Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 14, 1994 TAG: 9401140184
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
He won't be a lobbyist. He won't be getting married.
When Gov. Douglas Wilder leaves office on Saturday, he's simply going to set up shop a few blocks from the State Capitol and carry on the most confounding role of all: being Doug Wilder.
"The press has had a very difficult time dealing with me . . . and I think pretty much because I'm a free man," the governor said in a news conference Thursday morning. Fresh from astounding everyone the night before by announcing that he would not run for the U.S. Senate, Wilder reveled in his freedom.
"And people say, `What do you mean by free?'" he said. "Free because I don't fit the stereotypes. I don't do that which I am told to do. I don't do that which I am ordered to do. I do that which I choose to do . . . And to the extent that you want to criticize that, fine. But I am a free man."
Free to say whatever the heck he wants, too. Wilder had this explanation for a conversation with reporters earlier in the week in which he denied rumors that he might duck the Senate race:
"You said, `People said you're not going to run . . . ' Then you said, `Well, will you quash those rumors?' And I said, `Yes, I'll quash them,' " and Wilder stomped his foot as he had earlier in the week.
"I misled you."
Which, of course, adds a certain mystery to his other proclamations about the future. But that's Doug Wilder.
He said he will open a consulting business in downtown Richmond. One of his main projects, he said, will be to marshal money and influence to construct a slavery memorial in Jamestown.
Wilder also will be putting his papers together, perhaps in preparation to write a book, though he has no publishing contract.
Wilder denied reports that he has been considered by President Clinton for an ambassadorship, was courted by Howard University for its presidency and that he might be getting engaged to marry.
He won't run again for president, Wilder said, but Virginia politics one day may lure him back. "Two years from now, I might be wanting to run for the Senate, but I don't want to do that now," he said.
Republican Sen. John Warner's term is up in 1996.
What really seems to hold allure for Wilder is the office he is giving up. "If I were up for re-election now, yes, I would have run again. And would have been re-elected," he said.
Virginia should let governors serve two terms, Wilder said, because it takes years to grasp the nuances of the job.
"I have loved being governor," he said.
Will he run again in 1997 - at age 66?
"I haven't ruled that out."
Wilder is divorced, and his children are grown. So rather than to his family, his attentions will go to investments in Africa, and keeping a hand in the Democratic Party by making donations and giving advice.
Some of the donations, he said, will come from the $1 million-plus left over from his 1990 inaugural fund. The governor bristled at suggestions that he disclose exactly who gave the money and how it's being used. "None of it will be used for my personal gain," he insisted.
Free man to the end, Wilder dismissed the idea that nagging questions such as the inaugural fund, sagging ratings in the polls and intraparty feuding would hurt the image of the first black elected state governor.
Let history record what it may, he said. "What difference does it make? I'm not going to know."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB