Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 30, 1994 TAG: 9406300111
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ray L. Garland
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
You couldn't call it a debate. King kept the ball bouncing too rapidly for that, not to mention commercial breaks that seemed to last forever. He's good, though, well-informed, direct and impatient of self-serving rhetoric. But Lincoln and Douglas can rest easy on their laurels despite North's frequent invocation of their famous debates as the pattern he hopes to see in this race.
On TV, of course, image is everything. By the simple device of emulating King and appearing coatless, North probably made the most effective point of coming across as the kind of nice, regular guy you would invite to your next backyard cookout. Having been demonized by the media, his main task now is to show he hasn't any horns.
Both Robb and North succeeded in defining themselves. For Robb it was simple: "I'm sticking with Clinton.'' North's campaign can be equally distilled to a single sentence: "I stand for all the regular people who work hard, pay their taxes, go to church and are sickened by the mess the insider, professional politicians have made." He has those lines down pat and won't be drawn away to propose specific solutions that might offend anybody likely to vote for him.
If North successfully put himself across not as the millionaire proprietor of a fabulous money-milking machine, but as the kind of nice next-door neighbor we'd all like to have, Robb also did what he had to do in striking the note of a kindly if slightly befuddled uncle.
Running for the first time in their long careers as independents, Coleman and Wilder are the real outsiders in this race and must quickly establish their credibility or face the prospect of being squeezed out. Both needed to hit a home run, and neither did.
TV isn't kind to Wilder's snow-white mane. Someone who has not recently seen this remarkably vigorous man and very effective governor might have taken him as a bit old for the part. But Wilder's main failing was a lack of definition. He might have pleased conservatives by attacking Robb's vote supporting President Clinton's tax increases and by refusing to embrace the president's national health plan. But that would have been undercut by his tirade against Robb's vote confirming Justice Clarence Thomas and by calling for more Haitians to be allowed to enter this country.
Coleman suffered from a similar lack of definition. Pressed to explain why he bolted his party, he kept referring to the public's massive dissatisfaction with Robb and North. But as a candidate who still hopes to appeal to conservative voters, he wasn't willing to take the gloves off against North. While the format didn't allow more than a few fragments to be spoken before the speaker was interrupted, Coleman needed to get on the record something along the lines of "he lied, he stole, he was out-of-control."
What oblique criticism Coleman offered ("North hasn't set a good example for our children") was easily deflected when North brought up that Coleman had asked his help in running for governor in 1989. Coleman's lame "if I had known then what I know now I wouldn't have done it" didn't help much. While he never developed the point beyond saying we shouldn't demean public service, Coleman was on more solid ground in saying that North's chip-on-the-shoulder attitude toward Congress would make him less than effective in representing Virginia's interest in that body.
Considering the public's constant exposure to the other three candidates over many months - and his own four-year hiatus from politics - Coleman has an opportunity to present himself as something of a fresh face, offering for the role of honest broker. Instead, he projected the manner of the slick railway lawyer who's trying to talk the villagers out of their water rights.
The tragedy of our politics is the sad decline of plain speaking. A four-way race is the ideal situation for its revival, and Coleman is in the best position to do it. But the closest he got to it was when he said, speaking of Haiti, "We cannot be the policeman of the world."
To the extent the candidates covered any subject, it was Haiti. Only Robb was willing to say that an American invasion of the island to restore exiled President Aristide should be an option. What a chance was offered North or Coleman to say that the notion of our "restoring" a democracy Haiti has never known in its entire history is ridiculous on its face, and our sanctions against some of the world's poorest people are downright despicable.
On the subject of the Haitian boat people, the proper response was that no system of immigration screening will ever be fair, much less under these circumstances, and the world is full of people just as poor and oppressed as the Haitians, with as much right to seek refuge here as they. If we don't draw a line here, where do we draw it?
No man rose markedly above the others. Robb, the incumbent who was hardly tagged by his three challengers, struck a proper senatorial manner without pomposity. By being so relentlessly engaging, North probably helped himself the most. He knows he can't make headway in this race until he gets more Virginians to at least consider voting for him, and to do that he first has to make them like him as a person. With this appearance and the mass of feel-good commercials now airing, that process is well under way.
Coleman and Wilder have yet to offer a convincing rationale for opposing the nominees of their parties. Nor have they offered swing voters any special reason to favor them other than the fact they aren't Robb or North. That may be enough, but it's doubtful. Given the generously funded, well-oiled machines behind the major party candidates, the independents have precious little time in which to establish their bona fides.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
Keywords:
POLITICS
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