Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 28, 1994 TAG: 9401280095
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER and DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Mr. Warner, as far as I'm concerned, has messed in his own hat," retired factory worker John D. Combs said, fists clenched, at a North appearance in suburban Richmond. "Listen, I voted all along for him. I won't ever again."
Roanoke Valley Republicans said they were furious with Sen. John Warner for shooting down Mike Farris, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor in November, and now North.
"Maybe someone should shoot him [Warner] down," Roanoke County GOP Chairman Al Thomason suggested.
Wednesday night, Warner said on "Larry King Live" that no convicted felon had ever served in the Senate. He depicted North as a criminal who lied to Congress about the Iran-Contra scandal and then got off on a "technical reversal."
"The way Warner is behaving, he doesn't appear to be running [for re-election] in '96, and if that is the case that is just fine with me Candidate Jim Miller," said Trixie Averill, a longtime GOP activist from Roanoke County.
Others found it hard to believe that Warner would criticize North instead of the man North hopes to face in November, Sen. Charles Robb. The Democrat has been tarnished with allegations of womanizing.
"I find Senator Robb's escapades far more troubling," former state GOP Chairman Don Huffman said.
So it went Thursday as North kicked off his candidacy with stops at the Sheraton Inn Roanoke Airport and in Chesterfield County, Northern Virginia and Norfolk.
The Republicans will pick their candidate at a convention in June. North's only challenger is Jim Miller, who was President Reagan's budget director.
State GOP Chairman Pat McSweeney, who showed up for North's second stop in Chesterfield County, struggled to express how aghast he was at Warner's comments.
"I haven't run into a Republican yet that wasn't apoplectic over it," McSweeney said. "It's certainly disloyal. . . . The prospects of pulling together to beat Robb diminish badly if Warner insists on doing this."
North, for his part, would have none of the controversy. He did make one statement to reporters while shaking hands and signing autographs for 600 fans in Chesterfield:
"I'm sure that I can work much more closely with Senator Warner for the good of Virginia than Chuck Robb ever could."
North and his entourage were running late when they arrived in three cars at the Sheraton in Roanoke. The candidate sprang from a black Cadillac and was immediately surrounded by a security detail that elbowed a reporter who had gotten close enough to ask the candidate a question.
North, his wife, Betsy, and his four children were whisked into the main entrance and down a hallway toward a meeting room, where a crowd of about 200 - half of them students bused in from the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University - had been waiting patiently for more than an hour.
As North chatted in the hall with Averill, someone in the meeting room began to lead the crowd in prayer. North did not bow his head. He caught his wife's eye, took her overcoat and purse and handed them to a member of his staff.
When the prayer ended, North and his family streamed toward the podium as Huffman introduced the former Marine lieutenant colonel as a "great American hero."
In his speeches, North enshrined family values embodied by "honest, hard-working, taxpaying Virginians," and played on their disenchantment with a bloated government run by "political elites and senator-for-life types."
North portrayed himself as an outsider who would cut wasteful spending, support a strong national defense and support laws to fight crime. He endorsed term limits, vowing to serve "two terms and not one second more."
No "mud-wrestling" will besmirch his election bid, he said. "The differences between Chuck Robb and Ollie North on the issues - and on our vision of the future - are as clear as an autumn morning on the banks of the Shenandoah."
After North's Roanoke speech, he and his wife plunged into the crowd to sign autographs and pose for photographs. Supporters beamed.
Reporters were kept away. "All these folks come first," said press secretary Mark Merritt.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB