Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994 TAG: 9404080016
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ray L. Garland
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The rip started last fall when Warner refused to endorse the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Michael Farris, who went on to come reasonably close to unseating the Democratic incumbent and blamed his loss on Warner's snub.
Farris, who has close ties to religious conservatives increasingly dominant in the GOP's nominating process, has indicated he will oppose Warner in 1996.
Having thrown his cap over the wall by breaking with the religious right, Warner plunged forward along the same path, oblivious to brickbats. Weeks ago, he declared Oliver North, the party's putative frontrunner for the seat now held by Sen. Charles Robb, unfit to serve in the Senate. Not content with that blast, he recently amended it: "I could not ... go to the voters of our great state and urge them to place their trust and confidence in this man."
All of the above would seem to say Warner is fed up with the anti-abortion, pro-gun zealots who now call the tune in the Virginia GOP and is ready to call it quits. But that is belied by the fact he has repeatedly stated he will seek a fourth term.
After the Farris fiasco, many doubted Warner could win renomination in a Republican convention. That judgment was probably premature. While he would no doubt face a difficult fight, a long-serving senator has lots of chits he can call in. There are thousands of people not normally active in the GOP nominating process who could be mobilized to enlist their friends and relations as Warner delegates.
Possibly fearing a challenge from the right in 1990, Warner induced the GOP state central committee to grant his request for nomination by primary. Since he was the only candidate to file, no poll was required. His luck was compounded when Democrats, led by then-Gov. Douglas Wilder, declined to seek a candidate against him.
But there is ample reason to doubt Warner will be so fortunate next time. While strong Democratic hopefuls may still be in short supply, a challenge from within his own party is a virtual certainty. And the party committee now empowered to choose between a primary and a convention is unlikely to be in a mood to grant Warner any favors.
Into the breach stepped Del. Robert Purkey, R-Virginia Beach, to prove again the old political saw, "It is smarter to be lucky than it is lucky to be smart." Purkey pushed a bill at the recent legislative session placing incumbent members of the U.S. Congress on the same pedestal long occupied by members of the General Assembly. The bill, which passed with hardly a dissenting vote and now awaits Gov. George Allen's signature, allows a sitting U.S. senator or representative to choose whether he or she will be nominated by primary or convention.
If this bill becomes law, Warner will be free at last of the murky depths of intra-party squabbles that might pull him down and can take his case to a broad electorate of sympathetic Republicans, Democrats and independents.
While this is no guarantee Warner will be renominated and re-elected, it removes the greatest obstacle in his way. In fact, his rebuff of Farris and tirades against North will likely increase his appeal among that large majority of voters not aligned with the GOP's right wing, and may even serve to discourage a strong Democratic challenger.
You can't say Warner planned it this way because he had no way of knowing Purkey's bill would pass. But you can suggest he played this card before in opposing the confirmation of Robert Bork for the Supreme Court in 1987. That is, he took a high-profile stance against his own party that was guaranteed to endear him to certain core constituencies of the other party.
That vote against Bork, which was Warner's most notable defection from party orthodoxy until Farris and North came along, has always stuck in the craw of conservatives because it seemed so gratuitous. For reasons that seemed strange at the time, Warner withheld his commitment until the last minute. In fact, it was not until after it was clear Bork would be rejected that Warner came out against him with a notably lame rationale.
But the Bork vote was an exception. A close examination of Warner's voting record shows a reasonably steadfast conservative and party loyalist. When controversy is running high, however, as in the case of President Bush's nomination of John Tower for secretary of defense and Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court, Warner is more likely to be hunkered down than leading charges.
If Warner's greatest political fear is that Democrats will find a mainstream candidate like former Gov. Gerald Baliles and unite against him, his greatest desire is to maintain personal influence among Senate colleagues of both parties. The extent to which he succeeds in that is largely hidden from public view, and he wastes little ammunition on lost causes. But knowing a few ventures Warner has put across because he can ask colleagues to indulge him, supports the contention he is an effective voice for Virginia worth preserving.
That said, Warner was wrong to wound Farris at a critical moment for the entire GOP statewide ticket last fall. And he is wrong to be doing so much grandstanding against North. Had he not done the first, he would now be in a strong position to render powerful support to Jim Miller, North's opponent for the senatorial nomination.
But having conducted himself in a way that may actually cost Miller the nomination makes it hard to avoid a conclusion that Warner's actions are more self-serving than statesmanlike.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB