Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 29, 1994 TAG: 9408290068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Dwayne Yancey
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Take the issue that polls say is voters' No. 1 concern across the country this year: Crime.
Coleman chose to debut his crime statement this month in Roanoke, a city that hasn't had a murder all year. His backdrop wasn't very photogenic: The lobby of the Radisson Patrick Henry Hotel, where he'd spent the night.
The gist of Coleman's statement wasn't particularly dramatic, either. He announced he's backing Gov. George Allen's plan to abolish parole. It's further evidence, he said, that Republicans are tough on crime and Democrats aren't.
As news conferences go, this one wasn't long on news: Whoever met a Republican who didn't say he was tough on crime?
It's a much different approach from that of the other independent candidate in the Senate race. Douglas Wilder doesn't pass up a chance to get his shots in at incumbent Democrat Charles Robb. And Wilder knows a good photo opportunity when he sees one; he's devoting his summer to reprising his legendary "station wagon" tour of Virginia.
Coleman gives the distinct impression of a candidate killing time, waiting for something to happen.
He helpfully explains what this something is: Come October, voters will be so disgusted with both Robb and Republican Oliver North, they'll look around for an alternative. They don't like Wilder, so they're bound to turn to him. A wave of indignation will swell up, and all Coleman needs to do is be there with his surfboard, ready to ride it into office.
Great theory. Will it work?
Paul Goldman, the former Democratic Party chairman who directed Wilder's victory over Coleman in the 1989 governor's race, is skeptical. The problem with Coleman's campaign, he says, is that it's essentially negative - Coleman isn't pitching his own virtues, he's waiting for voters to get fed up with the front-runners.
"Everybody thinks the anti-North vote will be the swing vote this fall," Goldman has been telling anyone who'll listen this summer. "The real swing vote will be voters who are both anti-North and anti-Clinton."
Those should be Coleman's prime constituency - basically, Republicans who can't stomach the Republican nominee.
But Goldman warns fellow Democrats (and Coleman, if he'll listen) that North is doing a pretty good job this summer of winning those folks over.
If those voters decide North isn't so bad after all, and it's more important to send President Clinton a message, then Coleman's constituency evaporates, Goldman says.
"Coleman needs to make a positive case for himself," he says. The problem is, "You've got a candidate locked into conventionality who's doing something that's unconventional - running as an independent."
Instead of holding news conferences, Goldman says, Coleman should turn his campaign into a spectacle of unusual campaign events - much the way Wilder is trying to do with his station-wagon tour. "He seems to feel the way to run is to get the press to create this great tidal wave against everybody."
But Coleman's laid-back approach is in keeping with his previous campaigns, says one uniquely positioned political observer - former Robb press secretary Steve Johnson.
Johnson is best known as one of the Robb aides who got mixed up in the plot to leak an audiotape of one of Wilder's cellular telephone calls, and wound up pleading guilty to minor charges.
But the former Charlottesville political reporter also holds a doctorate in government - and did part of his research on Coleman's come-from-behind victory in the three-way 1989 Republican primary for governor.
Remember, Johnson says, that Coleman was considered washed up then, too. "He didn't do anything until he went on TV; he didn't move a point until then. He's very telegenic, and then he put on this big television kick."
Can Coleman pull that off again this year with an October television buy? North staffers have to stifle their laughter. "Marshall Coleman is probably also waiting for the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy," says North spokesman Dan McLagan. "It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic."
Johnson figures Coleman's doing the right thing. "There's not much he can do right now." Come October, Coleman will buy some television time and hope for the best.
"Of course," Johnson says, "he could go right down the tubes."
If Virginia's four-way Senate race this year is political theater, then the show Coleman appears to be auditioning for is "Waiting for Godot."
But Johnson isn't so sure.
"Don't underestimate Coleman," he says. "He always kind of jogs around the track and doesn't do anything until the last minute. It's uncanny. He came from behind and beat Ed Lane on election night [in the 1977 attorney general's race]. He came from behind and beat Paul Trible on election night [in the 1989 primary]. He almost came from behind and beat Doug Wilder on election night."
Here's a candidate who knows how to pace himself. "Politicians, if something works, they tend to go back to the well until it doesn't work," Johnson says.
Coleman's biggest problem may be staying afloat until he can try to catch that late-autumn electoral wave.
"Coleman's constituency is likely to be more passive than any constituency in the race," Johnson says. "Upper-middle-class suburbs are not hotbeds of political participation," at least not the envelope-licking and door-knocking kind.
But suburbanites do vote. "Remember, the suburbs cast 58 percent of the vote in 1993," Johnson says. "It could go to 60 percent this year."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB