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

DATE: THURSDAY, May 26, 1994                   TAG: 9405260093
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

COLEMAN TOLD: GIVE UP OR ELSE

The head of the state Republican Party threatened Wednesday to excommunicate former Attorney General Marshall Coleman if Coleman doesn't renounce a bid to get on the ballot this fall as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate.

``I am asking Marshall Coleman to state publicly that he has disavowed an independent candidacy and requested that no further efforts be made by others to formalize his candidacy,'' Patrick McSweeney, party chairman, said in a news release.

Coleman did not return a phone call, but Dan Clemente, the Northern Virginia businessman orchestrating the drive to get Coleman on the ballot, said the effort would continue.

``It's not going to deter me at all,'' said Clemente, who predicted that Coleman will have more than the 15,000 signatures needed to get on the ballot as an independent before the party convenes June 4 to pick a nominee.

Clemente cautioned that he does not speak for Coleman but pointed out that he has left his telephone answering machine on for weeks now in case the former attorney general calls to discourage the petition drive. ``I haven't gotten any calls,'' Clemente said.

McSweeney pointed out that Coleman is registered as a delegate to the convention, and that delegates will be required to sign a pledge to support whatever candidate the party nominates.

``There can't be a more explicit failure to support the nominee than running against [him],'' McSweeney said. ``By definition, [Coleman] would no longer be a Republican.''

McSweeney said he would welcome an effort to nominate Coleman at the convention, but if the effort failed, Coleman would have to pledge not to challenge the nominee. Iran-Contra figure Oliver North and former Reagan administration budget director Jim Miller are the contenders.

``Legally, I don't know what we could do to keep him off the ballot,'' said McSweeney, a lawyer. ``Probably nothing ... But if you lose, you subordinate your own values and own preferences in the interest of the party ... If you don't do that, it's just every man for himself.''

Coleman has carried the torch for the GOP for years. He served as attorney general from 1978 to 1982 and was the party's nominee for governor in 1981 and 1989.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB