Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 31, 1993 TAG: 9310310116
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON LENGTH: Medium
"He moves past the script and into a vacuum," Terry said of her Republican rival. "We found a new support group for George: Overpromisers Anonymous."
In stops in Northern and Southwest Virginia, Terry showed rhetorical flashes many Democrats have been pleading for throughout the campaign.
"George Allen is the program candidate," she said. "It's been that way all along. You just pull the string, and he says, `Hi, I'm George Allen, and I'm a Jeffersonian conservative.' You move past the script and into the vacuum."
Terry's itinerary Saturday included two of the three corners of the state that Democrats count on in races for governor. She is to visit the third corner - Hampton Roads - on Monday, after more campaigning in the Southwest today.
She spent part of the day Saturday campaigning with her running mates, Lt. Gov. Don Beyer and attorney general candidate Bill Dolan.
Terry campaigned early Saturday in Northern Virginia with James Brady, the former press secretary paralyzed in a 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan. Brady and his wife, Sarah, are national leaders in the gun-control movement and again Saturday hailed Terry's support of a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases.
"We're going to retire Charlton Heston and make George Allen the NRA's new poster boy," Sarah Brady said.
But in the rugged counties west and south of Roanoke, gun control is causing problems for Terry. In Smyth County, a few hours after leaving the Bradys, the candidate pleaded for understanding from rural residents suspicious of gun controls.
"Let me step up to the rough one," she said. "I know it's a stretch out here. But guns belong in the hands of hunters, not in the hands of schoolchildren and violent criminals. Handguns is a tough issue. Please take a deep breath and think about it."
On Friday night at a Fairfax County high school's homecoming game, Terry saw the face of another tough issue: health care.
As Terry worked her way through a crush of adolescents, a young woman in the crowd asked how she felt about Health Maintenance Organizations.
"I said I think we need to move toward some sort of managed care," Terry recalled later. "Then she told me about her brother who'd almost died from a drug overdose. And she just started telling me her story."
The woman stayed alongside Terry for more than 10 minutes, talking about the $900-per-month bills for her brother's drug treatment, the drain on the family savings, and the threatened loss of their health insurance.
She told Terry she'd dropped out of college during her first semester after being sexually abused.
"She said, `It seems like our lives are falling apart.' " Terry said.
Terry listened until the young woman was talked out, then gave her a card and a hug.
"It actually happens quite often," she said later. "There are people out there who really need somebody they feel safe to come talk to. I just listen.
"Those are the things that keep me going. I can't write her an insurance policy; I can't give her money. What a governor can do is learn from her situation."
Last Sunday, as Terry visited churches in Hampton Roads, she repeatedly was confronted by a woman who wanted to talk about her illness and how the cost of her medicine was more than she could bear.
"She said, `Look at my face,' " Terry recalled. " `because I'm going to be dead soon, and I want you to remember what it looks like.'
"People like that seem crazy. But sometimes you just have to stand there and take it before they'll talk to you about their problems. If you listen, they're representing a whole class of people who've just about given up."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB