Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 22, 1994 TAG: 9405240001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By PETER T. FLAHERTY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
They called him unelectable. They raised questions of ``character.'' They called him a liar. Meanwhile, the other party drooled over the prospect of running against him, since he was destined to lose in November. His poll numbers were terrible, with more voters disliking him than liking him. He didn't have a chance.
Today he is president of the United States. I was one of those Republicans who took him for granted until too late.
The Ollie North for Senate campaign reminds me of what it must have been like on the other side back in '92. After taking a beating from the press, North continues to roll full-steam ahead toward the nomination - and victory in the general election. That's because he knows something that the Clinton team knew: What wins elections aren't pollsters and the press, but a winning message and the ability to deliver it. North has both.
Of course, there are limits to this comparison. Ollie is a man of far different character, and he will keep his promises. He offers a message of conservative change from an outsider who has little sympathy for the Washington insider crowd. He believes in term limits, a balanced budget, a return to family values, no new taxes and a strong national defense.
Furthermore, Ollie has the ability to deliver this message to the voters. He has raised more money than any challenging candidate in America. He will have millons to blanket the state with more television than some presidential campaigns can afford.
He also has a unique credibility to go to Washington and take on the establishment. More than perhaps any other person in America, Ollie North is known as a man who went to Washington, took on the powers that be and beat them at their own game. He was not only unafraid - he was also effective.
This is true not only because he survived the multimillion-dollar Iran-Contra inquisition. It is true also because during his White House tenure he cut through bureaucratic red tape time and again to carry out his president's orders, save the lives of American hostages held in Beirut, and help bring about democracy in Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, Jim Miller - a solid Republican - is challenging North for the nomination. Although I think highly of Jim, he would face severe credibility problems if he became the party's nominee. These problems stem mainly from the gulf between his campaign rhetoric and his record in Washington.
Today, Jim Miller supports a balanced-budget amendment; as budget director for President Reagan, Miller never once submitted a balanced budget to Congress. Today, Miller decries all new taxes; while serving in Washington he proposed several tax hikes and allowed the national debt to soar by almost $750 million under his budget watch.
This is not to mention Miller's recent change in his abortion position or the fact that incumbent Sen. Charles Robb, a Vietnam combat veteran, would never let Miller live down his four student-draft deferments during Vietnam.
Perhaps the greatest - and most cynical - irony of a Robb-Miller race would be that Robb could actually run to Miller's political right with expensive hard-hitting TV ads. Unable to match Robb's fund-raising prowess, Miller would likely be unable to deliver his side of the story to the voters. Unfair as it may be, this is how elections are won and lost.
I do not write this to disparage Miller. It is simply to point out that North's poll numbers are low because all of his baggage has already been unveiled in one of the most ruthless media onslaughts in modern electoral history.
Fortunately for North, he has much of a year to recover, just as Bill Clinton did when his dirty laundry was aired so early in 1992 that by Election Day nobody cared. Miller's ``baggage,'' on the other hand, has yet to be unveiled. Chuck Robb will take care of that. Although Miller today scores well in polls against Robb, that could change quickly once Robb's media consultants go on the attack. They wouldn't make the same mistakes Mary Sue Terry made when she refused to ``define'' George Allen on television right after the Republican convention, when Allen was broke and unable to respond. As happened to Marshall Coleman in in the 1989 gubernatorial race, Miller's soft polling advantage over Robb could well disappear overnight and be almost impossible to recover. All of this is theoretical, of course, since North has the nomination pretty well locked up. But the real surprise could come in November. My prediction is that North's performance in the general election will be as stunning as was his performance on national television during the Iran-Contra hearings.
In the seven months between when he left the White House in November 1986 and when he testified in July 1987 before Congress on national television, North was accused of everything from drug smuggling to sleeping with his secretary. All of this was unfounded, but his popularity plummeted nonetheless.
Amazingly, however, after just a few days of live, unedited televised hearings to tell his side of the story, his poll numbers skyrocketed from roughly 20 percent to a whopping 67 percent favorable rating by Americans nationwide. Once people were finally given a chance to see Ollie North and hear him speak, their view of him changed overnight.
They saw someone very different from the man the media had portrayed. They saw a lonely, square-jawed Marine taking on the U.S. Congress head-to-head. They understood that saving hostages and fighting communism were noble, albeit controversial, activities - and that Ollie North had done a hell of a job at both. Most of all, they saw an underdog who took on Washington and won.
Next to Bill Clinton, Ollie North may be the most underestimated political figure of the decade. Those journalists who casually predicted Bill Clinton's loss in 1992, George Allen's demise in 1993 and who, in 1994, are gleefully drafting Ollie North's political obituary should be grateful that Gov. Allen's ``three strikes and you're out'' rule doesn't apply to political pundits.
Peter T. Flaherty is chairman of the Conservative Campaign Fund, a political-action committee in Vienna.
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