
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, September 22, 1994                   TAG: 9409230105
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SENATE RACE PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON VA.

Not since the word Bobbitt became a verb has Virginia been the focus of as much national publicity as generated by this year's U.S. Senate race. The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune all ran stories last week when former Gov. Douglas Wilder pulled out of the race. So how is the Land of Jefferson coming across? Read on for a brief digest of some of the more memorable recent passages from major publications:

The Sept. 19 edition of The New Yorker magazine devotes three pages to a sketchbook on the Virginia race titled ``Politics as Usual?'' It was drawn by Steve Brodner, who spent time traveling with the candidates and depicts each of the four (this was before Wilder quit) talking with average Virginians.

Beside a drawing of a weak-chinned, pointy-headed Sen. Charles Robb talking to a heavyset woman is this caption: ``Chuck Robb with a dairy farmer's wife at the Orange County Fair: `I'm 55 years old, and I don't have to, but I don't pass a meal without drinking the product of your husband's labor.'''

Under a line drawing of a grinning Oliver North standing with a heavyset man holding a drink, it says: ``Northern Neck, a stop on the Oliver North bus tour. Supporter: `You got my vote. My wife does not like homosexuals, period. I was on a destroyer four years. We can't have those people on the destroyers.' North: `Can't have 'em on amphibs. Can't have 'em on battleships. There are no private staterooms.'''

Canadians got a dose of the Old Dominion in the Sept. 17 edition of The Toronto Star, which contained a lengthy story about the race headlined, in part: ``Oh golly, it's Ollie!'' The irreverent article, written by Linda Diebel, begins by describing North's rise to fame in the Iran-Contra scandal and then notes: ``It's seven years later, and Olliemania is back - if, indeed, it ever went away.

``The source of the most recent outburst is the great state of Virginia, a stone's throw across the Potomac from the capital, where the retired and now exceedingly rich lieutenant colonel lives and is running for one of Virginia's two seats in the U.S. Senate. Yes, that's Congress, the same august body that he once so heartily defiled.

``North is the Republican candidate in one of those wonderfully colorful and goofy American political races that seem stranger than fiction.

``His closest rival, Democratic Senator Charles Robb, is best known these days as `Chuckie Cheesecake' after allegations involving women other than his wife; the state's other Senator, Republican John Warner, keeps telling people that former felons shouldn't be allowed into Congress; and the Republican hierarchy in Washington has been thrown into a tizzy.

``And, to make matters worse, all this could be a portent of things to come. Virginia has often served as a bellwether state in U.S. politics.''

Hotshot political writer Maureen Dowd weighed in on the race in the Sept. 16 New York Times - on the front page, no less. Dowd set up the contest this way: ``Decorous old Virginia has not been so atwitter since Elizabeth Taylor prowled the 1978 state convention wearing a tiger-striped pants suit, wooing delegates for John Warner, her sixth husband (if you don't count Richard Burton twice).

``This seat of American democracy has long had a reputation as a state where the dullest candidate was assured victory.

``No more.''

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB