Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994 TAG: 9406030116
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By WARREN FISKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Ronald Reagan warned them. They didn't believe him.
Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added his concerns, as did former Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. Sen. John Warner and a variety of public opinion pollsters.
But a majority of the 14,000 Republican faithful descending on Richmond today aren't taking advice from anyone. Armed with a stick-it-in-your-ear attitude toward both the political establishment and conventional wisdom, they appear determined to nominate Oliver North for the U.S. Senate during this weekend's state convention.
The two-day affair, which Republicans say is the largest political convention in world history, may also be the most divisive and emotional in state history. Should North, the central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, capture the nomination, scores of Republicans are threatening to bolt from the party this fall to support an independent candidate.
More than 700 journalists from across the world will be on hand to watch the action.
North has received a surprisingly tough challenge for the nomination from Jim Miller, a former federal budget director in the Reagan White House. North and Miller are solid conservatives who have expressed little difference on matters such as taxes, national defense and family values.
The issues, instead, have broken down into two emotional debates: Does North tell the truth, and is he electable in November?
The stakes at the convention are huge. If North wins, Marshall Coleman, a former state attorney general and two-time Republican nominee for governor, is expected to launch an independent bid for the Senate this fall. Coleman would have backing from Warner, who has denounced North as unfit to join him in the Senate.
Miller, 51, has argued that he is the only one who can save the party from civil war. He has relied on friends from the Reagan administration to undercut North's integrity. His coup came in March when Reagan wrote a letter saying he was "getting pretty steamed" at North's statements that the former president sanctioned the illegal sale of arms to Iran in the 1980s to provide military assistance to Nicaraguan anti-communist fighters.
Powell and Schwarzkopf have sought to undercut North's credentials as a loyal Marine who simply followed orders by questioning his judgment in Iran-Contra and his fitness to serve in the Senate.
The anti-North barrage has taken a hold on Virginia voters. Polls have shown that North is trailing incumbent U.S. Sen. Charles Robb, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, by 18 percentage points. The surveys suggest that North also could be beaten by a handful of lesser-known Democratic contenders and that 50 percent of registered voters have a negative opinion of him.
Miller, who leads Robb by 4 percentage points, has been hyping the polls wherever he goes. "They show I win and my opponent tears the party apart," he said. During a normal political convention, his logic might be persuasive. But there's nothing normal about this year's contest.
North, 50, has galvanized the party's dominant conservative wing through a combination of charisma, hard work and money. For two years, he circled the state raising funds and campaigning for local GOP office-seekers. In return, he collected a huge stack of political IOUs, which he is calling due this weekend.
Eight of 11 Republican congressional district chairmen are supporting North and predicting his victory. "Ollie was there when we needed him and he's won a lot of loyalty in return," said James Rich, Republican chairman of the 11th Congressional District in Northern Virginia.
Through the power of a national direct-mail enterprise, North has raised more than $6 million for his nomination fight - about eight times as much as Miller. He has steeled his supporters against attacks by launching a we-vs.-them campaign against the political establishment and the "liberal media."
North has wowed the right wing by declaring he wants to go to Washington to shake things up, not to get along with other senators. "I'm going to go up there and take away their privileges," he said. "So of course, the professional politicians are aghast."
Miller has questioned whether North can be effective in the Senate without trying to get along with his colleagues. "He would have only one vote," Miller said. "In order to get things done for Virginia, he's going to need some other votes. Those people up there would respect me and listen to what I say."
North has denounced Miller's sentiment as an "inside-the-Beltway mentality." He has dismissed dozens of former Reagan cabinet secretaries and advisers backing Miller as "the limousine crowd."
Throughout the campaign, North has drawn full houses wherever he's spoken. "Jim Miller is a fine man but he doesn't cause much enthusiasm," said Gary Waddell, Republican chairman of the 9th Congressional District in Southwest Virginia. "Ollie excites people. He has pure charisma.
"Oliver North is a man I would trust the lives of my family to, and that's the greatest compliment I can give a person," Waddell added.
Gary Byler, a Republican activist from Virginia Beach who is supporting North, admits that Miller might be the safer candidate. "North has got a real problem with the polls," he said. "I acknowledge that Miller might be the stronger candidate in the fall.
"But winning elections is not the only goal of the Republican Party," he said. "Our goal is to lead, not to follow, to try to effectuate a conservative agenda. Oliver North does that."
North has warned Republicans not to take the polls seriously. He has noted that Gov. George Allen, a Republican, trailed by 33 percentage points in polls last spring only to go on to a resounding fall victory.
But Brad Coker, president of Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research Inc., a Columbia, Md., polling firm, said North's logic is faulty. "The problem George Allen had last spring is that voters just didn't know him," he said. "Oliver North has the opposite problem. One hundred percent of the voters already know him and half of them flat out don't like him."
Robert Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the polls this spring may be irrelevant. "They take into account a two-way race and, almost certainly, there will be more candidates than that."
Indeed, it increasingly appears that Virginians will have four candidates to chose from in November. Should North win the Republican nomination, then Coleman is likely to run as an independent. And should Robb win the June 14 Democratic primary election, then it is likely that former Gov. Douglas Wilder also will run as an independent.
"The more you slice up the electorate, the better chance North has," said Holsworth, suggesting that North's die-hard conservative base might be sufficient to win a general election without having to expand his appeal.
A more immediate concern for North, if he wins the nomination, is trying to unite the Republican Party.
"I'm not sure he can do it," said Mark Rozell, a political scientist at Mary Washington College. "He's run a very divisive campaign that could culminate in a major rift between moderate conservatives and religious conservatives. North's nomination will leave many mainstream Republicans alienated from their party."
Staff writer Margaret Edds contributed to this report.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB