
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 21, 1994                   TAG: 9404210032
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

PARTY: SPANNAUS ON JUNE BALLOT, BUT SHE'S NOT A REAL DEMOCRAT

Four people have qualified to appear on the June 14 Democratic primary for U.S. Sen. Charles Robb's seat, but the party is disassociating itself from one and is missing one of its heavyweights.

Virginia Democratic Party chairman Mark R. Warner announced Wednesday that all four who filed petitions for the primary will appear on the ballot, but said he does not consider Nancy Spannous, a perennial candidate and follower of Lyndon Larouche, to be a Democrat.

Warner refused to criticize former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, Robb's archrival, for deserting the party while he studies an independent challenge to Robb.

`I believe Doug Wilder is an architect of the modern Democratic Party in Virginia and do not think he would do anything to help elect Oliver North," the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Warner said.

Last week Wilder said he is hiring staff and has authorized a petition drive to run as an independent in November. He has spent his entire political career in the Democratic Party.

Warner would not speculate on whether an independent threat from Wilder would dampen turnout for the primary, especially among African Americans, a significant voting bloc in Democratic balloting.

`I think the field is going to generate enough enthusiasm within the party and enough coverage from you guys" to draw voters to the polls, he said. Republicans will select their nominee at a convention earlier in June.

Warner said the names on the June 14 primary ballot will be listed in the order in which the candidates filed their petitions, Warner said. They will be Spannous, Rocky Mount state Sen. Virgil H. Goode Jr., Robb and Richmond lawyer Sylvia Clute.

Warner said he is neutral in the contest, save for his active discouragement of Spannous. `Her policies are not policies that fall within even the rather large tent of the Democratic Party," he said. `Her support for Lyndon LaRouche, does not, in my mind, make her a Democrat."

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB