Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994 TAG: 9406170106
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: |By DWAYNE YANCEY| |STAFF WRITER|
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last week, Republican nominee Oliver North appeared to urge his followers to flood the Democratic polls to nominate the candidate that North advisers reportedly see as their weakest foe - incumbent Charles Robb.
North told supporters that "a true patriot would sign Doug Wilder's petition, vote for Chuck Robb in the [Democratic] primary on June 14, then come out for me on Nov. 8." North later said he was merely joking.
But many political observers - who remember how Republicans orchestrated a "crossover" vote on behalf of the liberal Henry Howell in the 1977 Democratic primary for governor - are not so sure.
After all, no less a figure than Gov. George Allen has joked for years how, as a young lawyer in Charlottesville, he voted in that year's Democratic primary as a way to help set up the other side for defeat in the fall.
In this year's volatile political environment, though, it is hard to tell for whom Republicans might vote in the Democratic primary, which is open to all voters.
So Goode used a campaign stop in Roanoke on Thursday to call on "disgruntled Republicans" dismayed at North's nomination to vote in Tuesday's primary as their last, best chance to pick a candidate who can stop North this fall.
If Republicans are going to vote in the Democratic primary, Goode said, "I would hope they'd vote in a positive way."
Goode acknowledged that the prospect of former Republican gubernatorial candidate Marshall Coleman entering the race as an independent might cause some of those "disgruntled Republicans" to stay at home on Tuesday.
"If he doesn't jump in," Goode said of Coleman, "I think I could get some more."|
'Progressives' in
Roanoke back Robb
While Virgil Goode was looking for Republican help, Charles Robb picked up the endorsement of a group of liberal Roanoke Democrats - the Progressive Democratic Coalition, whose get-out-the-vote muscle dominated this spring's party primary for City Council.
Almost 40 people - including some of the party's most prominent activists and a handful of elected officials - turned out for a rally in which PDC Chairman Sam Garrison declared that Robb's "public record" shows him to be a "man of principle" with "rare political courage."
The turnout suggested that Robb has consolidated his support among the Democrats' core constituencies - labor unions, teachers, gays and environmental groups - while Goode is looking for electoral help largely outside party ranks.|
North by Southwest
It's no accident that North's three-day, post-convention bus tour of the state this week spent most of its time in Southside and Soutwest Virginia.
Those rural regions were the source of North's most solid corps of supporters at the GOP convention, and in a multicandidate race this fall, the emphasis will shift from battling for swing voters to securing one's base. In North's case, that's rural Virginia.
Look for North to be in the region a lot this summer, trying to nail down Southwest and Southside for his candidacy.
"We'll saturate this area," one North staffer said.
One place you may have a good chance of bumping into North: auto racetracks. North's campaign figures racing fans are a prime constituency.
by CNB