Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 20, 1994 TAG: 9403200113
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As 1993 began, U.S. Sen. Charles Robb's political future looked as bleak as the January landscape.
A federal grand jury had wound its way through months of twisted testimony, innuendo and leaks to arrive at Robb's doorstep. Many thought it was certain the senator would be indicted in a telephone-taping escapade that already had toppled three of his top aides. His 1994 re-election committee was $246 in the hole.
Fifteen months later, there are hints of spring on Robb's horizon.
A deep freeze easily could nip that rebirth in the bud. New disclosures about a mid-1980s social life that included sexual trysts with young women and proximity to drugs came about this month, and more are possible. And if former Iran-Contra figure Oliver North stumbles and Jim Miller becomes the GOP's senatorial nominee, it could shatter polls that show Robb leading in his re-election battle.
But for now, luck and a quietly determined game plan have brought Robb to the edge of a reincarnation that once seemed impossible, interviews suggest.
That reconstruction began on the January day a year ago when the grand jury refused to indict him. It has continued through fund-raising treks to San Francico's Nob Hill, Los Angeles' Wilshire Boulevard, board rooms in Chicago and New York, and the living rooms of wealthy elite in Houston and Las Vegas.
It has included a low-key, but systematic attempt by Robb, his staff, and particularly his wife, Lynda, to touch base with party regulars who normally might need no stroking.
And it is continuing in a campaign strategy that emphasizes at least two tacks: harking back to the Camelot-like days of Robb's 1982-86 term as governor, and courting sympathy by stressing the tough streak that has seen Robb through his father's bankruptcy, Vietnam, and - strategists hope - the political debacle of the past few years.
"Step by step, he's assembled the staff, raised the money," said David Doak, one of Washington's top-echelon political consultants, and a man who has rejoined the Robb team after a cooling of their relationship in the late 1980s.
In what likely will prove to be a multimillion dollar media campaign, Doak said his challenge is to "tell the story about the guy that the people don't know. For a lot of people, he was born on the day he married Lynda, and he really wasn't."
Shadowing that game plan has been internal debate and some dissension over how best to combat Robb's albatrosses: his socializing at Virginia Beach in the mid-1980s, his long-standing political feud with former Gov. Douglas Wilder, and the fallout from an illegally taped phone conversation involving Wilder. The grand jury investigation of Robb's staff began after the tape was illegally leaked to the news media.
In one scene described by several sources, former Gov. Gerald Baliles, Del. Alan Diamonstein, D-Newport News, and several other Robb associates huddled with the senator in the hallway during the party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner last month, attempting to dissuade him from delivering an apologetic speech that night.
Robb campaign manager Susan Platt denies that the senator was talked out of anything, but acknowledges: "He was somewhat prepared at several different times" to issue a long-promised explanation.
Robb's statement, in the form of a five-page letter, came three days before his re-election kickoff last week. It prompted publication in The Washington Post of several memos in which Robb or his former staff strongly suggested sexual activity involving women other than his wife. His public statement acknowledged "socializing under circumstances not appropriate for a married man."
Robb has denied having intercourse with other women or ever knowingly being in the presence of drugs. He also has denied condoning the leak of the Wilder tape, which was given to his staff by a supporter.
Last week's episode has left a still-unsettled debate on whether Robb salved the wounds or fueled the fire with his comments. "There's something to the idea that you endure the fury in March and the story dies of its own weight," said Alan Albert, a Norfolk attorney and Democratic activist.
But a party leader from the Richmond area disagreed. "Chuck Robb could unravel in a heartbeat," he said, noting that he, his wife and many of his friends intend to cast silent votes for Robb's opponent, Richmond attorney Sylvia Clute, in the June Democratic primary.
If money is the mother lode of politics, however, Robb's fund-raising ability stands as a hedge against that unraveling. During 1993, at a time when three statewide Democratic races precluded active fund-raising in the state, Robb raised $1.3 million, largely out of state. Close to $5 of every $6 were raised elsewhere, partially through 17 out-of-state fund-raising trips.
However, Robb's most lucrative gold-digging has been in Texas, the home state of his late father-in-law, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Last fall alone, he netted some $23,000 from individuals in Houston, $17,500 in Dallas and $13,250 in Austin.
There are many reasons for Robb's fund-raising prowess. The likelihood of a race against Oliver North attracts some, as do his positions on the Foreign Relations and Commerce committees.
And his link to the Johnson family and its extensive wealth remains critical.
"Texans have a very open, warm attitude toward the concept of family, and despite the bumps along the way, he is President Johnson's son-in-law," explained John F. Carter II, a Houston attorney and Robb donor.
While money is crucial to a Robb comeback, an even more essential ingredient is Lynda Robb. Her continued loyalty allows Robb to portray his transgressions as a private matter; campaign brochures show him draped by her and their three daughters.
While Robb made 34 trips for the Democratic ticket last year, it is the calls from Lynda Robb that many activists seem to remember best. "If Tammy Wynette [who sang "Stand by Your Man"] was ever looking for a role model, there she is," said Kenneth Geroe, a 2nd District Democratic activist.
After six years in which Robb's negative publicity has outweighed the positive, his handlers are looking to recapture the hard-working, serious image that propelled him onto the Virginia political scene two decades ago. At his re-election announcement in Richmond, House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell of Roanoke County asked voters to "remember back" to the "bright, articulate, capable young Marine who sent the tide of fortune flowing" to the Democrats.
He and others spoke of Robb's achievements as governor in raising education spending by more than $1 billion, appointing record numbers of blacks and women, and reducing the number of state employees.
Virginians may find another newly unveiled theme more surprising, however. Accustomed to thinking of Robb as heir-by-marriage to a multimillion dollar fortune, they'll be told in campaign literature that Robb "understands the struggles of working families because he came from one.
"While still a teen-ager, he and his younger brother both worked to help support his family."
While Robb's middle-class upbringing was less Lincolnesque than the line suggests, the family did experience economic struggle after a dude ranch his parents had opened failed. The story line on Robb also may include his being kicked off the budget committee by Democratic Chairman James Sasser, D-Tenn., after pushing for budget cuts, or previously untold details of his Vietnam experience.
Few doubt that all the planning could come to naught if Robb's troubles re-emerge as the campaign focus, or if the shifting dynamics in the GOP nomination battle result in the selection of Miller, who was President Reagan's budget director, over North.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB