Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 19, 1994 TAG: 9410190048
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Hardee's. The Salem Fire Department.
Texaco.
What do all of these organizations have in common?
If you work there, you wear a uniform.
Before we get too mired in the current ``liar, liar, pants on fire'' advertising campaign, let's take one last look at the military, damn-the-torpedoes-full-speed- ahead advertising blitz Oliver North stormed us with just a month or so ago.
This week's question seemed like an easy one.
We asked Roanokers who wear uniforms - of any kind - to tell us:
Of the three candidates for Senate - Coleman, North, Robb - which ones wore a military uniform?
Guess what?
Just one person got it right.
Most of those we talked with assumed Oliver North was the only candidate ever to serve in the military.
``North. Right?'' asked Tracy Coe, a firefighter who works the B shift at Salem Fire Department's Station No.1.
Wrong.
Both Katrina Claytor and Terri Fink, who wear the ``We Are Family'' smocks at Hill's behind the jewelry counter, opted for North as well.
Even the pizza! pizza! people over at Little Caesar's in Vinton didn't know! didn't know!
``Well, definitely Oliver North. And wasn't Robb in ... something?'' asked Ruth Boyd of Little Caesar's.
Yes, he was.
A little group they call the U.S. Marine Corps.
And, as no one seems to know, so was Marshall Coleman.
And North. Natch.
A handful came closer.
``Robb and North,'' answered 61-year-old Bill Bratcher. He works at Texaco on Electric Road, where you can trust your car to the man who wears the star.
Don Shields, commander of the patrol division for the Roanoke Police Department, was mighty impressive.
``Robb and North,'' he said thoughtfully. ``And if I remember, Wilder had served in Korea.
``I don't know about Coleman, but I think he was a Boy Scout.''
We took that as a joke until we polled Steve Craig, senior district executive for the Boy Scouts of America, who guessed North and Robb.
``But I do think Coleman was a Boy Scout.''
Not only was Coleman a Scout, but he made it all the way to Eagle Scout back in Waynesboro.
Only Roanoke Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein came up with the correct answer: Coleman, North, and Robb are not only all military veterans, but all three served in the Marines during Vietnam.
Weckstein was surprised to be the only uniformed one to come up with the right answer, surprised that so few seemed to recall Robb's service.
``He was so high-profile,'' he said. ``A highly decorated ex-Marine who served in Vietnam and married a president's daughter. People don't remember that?''
Few.
Fewer still have the vaguest idea that Coleman served the same tour of duty in Vietnam as both of his opponents, with two remembering him first as a Boy Scout.
None of this surprises Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia's political ad-glibber.
``First of all, people have short-term political memories,'' he said.
But then he pointed something out we'll reckon few others have noticed.
``All of Robb's advertising is subliminally reinforcing North's military record. Robb's commercials always show North in uniform.''
For North, it's a gigantic fortification of his early ads, particularly the one with the testimony from a man whose life he saved in Vietnam.
North doesn't have to wear a uniform from now till November.
He can wear that plaid shirt till it tatters, and Virginia not only will see him as the average Ollie he hopes you'll see, but as a military hero as well, thanks in part to his opponents' advertising.
North isn't the first to attempt to launch a political career based on military heroism.
But it's a starter platform, if you will, says Sabato. One that works only once.
North's military record may get him into the Senate.
But it wouldn't keep him there.
After that, he would be bound to his political record.
``But if he decides to run for president,'' Sabato said, ``he can rev up the military career all over again.''
The Political Party is an occasional column about the more offbeat social and cultural aspects of Virginia's Senate race.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB