Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 1, 1994 TAG: 9410030067
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER NOTE: above
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
An uncharacteristically feisty Gore, speaking to a Democratic rally in downtown Roanoke, appealed to Virginians' sense of honor to reject North as the "colonel of untruth" whose felony convictions were overturned on what he labeled a "technicality."
"This is the state of Thomas Jefferson," Gore told more than 200 people who paid $25 per person to hear him pitch Sen. Charles Robb's re-election at the Roanoke City Market Building. "This is the commonwealth that has always put a premium on personal integrity and honor. Now you're being asked to hire someone to represent you in the United States Senate who comes not recommended by his former employers, who when asked what they think about you hiring him, say 'no way.'''
Gore ticked off a long list of former Reagan and Bush administration officials - including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell and retired Desert Storm Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf - who have publicly expressed doubts and misgivings about North.
Gore likened North to a job applicant who comes in "like a ball of fire" and initially impresses an employer with his "slick" talk.
"You're tempted" to hire him, Gore said, an allusion to the momentum North has developed during the summer and the slight lead he holds in the most recent polls. "But then when you check with the last person he worked for, and his previous employer says, 'He's a liar. He disgraced himself in his last job.' And when you ask his immediate superior, his immediate superior says 'no way''' - the latter a reference to former National Security Adviser Robert "Bud" McFarlane.
"Then, you ask the head of the organization," a reference to former President Reagan, "and he says, 'I'm sick and tired of this. I'm getting pretty steamed by his lies.'''
(Actually, Reagan didn't call them "lies," merely "statements," but he did say earlier this year he was getting "pretty steamed" at North for saying Reagan had authorized his covert actions during the Iran-Contra affair).
It was the strongest denunciation that Democrats have leveled at North so far - and certainly the most high-profile. Gore was trailed by an entourage of out-of-state reporters, and at least one from the other side of the world. New Zealand, to be exact.
Gore also made a point of praising Virginia's Republican senator, John Warner, who has bucked his party to back independent Marshall Coleman. Warner's rejection of North, Gore said, "means the most to me" because, unlike the former Reagan and Bush officials, Warner "has something to lose" by attacking North.
"We disagree on a lot of things," Gore said of Warner, "but he's a man of integrity. And it's John Warner who has said that no one in the history of the United States Senate has ever sat in that chamber who was convicted of a felony."
Granted, Gore said, North's convictions were set aside on a "technical reversal." But at a time when the nation's top concern is crime, Gore asked, "what kind of message that does send to the young people" if Virginians elect North?
Democratic leaders across the state have complained lately that Robb's campaign has been too sluggish - and that their own party activists haven't been energized yet to work on his behalf. That didn't seem to be a problem Friday.
Robb himself showed new signs of life, at one point pounding the lectern and declaring "it's time we start telling it like it is." He then proceeded to blister North for "pandering" to voters by promising to cut taxes, while increasing defense spending and protecting Social Security and other popular entitlement programs.
"We'd all like to live in that kind of world," Robb said. "That's Ollie's world. That's not the real world."
The long-awaited tough talk about North was greeted with a roar of approval by party activists.
"The real campaign has started," said Susan Swecker, a Richmond lawyer who traveled across the state to have Gore sign her copy of his book "Earth in the Balance" at the $1,000-per-person fund-raiser he attended earlier in the evening at an office building on the City Market. "This is a really enthusiastic crowd."
That's something Robb hasn't seen much of this year, especially in Southwest Virginia, where polls show North doing his best, and Robb his worst.
It's no accident that Robb's campaign arranged to have Gore come to Roanoke, rather than somewhere else, said Debbie Jordan, a Buchanan secretary and longtime Democratic activist who was one of the event's organizers.
"Al Gore did so well in the Super Tuesday primary [in the 1988 presidential race] in this part of the state, he'll do a great job for Robb here, because people here feel close to Al Gore."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB