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

DATE: TUESDAY, July 19, 1994                   TAG: 9408110003
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CAMPAIGN DEBATE

SEN. CHARLES Robb's defense for his lack of a position on a striker-replacement bill - neutrality, he says, frees him to be more effective on other labor issues - seems less an explanation than an excuse for indecision.

The senator should tell the public whether he supports or opposes the bill, which would prohibit employers from hiring permanent replacements for striking workers. (This newspaper opposes the legislation.)

Even so, the flak Robb got Saturday from his three re-election challengers, at a debate at The Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, borders on the comical.

Granted, the flak isn't unexpected. On the one hand, Robb is the incumbent at a time when incumbency is suspect, and the public-opinion polls show him commanding the support of considerably fewer than half the prospective voters. He's vulnerable. On the other hand, Robb also has a clear lead in those polls, a situation made possible by the bizarre dynamics of this four-way race. That, too, makes him the natural target.

But for former Gov. Douglas Wilder, Robb's erstwhile fellow Democrat now running as an independent, to criticize the senator for failing to take a stand is rich. Wilder, who now supports employers' right to replace strikers, was telling the AFL-CIO a few years ago that he opposed it.

As with his off-again, on-again Senate candidacy, it is as though Wilder believes decisiveness is a measure of how forcibly you say something, not whether you'll hold to the same position tomorrow.

Virginians might also recall Marshall Coleman's similar difficulties with the abortion issue in the '89 gubernatorial race. Coleman entered this year's Senate race as an independent after his party weirdly decided to nominate Iran-Contra figure Oliver North. Coleman in '89 favored a government ban on all abortions during the Republican primary, then modified his position during the general election. This year, he thinks abortion isn't a matter for government to decide.

But the award for most audacious goes, as it so often does, to North. He, too, joined in the pressure to get Robb to answer the question about the striker-replacement bill. But North, alone among the four candidates, has made it a campaign principle to take no questions from any but his supporters - an astonishing display of contempt for Virginians seeking honest answers.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB