Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 16, 1994 TAG: 9405160076
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Now that local elections are over, Virginians will get a respite from elections for, oh, about a month.
Here are some key dates to circle on your political calendar:
June 3-4: Republican convention in Richmond to nominate a candidate for U.S. Senate.
June 14: Democrats hold primary, open to all voters, to nominate a candidate for U.S. Senate. This is also the deadline for independent candidates to submit the petitions necessary to be on the November ballot for U.S. Senate.
July 19: Salem holds advisory referendum on whether to build a new baseball stadium.
Aug. 10: Deadline for Roanoke voters to submit petitions calling for fall referendum on whether to have an elected School Board.
Aug. 26: Deadline for candidates who want to run for Roanoke County School Board to submit petitions to get on the ballot. Hollins, Vinton and Windsor Hills districts only.
Nov. 8: Election Day for U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and assorted school boards.
Robb, Goode vie in `name game'
U.S. Sen. Charles Robb and state Sen. Virgil Goode have begun the inevitable name game as their four-way campaign for the Democratic Senate nomination gears up - each one trying to out-do the other in endorsements.
Robb recently announced that a group of state legislators from Northern Virginia - an area in which he hopes to roll up big numbers in the June 14 primary - have endorsed him.
Goode, who's focusing his early campaign efforts on lighting a brush fire in rural areas, promptly countered with endorsements from four current or former local officials in Winchester. Among them: A clerk of the court, a commonwealth's attorney, a commissioner of the revenue and a former mayor.
Goode's insurgent campaign trumpeted the endorsements, pointing out they're from "Al Smith's back yard." Smith, a former state legislator from Winchester, has long been a key Robb fund-raiser.
Last week, Goode added two more slates of courthouse officials: In Charlottesville, the mayor, the sheriff and the treasurer. In Russell County, the sheriff, the commonwealth's attorney, the clerk of the court, the commissioner of the revenue and the treasurer.
In many ways, Goode appears to be running an old-fashioned "courthouse campaign," where he hopes to parlay the support of local officials into votes on primary day.
Also on the ballot: Richmond lawyer Sylvia Clute and Nancy Spannaus, a follower of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche.
Straight talk about `straight talk'
Virgil Goode and his supporters talk a lot about the importance of "straight talk."
In his formal announcement kicking off his candidacy a few weeks ago, Goode declared that "straight talk and integrity are important. Citizens cannot have confidence in their leaders unless those leaders talk straight."
The Winchester officials who endorsed Goode put out a statement saying "when the time comes for him to state his position, he has always done so in clear, precise language that does not leave anyone guessing as to where he stands."
And the Russell County officials added that they're backing Goode because he's a candidate "who can tell the truth."
Of course, "straight talk" is really just a code word - intended to remind voters about what some political analysts have described as Robb's "tortured" explanation concerning what forms of sex exactly constitute infidelity.
A novel approach for candidate North
What would Jack Ryan, the bend-the-rules CIA operative who helped a Soviet sub defect in "The Hunt for Red October," foiled a terrorist attack on the heir to the British throne in "Patriot Games," and exposed an illegal covert operation in "Clear and Present Danger," think of a fellow can-do ex-Marine named Oliver North?
Apparently, quite a bit.
Ryan's creator, techno-thriller writer Tom Clancy, plays host to a fund-raiser for the GOP Senate candidate this Wednesday at his Maryland home.
The invitations to the event - code-named "Mission North" - read with the same crisp prose as Clancy's novels. Donors have a choice of being an "individual patriot" (at $1,000 a head) or a "PAC patriot" (for political action committees at $5,000 a pop).
There's even some suspense involved. "For security purposes," the invite reads, guests are asked to assemble at three sites in the Washington area to be transported to Clancy's home.
The Clancy dinner should be a star-studded event in other ways. Among the other sponsors are former Washington Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs, ex-Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy and former North boss and Reagan Administration National Security Adviser John Poindexter.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB