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

DATE: FRIDAY, September 30, 1994                   TAG: 9409300046
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HE WON'T BE HERE FOR LONG - OR FOR FREE

Don't count on getting much of a glimpse of Vice President Al Gore in Roanoke tonight unless you've paid money to see him.

Air Force Two is scheduled to touch down at Roanoke Regional Airport at 7:10 p.m.

From there, Gore will be whisked immediately to a $1,000-per-person fund-raiser on behalf of Sen. Charles Robb at Marketplace Center, an office building on the Roanoke City Market.

At 8:30 p.m., he'll cross the street to attend a $25 per person "barn dance" on the top floor of the Roanoke City Market Building. He won't stay there long, either - only about an hour. Then he'll fly back to Washington.

Robb campaign officials won't say how much money they expect to take in at the two events. Some Roanoke Valley Democrats are complaining it may not be as much as they'd hoped, because the "barn dance" hasn't been well-promoted.

"We wanted to advertise in the paper, but we were told we couldn't," says Al Wilson, the Roanoke Democratic chairman. "Our understanding was the White House folks said no, because of the security risk."

Instead, the original plans required that anyone attending the event buy tickets in advance from Robb's Northern Virginia headquarters. "That was a major complaint," Wilson says, because party activists here aren't accustomed to buying tickets to such a small-dollar fund-raiser in advance.

"I was talking with someone from [Rep. Rick] Boucher's campaign and they said folks from as far away as Wytheville are excited and planning to come," Wilson says. "They didn't see it as something they needed to send their $25 to McLean for. I'm expecting a big contingent to just show up."

So this week, the plans were changed to allow people to buy a ticket at the door. "The Secret Service will just have to eat an extra bag of Rolaids," Wilson says.

The Secret Service, by the way, has been in Roanoke most of this week preparing for Gore's visit. Agents have been spotted crawling through elevator shafts and eyeballing buildings downtown. On Thursday, the service flew in the bullet-proof lectern Gore will use.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB