Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 22, 1994 TAG: 9411010023
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA NOTE: ABOVE LENGTH: Medium
Former Gov. Douglas Wilder endorsed longtime political rival Sen. Charles S. Robb on Friday in a show of party unity aimed at helping the Democrat's tight re-election battle against Republican Oliver North.
Standing with President Clinton and Robb, Wilder pledged to join the campaign he had opposed as an independent.
``There will be no reservation, no equivocation,'' Wilder said to applause and cheers at a Democratic dinner honoring the legacies of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. ``I don't endorse lightly.''
Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor, had feuded with Robb for years before leaving the party this year to challenge Robb. Wilder abandoned his bid last month, but decline to immediately throw his support to the Democrat. Another candidate, independent Marshall Coleman, remains in the race.
Wilder commands significant support among blacks in Virginia, who make up 18 percent of the state's electorate.
Wilder was introduced by Robb, who called him ``my friend and my mentor in politics.''
After his endorsement, Wilder introduced Clinton, who was making his second appearance on Robb's behalf in three weeks.
Clinton defended his legislative record and praised Robb for helping overcome partisan obstructionism in the Senate.
``What is really at stake in the election is what is in the heart of Virginians,'' Clinton said. ``Are we going to go forward, or are we going to go back to the trickle-down economics of the '80s?''
Several news organizations had reported that Wilder planned to endorse Robb at the dinner, which came two days after Wilder met with Clinton at the White House.
Robb, Clinton and Wilder all denied a report in Thursday's editions of The Washington Times that Wilder and Clinton discussed an ambassadorial appointment at the meeting if Wilder aided Robb's re-election.
``That just did not happen,'' Clinton said during a news conference earlier in the day.
The Times did not say the president offered the ambassadorship in return for the endorsement.
North denounced the alleged deal as a ``cynical political ploy,'' charging that the arrangement smacked of a possibly illegal payoff set up by Clinton in hopes of protecting the Democratic majority in the Senate. Federal law bans using government jobs as rewards for political favors.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported Friday that Robb has discussed helping Wilder retire more than $50,000 in debts from his unsuccessful Senate and presidential bids if the two men make peace. Both Robb and Wilder denied the report.
Campaign watchers wondered if Wilder's endorsement would do Robb much good. The latest polls show he and North in a statistical dead heat.
``It's too little too late. Chuck Robb needed this weeks ago,'' said Toni-Michelle Travis, who teaches political science and black history at George Mason University.
At his news conference, Clinton lashed out at North, a former Marine lieutenant colonel convicted of three felonies in the Iran-Contra scandal. The convictions were later overturned on a technicality.
Clinton was asked about North's remark - one he later backed away from - that ``Bill Clinton is not my commander in chief.''
Clinton said he wasn't as bothered by the remark as he was that North ``didn't act as if Ronald Reagan was his commander in chief either'' when North was a White House aide plotting the illegal arms-for-hostages deal.
Then, in another slap at North and his well-financed campaign, Clinton said: ``If you have $17.5 million to buy your own version of the truth, you apparently don't have to be held to the same standard of the truth as other people.''
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB