Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 17, 1994 TAG: 9402250028
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The winner comes, perhaps predictably, out of Oliver North's senate campaign.
But the outcome was by no means assured. Chuck Robb normally would have won hands down with his submission.
The incumbent senator professed a "certain disappointment when you prepare for a spirited contest."
OK, Robb is disappointed he won't have Wilder running against him in the Democratic primary. Let us go easy on him in his time of grief.
What could the North campaign say to top that?
"This race," said North's deputy campaign manager after Wilder's announcement, "has clearly become one between Oliver North and Chuck Robb - a race between a Washington insider professional politician and a Washington outsider like Ollie North."
North "a Washington outsider"?
In the June 1993 issue of Reader's Digest, Rachel Wildavsky reported that:
After the invasion of Grenada in 1983, North told friends he was with President Reagan in the White House living quarters, watching TV reports of U.S. medical students being evacuated.
At an official White House meeting in 1986, North told a church group at an official White House meeting that he briefed the president twice a week.
In his 1991 memoirs, North indicated he was so close to CIA Director William Casey that he attended Casey's wake "at the suggestion" of Casey's widow.
Of course, Wildavsky also reported that (1) former Reagan spokesman Marlin Fitzwater says North was never in Reagan's private quarters, (2) White House logs show North met with Reagan less than once a month and never alone, and (3) Mrs. Casey says North wasn't invited to the wake, a public event, but asked whether he could attend.
So maybe North wasn't a Washington "insider." He just desperately wanted to be one.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB