Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 3, 1994 TAG: 9409060034
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE LENGTH: Long
Oliver North went to a gun show Friday, and came away talking about Woodstock.
As in, why doesn't the annual gun show-and-flea market extravaganza in Carroll County, where a blue-collar crowd comes from miles around to jam the streets of this picturesque courthouse town each Labor Day weekend, attract the same kind of national attention as drugged-out flower children wallowing in the mud at a rock festival?
"Ninety-nine percent of these folks are just rock-solid, hard-working, God-fearing, taxpaying, law-abiding Virginians," North mused. "They will get zero coverage compared to a fraction of this number showing up at a place like Woodstock for a rock festival. Go figure. I mean, what is it?
"They're just decent folks, they work hard for a living, they don't tear the place up, they don't trash it, all the money goes to the [Veterans of Foreign Wars], a fairly straight organization."
Is that the problem?
"I wasn't kidding you. That was not a political statement. I really don't know. They had, what, 200,000 at Woodstock? And they're predicting as many as 500,000 for this? Let's suppose 500,000 people do show up in a little town in Southwest Virginia. Why does that not deserve the same kind of attention as Woodstock in the national media? I'm confused about that."
It's the kind of observation North just seems to blurt out naturally, without any prompting, but which says so much about the type of campaign he's running for the U.S. Senate - a campaign that often has as much to do with cultural politics as it does with congressional ones.
Take North's morning walk through the opening day of the Hillsville gun show. The Republican Senate candidate went out of his way - literally - to be seen hobnobbing with gun enthusiasts. The campaign parked North's motor home and chartered a plane so he could detour into a far corner of the state for just an hour's worth of handshaking.
But, oh, what handshaking it was.
North arrived in town like a hero, with a police escort flashing blue lights.
Before he even reached the gates of the gun show, people mobbed around him, thrusting scraps of paper in his direction to autograph, pointing their videocameras, begging him to stop so they could have their snapshot taken with him.
"Glad to have you in Carroll County," called out construction worker Tim Haynes. "You've got some supporters here."
"Always glad the shake the hand of a fellow Marine," greeted Nick McCully of Virginia Beach, a newly purchased M1 carbine slung over his shoulder.
And so it went, as North eased through a crush of people so tight that his bodyguards sometimes wrapped their arms around his shoulders to keep from being separated from the candidate. At one point, Wytheville real estate man Gene James even started up a chant of "Ollie! Ollie!"
What's the attraction of the former National Security Council aide who achieved fame as a key figure in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages affair?
The answer Rhea Carbaugh of Bluefield gave was typical. "I admire him," she said. "He didn't do anything but what he was told to do."
U.S. Sen. Charles Robb's staff has tried to dismiss the crowds North often draws, saying Virginians simply are curious to see a celebrity, but they don't really intend to vote for a man who was convicted of three felonies. (The convictions were overturned when an appeals court ruled that testimony North had given under immunity to Congress may have tainted the jury.)
But that's not what the crowds North met Friday were saying. And that's not how the state's political analysts read the political landscape. Indeed, Bob Holsworth of Virginia Commonwealth University marvels at the way North has spent the summer making a strong pitch for the votes of rural Virginians, who constitute about one-quarter of the electorate.
"This campaign is brilliant in terms of photo opportunities," Holsworth says. North has made one appearance after another intended to portray himself as a "regular guy" who identifies with rural interests - fishing one day, hunting the next, or stomping around Friday's gun show in blue jeans and cowboy boots.
"He's attempting to sweep the rural part of the state in the same way George Allen did in 1993," Holsworth says. "In many instances, Allen went into rural areas and rolled up 65 percent of the vote." Some North supporters - and staffers - are openly talking of exceeding that.
"I've never seen so many people talking for a candidate as this time," agreed Carroll County farmer Dyer Smythers. "They really like that man."
This is largely a "cultural" campaign, Holsworth points out, more about values and images than any specific issue. And it's something Republicans have become good at, he says. "North goes in and says, 'I'm going to uphold your values.'" Meanwhile, Robb comes across as a "wonkish politician who acts as if he's conducting a graduate seminar on international policy issues."
That's where North's musings about Hillsville as a Woodstock-with-weapons come in. It's the verbal equivalent of saying he's out of touch with a liberal culture that condemns guns but elevates Guns 'N' Roses.
What's the big deal, though, if North's emphasis on cultural touchstones such as guns and hunting gives him big numbers in rural Virginia?
The key, Holsworth says, is it not only forces Democrats to roll up equally big numbers elsewhere, it also takes away one of the party's electoral cornerstones.
"It's a dilemma because the Democrats' coalition of rural Virginia and urban Virginia, like all coalitions, is fragile and precarious. There are some common understandings, such as improved school funding. But the gun issue is one where you drive a wedge in that coalition, and Republicans understand that."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB