Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 5, 1994 TAG: 9409060064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Look for Ollie North to launch an offensive on Iran-Contra.
Look for Charles Robb, newly off the missing-in-action list, to make a show of force featuring Democratic Party faithful.
Look for Marshall Coleman and Douglas Wilder to escalate their guerrilla tactics.
Look out, Virginia. It's Labor Day, and the state's U.S. Senate race of the century is officially under way. There are 64 days to go in what promises to be the most raucous, expensive and exhausting state campaign in memory.
"It's unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's fundamentally different and unique," said Mark Goodin, consultant to the North campaign. "You have four candidates with high name I.D. ... very aggressive combatants ... a mid-term president whose negatives are high ... voter anger with the system that's higher than I've ever seen it."
Not to mention a Republican nominee, in North, whose 1980s dip into covert warfare and diplomacy has made him a polarizing figure of national dimensions. And a Democratic incumbent, in Robb, whose 1980s dip into the seamier side of night life in Virginia Beach has tattered his one-time image as a future presidential contender.
"This is a year," says Goodin, "where you have to throw away the play books."
Foremost, this is an election about Oliver North.
It is the former Marine lieutenant colonel who has brought an international focus to the state, who is driving out-of-state fund raising likely to make this the most costly Senate race in American history, and whose messianic appeal is a cause for celebration in some quarters, dismay in others.
Perhaps the key strategic question in the race is this:
Are voters already so sure of where they stand on North that, despite all the campaign razzmatazz, there's a limit to how much support he can get?
That leads to the follow-up questions:
Will the voter pot be divided four ways, three ways or two ways come Nov. 8?
And, can North expand his base by also turning the campaign into a referendum on Bill Clinton's presidency?
"If North can expand this to a two-dimensional election, so that it's also about Bill Clinton, it moves him from a fringe candidate to someone who could win under the right circumstances," said Paul Goldman, a former chairman of the state Democratic Party.
Over the next several weeks, the candidates will be fighting to define North.
Robb signaled his approach recently, calling this a contest of "Mainstream vs. Extreme." He'll point to North's opposition to both abortion and an assault weapons ban, as well as his willingness to give tax breaks to parents who send their children to private schools, as places where North is out of touch with Virginians.
But, analysts say, it may be difficult to paint North as a philosophical extremist while such popular politicians as Gov. George Allen campaign at his side.
The trickier but potentially more promising tack is to portray North as a personal extremist. The goal, said David Doak, a consultant to Robb's campaign, will be to show "excessiveness in the person himself, that he doesn't have any bounds on his zeal."
The North campaign promises to counter the expected assault with an offensive that could begin as early as today.
"We will run at Iran-Contra, not away from it," said Goodin. North will "talk about it a lot. You invite inquiries. [You show] a willingness to go before the voters in a variety of formats to say, `I know this is in your craw. I not only am willing, I am eager to talk about it ... I did the best I could under awful circumstances.'''
Meanwhile, Democratic former Gov. Wilder and Republican former Attorney General Coleman have a two-tiered task.
The independents first have to convince voters that they have a better chance than Robb of beating North. Then they have to beat North. Starting from behind in money and the polls, they face an uphill job.
But both are scrappy fighters, and neither has shown any indication of backing out.
Coleman's campaign confirmed that the Northern Virginia lawyer, formerly from Waynesboro, will inject several hundred thousand dollars of his own money into the campaign. And Wilder will stage the mega-event of the fall, a fund-raiser with entertainers Bill Cosby and Quincy Jones later this month, possibly at the Richmond Coliseum.
As for tactics, Coleman's and Wilder's are apparently the same. "We're going to be more direct in talking about the flawed candidacies of the other two," said Coleman campaign manager Anson Franklin, voicing a message echoed in the Wilder camp.
"We'll start to see upward movement by mid-September, based on the realization that Chuck is dead in the water," predicted Wilder campaign manager Glenn Davidson.
With polls showing Robb and North neck-and-neck at about 30 percent each and Wilder and Coleman well behind, Robb's goal is to portray the election as a two-way race.
The North campaign, which has made a stronger-than-expected showing this summer, wants to keep a multicandidate field. "We feel good about a three-way race," said Goodin. "We feel very good about a four-way race."
On the campaign trail, North has appeared folksy and spontaneous. In one memorable moment, he accepted a challenge during a radio call-in show to spit a stream of water through the gap in his front teeth at a target some 10 feet away. He hit the bull's eye.
Robb, in contrast, has spent much of the summer in Washington attending to Senate duties. On the trail, he appears more formal, often sticking with traditional courthouse politicking.
Encountering a stack of confiscated guns at the Essex County Sheriff's Office, Robb singled out a military-style, .45-caliber handgun. "I could probably field strip this if I was pushed," said Robb, a former Marine lieutenant. But when challenged by a reporter to do so, he declined.
If luck has run lately with North, Goodin said the campaign isn't looking back. "We've had a good summer. But whatever bump we get from that will be short-lived," he said.
Staff writer David M. Poole contributed to this story.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB