Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 14, 1994 TAG: 9401140266
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
We should have known.
Looking back, with the infallibility of hindsight, it's perfectly clear that Gov. Douglas Wilder would, in the end, bow out of the U.S. Senate race and deprive Virginians of a front-row seat at the Grudge Match of the Century.
Here are six reasons why:
Wilder often folds when he thinks has been dealt a losing hand.
For all of Wilder's acclaimed bluff and bluster, this makes the third time he has walked away from a fight he did not think he could win. Everyone is talking about how he quit his presidential campaign in the same fashion. But don't forget, he also abruptly gave up his crusade to build a stadium for the Washington Redskins in Alexandria when it became apparent he did not have the votes in the General Assembly to pull it off.
"The thing to remember about Doug Wilder, from the time he was a junior senator in Richmond, [is that] he knows how to count, and the numbers weren't there," says Debbie Jordan, a Democratic activist in Botetourt County and former legislative aide at the General Assembly. "Just like a lawyer has to know what the answers will be to the questions he asks in court, a politician has to know how to count and Doug Wilder knows better than anyone else."
The thing that is bugging many Virginia Democrats now is for all those years they let Wilder intimidate them, because they thought he really would put up a fight if they did not give him what he wanted.
In 1982, Wilder threatened to bolt the party and run as an independent if Owen Pickett of Virginia Beach were the Senate nominee. Then, it was Pickett who blinked, and Wilder gained such a reputation for brinksmanship that party leaders were afraid to fight him when he wanted to run for lieutenant governor in 1985 and governor in 1989.
Maybe if Virginia Democrats had called Wilder's bluff back in 1982, Wilder would have backed down then, Pickett would have gone on to win a Senate seat and Wilder would be just another blow-hard state legislator today.
"Exactly," says Virginia Tech political analyst Bob Denton.
Douglas Wilder prizes his place in history.
One of the dumbfounded Republican legislators who presented the GOP rebuttal to Wilder's State of the Commonwealth Address grumbled that the governor's speech sounded more like a "State of Doug Wilder" address.
But who's surprised by that?
"We know he's a proud man, we know he's a vain man," says Ray Garland, a former Republican colleague in the state Senate who now writes a newspaper column on Virginia politics that is syndicated statewide.
So, as much as Wilder detests U.S. Sen. Charles Robb, and as much as Wilder might like to strut on the national stage in the Senate, why would he risk tarnishing his place in history by waging a final campaign he might not win?
"If he had lost this election, his voice would have been lost," says Virginia Commonwealth University political analyst Avon Drake. "He would have gone out with a blot on his legacy."
This way, Jordan observes, "he can go out and say he never lost an election."
He'll be 63 on Monday.
By all accounts, Wilder remains hale and hearty. But a campaign is hard work.
"I don't think the energy level was there," Drake says. Garland thought Wilder looked tired on TV. So did Warren Campbell, a former Democratic chairman in Roanoke County. "He does not appear to have his usual zip and vigor he usually has. I think he's wearied himself from all the struggles and infighting over the past four years, and going back to 1982 in some ways. That has to take a toll on anyone."
We had not seen any evidence of a Wilder-for-Senate campaign.
Sure, Wilder had talked tough about challenging Robb. But a campaign is not just talk; it requires assembling a sophisticated - and expensive - organization.
Wilder has never had to put a statewide organization like this together on his own; he got his nominations for governor and lieutenant governor by default and then expected party leaders to do much of the heavy lifting for him.
The political strategists who constitute Wilder's political brain trust have, in recent weeks, quietly found employment elsewhere.
Wilder had not even started raising money - and he probably would have found that hard to do. For one thing, Denton says, Wilder is now so unpopular in Virginia that "he wouldn't have been able to raise any money unless he'd gone to Hollywood."
But even then, it is harder to raise money for a Senate race than a governor's race. In Senate races, contributions are limited to $1,000 per person - or $5,000 per political action committee. That forces candidates to rely on a lot of small contributions - quite unlike Wilder's governor's race where his billionaire friends, John and Patricia Kluge of Albemarle County, dumped in money of six figures.
Some important Democratic constituencies despise Wilder.
Teachers are furious at Wilder, because they think he has gone back on his pledge to get them more money. In recent weeks, Wilder also has offended the gay community with his bashing of a gay leader who backed Robb. He lost the endorsement of the National Abortion Rights Action League, whose support was instrumental in his race for governor, where abortion was the dominating issue. And many ordinary Democratic grass-roots workers - such as Botetourt County's Jordan - hold Wilder responsible for the Democratic Party's debacle in the November elections.
"He's so unpopular with the rank and file that he had to do something to get that back," she says. "He couldn't have done that gradually over time. He had to do something dramatic, and what better than this?"
Don't put away those Wilder-for-Senate buttons just yet. There's still 1996.
Note that Wilder said he would not be a candidate "at this time." With Wilder, that's a loophole big enough to drive a bandwagon through.
Nobody expects Wilder to disappear into corporate life the way his predecessor, Gerald Baliles (Jerry who?), has. Instead, most political observers see him hitting the lecture circuit (word is he could command $12,500 a pop) and making the rounds of political talk shows.
Wilder said Thursday he will devote part of his time to African trade. Garland figures Wilder - who has made three trade trips to the continent and played host to an African trade summit in Richmond last fall - has "shrewdly" positioned himself to be a broker for big companies looking to do business in Africa.
Some political activists, though, think corporate life would be just a way to buy time. They figure Wilder's plan is to duck the contentious '94 Senate race, then wait and be first in line to run for Republican John Warner's seat in 1996.
Warner says he will run again, but many Republicans figure he won't; after all, why else would he be enraging conservative activists so much by refusing to back Michael Farris last year for lieutenant governor and Oliver North this year?
Warner and Wilder have long been cozy, so much so that some have raised questions about why a Republican and Democrat get along so well together. Warner once even gave Wilder advice on whom he should appoint to a Cabinet post. Perhaps Warner has now given him career advice as well?
Warner has not been tested by a strong Democratic opponent since his first race in 1978 and there is no other first-tier Democrat on the horizon.
"That's the theory everybody has," Jordan says. "I think he's banking on Warner not running again and he's banking on the party people saying he didn't fight Chuck Robb and we owe him the chance."
Denton says that is a "plausible scenario." But others will be, too. "Between now and `96, I think he will text every scenario."
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