Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 11, 1994 TAG: 9410110124
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That's the impression North has tried to create in a recent fund-raising letter that was mailed to his contributors across the country. In the letter, North laments that his campaign is suffering "a severe cash shortage" and that "our bank account is nearly dry."
But the North campaign is far from penniless, spokesman Mark Merritt acknowledged when asked about the letter. In fact, North is well on the verge of breaking the all-time record for fund raising by a U.S. Senate candidate: $17.8million set by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., in 1990.
Merritt said a report North will file with the Federal Election Commission this month will show that the campaign had raised a total of $16million as of Oct. 1. "We're expecting to finish up with about $18million," Merritt said.
So why is North poor-mouthing?
Merritt said the campaign is spending money as fast as it comes in - much of it for television advertising during the final weeks of the contest. He said the FEC report will show that North has a cash balance of $1 million. On some days, he said, the account has been drawn below that amount.
Merritt said North's campaign plans for the final month are based on the expectation of receiving $100,000 a day in contributions. "We're trying to tell people that unless we keep that cash flow, we're going to be unable to dominate [television advertising] in October."
Bert Rohrer, a spokesman for Democratic Sen. Charles Robb, isn't buying the explanation. "That's just plain lying," he said of North's claim that his campaign is short on cash.
Only a pen in common
Bruce Cockburn, a politically liberal singer-songwriter from Canada, couldn't resist taking a stab at North during a show last Wednesday at a Richmond nightclub.
Cockburn made a point of playing "Candy Man's Gone," a song that rips politicians for "pimping dreams of riches for everyone."
"Ollie North, you bare you listening?," Cockburn said.
After the show, Cockburn emerged from the Flood Zone dressing room to sign autographs with a Sharpie-brand pen.
When told that North also uses a Sharpie for autograph-seekers, Cockburn replied, "he can't be completely stupid."
Cutting it close
Oliver North has had many hair-raising adventures in his day. For now, he's holding to a razor-thin lead in the polls. And part of his platform is cutting taxes and trimming the deficit.
But what else could the North campaign have in common with a beauty salon? Plenty, as it turns out.
Roanoke hairstylist Leslie Mitchell has organized seven of her colleagues to stage a "Wash Out the Incumbents" hairstyling fund-raiser. On Saturday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., they'll set up shop beneath a tent in the parking lot of Hair Mania on Franklin Road Southwest, where they'll cut hair in exchange for at least a $5 donation to the North campaign.
(Sorry, wet cuts only, nothing more.)
Mitchell, who's never been involved in politics before, said she remembered doing lots of "Ollie Cuts" - "a buzz cut up the back, tapered into the nape" - when she was working in Washington during the Iran-Contra days.
Now the Christiansburg native is back in Roanoke, where she recently developed a fondness for North's politics. "I like his conservative values and his strong leadership," she says. Looking for a way to help, Mitchell pitched her hair-cutting idea to North's Roanoke campaign office. They loved it.
North wins big
At two mock elections last week on Virginia college campuses, that is. At Radford University, where the student government sponsored the mock poll, North took 60 percent of the vote to Robb's 28 percent and Marshall Coleman's 11 percent.
Up the interstate at Virginia Military Institute, where the student newspaper took charge, North won an even more resounding victory. There, he took 83 percent of the vote, leaving Robb with 12 percent and Coleman with 4 percent.
One for the books
The fly in Robb's ointment is still buzzing.
His name is Billy Franklin - a gruff, haughty, meddlesome private investigator who is responsible for most of the unsubstantiated allegations that Robb used cocaine back in his Virginia Beach partying days.
Franklin authored "Tough Enough: The cocaine investigation of United States Senator Charles Robb."
The 177-page work sold thousands of copies after its 1991 release. Franklin says the book is his crowning achievement.
And, yet, he was willing to part with his last thousand copies.
He boxed them up and stacked them neatly in the corner of his Norfolk office. When the man arrived to get them, he'd help load the car.
But two days before he was to give them away, the benefactor abruptly canceled his commitment.
The books' would-have-been destination: the campaign office of former Gov. Douglas Wilder, whose dislike of Robb is legendary.
"They wanted them," said Franklin, whose weight, blood pressure and blood-alcohol level have all dropped considerably since his snoop-after-the-guv days. "I figured, hey, anything I can do. People ought to read this."
Staff writers Warren Fiske, Brian Kelley, Robert Little, David M. Poole and Dwayne Yancey contributed to this report.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB