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

DATE: THURSDAY, June 16, 1994                   TAG: 9406240006
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CLASS GOODE'S GOOD SHOWING

TAKE HEART, state Sen. Virgil Goode told his campaign workers Tuesday night, you did well. The loss (by a 5-3 ratio) to incumbent Charles Robb in the Democrats' U.S. Senate primary, Goode said, looks a lot better when you consider the 10-1 ratio by which Robb outspent him.

True enough. For so penniless, late-arriving and generally unknown a candidate, Goode's 34 percent of the vote against Robb's 58 percent is not unimpressive. Even more impressive, however, are the numbers in which people who do know Goode, in his home bailiwick, turned out to vote for him. In this era of cynicism toward all things political, for a 21-year state legislator to retain such affection from his constituents is no meager feat.

The No. 1 fact about the primary was how few Virginians took part in it. Less than 10 percent of registered voters bothered. In a state with a total population of 6.5 million, fewer than 300,000 cast ballots. (Granted, that was about 20 times the number who took part in this year's GOP nominating convention.)

The pattern of dismal turnouts included Robb's home jurisdiction, Fairfax County. Robb carried it 4-1 over Goode - but in Virginia's biggest locality, with a population of 850,000, only 30,000 people voted. Compare that with Goode's Franklin County. Not only did he carry it 15-1, but the primary drew 8,600 voters in a county with a population of 40,000. Proportionately, that's a turnout six times bigger than in Fairfax.

In Fairfax, Robb received about one-eighth as many votes Tuesday as either Bill Clinton or George Bush received in the 1992 presidential election. In Franklin, Goode outpolled both Clinton and Bush. Franklin County offers the starkest example, but Goode posted similar numbers elsewhere in his legislative district: a big majority with a turnout much higher than in the rest of the state.

Goode's popularity with the home folks stems in part from the fact that state lawmakers represent smaller electorates than do federal legislators. The former can more readily use person-to-person politics to keep public trust, and can more easily keep voters happy because clashing interests are less numerous and more muted within smaller constituencies. In this respect, the closeness between voter and representative that Goode typifies isn't readily transferable to a larger setting.

But Goode's down-home success stems also from a perception, among those who know him, that neither a quest for vindication nor a thirst for vindictiveness was part of his motivation for running. That can't be said of the four Senate candidates who'll be on the November ballot. In this respect, public confidence in government and politics could be improved by the emergence of a better class of politician.

by CNB