed a useful service.
But Brumitt has lived in Virginia all of 18 months. Unsurprisingly, he lacks detailed knowledge of critical issues facing the state, the region and the district. All he's got going for him are attacks on his opponent.
Of course, for many voters in the 14th - which consists of eastern and northern Roanoke County, western Bedford County, southern Botetourt County and all of Craig County - this election is as much a referendum on Cranwell as a choice between two candidates.
With that in mind, three points are worth emphasizing:
Cranwell's reputation for effectiveness is no election-year concoction.
His legislative colleagues may not always love Cranwell, but they respect him. Saying he is energetic and understands the legislative process is an understatement.
Getting results for our region is no easy task in a General Assembly increasingly dominated, due to population growth there, by the Northern Virginia-to-Richmond-to-Tidewater axis. That's why it's doubly important to elect legislators, like Cranwell, who know the score.
Cranwell's contributions to the good of this region - on everything from Center in the Square to Explore Park - are too numerous to list and not widely enough appreciated. And as majority leader, he does well by the state, not just his district.
Cranwell is neither a spendthrift liberal nor a rearguard reactionary. He is a practitioner not of perfection but of the possible.
The state, for example, has not appropriated nearly enough money toward ending disparities in educational opportunity between children in rich and poor districts. But it is has spent more, and may spend more yet, with Cranwell in the legislature than it would without him.
Roanoke city and Roanoke County continue to be uneasy in their co-ownership of the Roanoke Regional Airport. But there might not be any airport relationship, and perhaps not a new airport terminal, if Cranwell hadn't forced the issue.
Cranwell hasn't made a career of seeking new taxes. But he's less prone than others to shrink cowardly from the idea if the need is evident.
On issues of local-government structure, Cranwell's positions have been true to his suburban constituents' dislike of annexations and consolidations. He has not, however, turned a blind eye to the needs of inner cities, nor assumed that their fate can be divorced from that of suburbanites or the commonwealth.
Hard as Cranwell plays the game, to our knowledge he has always played within the rules as they've been understood at the time.
We don't know what will be the outcome of the civil lawsuit in which former Vinton Town Attorney Frank Selbe accuses Cranwell and three business partners of taking an illegal income-tax deduction in 1984. But we can consider the source (Selbe is a convicted felon), the suspiciousness of the timing (the suit was filed less than a month before Election Day) and the fact that neither the Internal Revenue Service nor a Republican-led U.S. attorney's office, aware of similar allegations, chose to prosecute.
We're certainly not crazy about the idea of a public official pleading the Fifth Amendment, as Cranwell did in proceedings connected to the Selbe affair. But we're not ready to dismiss his suspicion that the prosecutor had become politicized.
Cranwell would do well to avoid such entanglements and the questions they raise. But voters in his district would do well next week to re-elect him.
Keywords:
POLITICS ENDORSEMENT
by CNB