Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 6, 1993 TAG: 9311110464
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WHITTLE JOHNSTON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Allen had grass-roots support at the financial as well as the political level, as the figures in the Roanoke Times & World-News on Oct. 30 made clear. While Mary Sue Terry listed 21 contributors of more than $5,000 each in this area, Allen listed only five. His campaign gained its momentum from its broad base of small contributors.
By contrast, Ms. Terry was seen by many as the choice of the insiders, by the insiders and for the insiders. For much of her campaign, she acted as if she were the rightful heir to the throne, duly anointed by the Richmond establishment and its statewide network.
Second, Virginians held the Democrats accountable for their 12 years of disgraceful derelictions of corruption and infighting. The worst example of corruption has been Sen. Charles Robb, as detailed by Larry Sabato in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Oct. 10. The worst example of the nasty infighter has been Gov. Douglas Wilder, who has given a sharp elbow in the ribs to anyone who challenges his limitless ambition. How could a party that couldn't get its own act together offer effective governance to Virginia?
Third, voters felt the Democrats had failed to deal with the gravest crisis of the commonwealth - the rise of violent crime. From 1987-1991, violent crime grew by 41 percent in our central cities, and 75 percent of the violent criminals were repeat offenders. For seven years, as this plague swept our state, Ms. Terry was attorney general. Countless Virginians echoed Clint Miller's chant: ``Where were you, Mary Sue?''
The people of her own Patrick and Henry counties saw Ms. Terry as selling them out - for the more numerous voters of Northern Virginia - in her sudconversion to favoring a five-day waiting period for gun purchases. Beyond this, when this waiting period has been tried in other jurisdictions, it's been coupled with an increase rather than a decrease in crime.
Allen's approach, by contrast, started from a basic premise: ``It's the criminal, stupid!'' He proposed to go to the source of the plague through the elimination of parole for violent offenders, and by making juries aware of prior offenses by the accused at the time of sentencing.
Fourth, Allen is a Jefferson conservative with a much clearer grasp of the relations between government and society than Ms. Terry's Democrats. She waffled on issue after issue - Virginia Military Institute, the coal strike, payment of refunds to federal pensioners, outcome-based education, etc. She was ineffective in doing the things that only government can do, while she boldly asserted ``leadership'' in areas that are none of government's business - e.g., sex ``education.''
Fifth, Ms. Terry showed how badly she was out of touch with the concerns of a majority of Virginians when she caricatured Allen as a Halloween goblin manipulated by the ``radical right.'' Far more Virginians are worried about the moral decadence of loony leftists like Jane Fonda or Woody Allen than they are about the Revs. Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. Any candidate who called it ``extremist'' to notify parents when a pregnant teen-ager is considering an abortion should have been running for governor of California, not Virginia.
Finally, Virginians saw a vote for Allen as their most effective way to make clear to President Clinton their opposition to the policies of meddle and muddle that he's trying to foist upon them.
With Allen's victory, let's hope that Virginians will begin to reclaim the place of honor they held when our republic was founded: that they will once again provide a model of responsible leadership to a nation that has lost its way.
\ Whittle Johnston of Charlottesville is a professor in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.
by CNB