Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 18, 1994 TAG: 9404180041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Dwayne Yancey
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A three-ring circus? The Old Dominion now faces the real prospect of a four-way spectacle this fall - the political equivalent of one of those tag-team wrestling matches that pass through the civic center every so often.
Few should have been surprised Friday when former Gov. Douglas Wilder formally let it be known that he'll try to get on the ballot as an independent Democrat.
This is one fight the scrappy Wilder couldn't resist - especially if it means he can get in a few good licks at his old nemesis, Sen. Charles Robb.
It's not often that Wilder gets upstaged, but the most dramatic plot twist over the weekend came out of the Republican side - and the news that Northern Virginia developer Dan Clemente is launching a petition drive to get Marshall Coleman's name on the ballot as an independent if the GOP nominates Oliver North.
Until now, much of the talk about coming up with an "independent Republican" has come out of Richmond's Main Street financial district - whose occupants have increasingly shown themselves to be poor judges of the state's political climate.
Last year, they dismissed George Allen and placed their bets for the Republican nomination for governor on Earle Williams. Remember him?
Clemente, by contrast, has a reputation as a street-smart businessman - with the political instincts to match. Moreover, he was instrumental in resurrecting Coleman once before.
Recall that Coleman not only lost his 1981 race for governor against Robb, but also left some key Main Street financiers holding the bag for campaign debts.
It was Clemente who befriended Coleman and introduced him to a new set of even deeper pockets - the crowd of Northern Virginia developers who wound up underwriting his 1989 comeback attempt.
The Northern Virginia real estate market has since gone bust, but politically the bottom line remains the same: If Clemente's involved, the Coleman-as-an-independent scenario should be taken seriously - unless Coleman himself publicly scotches the idea, which so far he hasn't.
Why should he? He'll likely never get another shot, and in a four-way race, anything could happen.
The initial handicapping in a three-way or even four-way slugfest gave the edge to North, because he's got the hardest core of supporters - and also the most aggressive campaign.
Not content merely to savage GOP rival Jim Miller with direct-mail pieces, North's supporters fanned out to post offices around Virginia on tax-filing deadline Friday to take on Robb as well. They passed out "wanted posters" of "Charles Robb, AKA Lefty," who they declared is "armed with the Clinton agenda."
But with Wilder in the mix, North could find himself hoisted on his own rhetorical petard. When Wilder dropped out in January, North spokesman Mark Merritt lavished praise on Wilder, saying he would have been North's strongest opponent because Wilder was a true fiscal conservative and - like North - an "outsider" who taps a vein of populist outrage against "Washington insiders."
It'll be hard to turn around now and declare that Wilder is a dangerous liberal, too.
Coleman, for his part, might bring something to the table none of the other candidates have - a demonstrated base among the moderate "mountain-valley" GOP voters of Western Virginia.
Virginia hasn't seen a meltdown of the political machinery this severe since the early 1970s. Then the driving force was realignment, as liberals moved into the Democratic Party and most conservatives moved out.
The impetus this time is less philosophical and more personal.
The moderate Republicans searching for an alternative to North are animated partly by the ascendancy of the religious conservatives. But they say their main objection is they consider North to be a liar - and a convicted felon to boot, although his Iran-Contra convictions were overturned on appeal.
Wilder, of course, simply has old scores to settle with Robb.
Not even the coming Democratic primary battle is likely to break neatly along philosophical grounds.
Robb is centrist by Democratic standards; on many issues, his main challenger, state Sen. Virgil Goode of Rocky Mount, is likely to be even further to the right.
Goode, in fact, drew some boos and groans when he addressed a group of liberal Fairfax County Democrats two weeks ago.
That's why he's likely to stress just one issue - he's the outsider, Robb's the insider and it's time for a change.
Change? It sure is. In Virginia's last three Senate races (1990, 1988 and 1984), both parties have had trouble scraping up challengers. Now they're just having trouble.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB