Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 27, 1994 TAG: 9410280048
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
MARSHALL COLEMAN deserves to be judged irrespective of his chance of victory Nov. 8. He has earned his place in this contest by reason of his long experience and by dint of the extraordinary effort required to collect the thousands of signatures needed to put his name on the ballot as an independent. But you can't ignore the scars, some self-inflicted, that have reduced him in many minds to the status of Virginia's own Don Quixote.
The only risk Coleman has taken in this election was to make his long-shot bid in the first place. Otherwise, he has presented himself as the very model of a conventional Republican conservative: hard on Clinton and hard on crime, welfare and taxes. You might have thought the long odds against him would have impelled the politics of risk that are practical only when you can win with less than half the vote.
There were such issues available, such as the sensible flat-rate income tax advocated by Texas Rep. Dick Armey, or changing Social Security to benefit those millions of younger workers who will pay five or six times over for what they ultimately get, and then discover they'll have to work longer even for that. In other words, to stand for something interesting and important that might get people (and the press) excited.
The chief argument for Coleman's election is that he was a competent and energetic attorney general (1978-82) who has spent more than 20 years in politics without having his name sullied by scandal. And, if elected, he will be a dependable conservative in the Senate who will get along with colleagues of all ideological stripes.
OLIVER NORTH will get my vote as the conservative with the best chance to win. That's it; I still see his nomination representing a needless risk for the Republican Party and those things it is attempting to accomplish. But the holder of a seat in the Senate is one of only 51 people required to enact or defeat all legislation before Congress. It would be nice to have a senator whom others follow, or one who grapples with the details of complex legislation trying to get it right. But the present complexion of Congress presents most issues in terms of black and white, divides along party lines and rushes on to the next hot subject, leaving the messy details of poorly drafted laws to be cleaned up by the courts. North has so defined himself as the ultimate conservative that it's hard to imagine him changing the script.
It's equally hard to imagine North making any lasting impression on the Senate, other than the fact of his improbable arrival there seven years after his star turn as a witness in one of the grand imbroglios of recent American history. For those events filed away under "Iran-Contra," both the credit he has claimed and the blame he has received seem equally exaggerated.
But give North credit for knowing how to chart a career. Slated for the role of fall guy in Iran-Contra, he turned the tables on a stellar cast of congresspersons and legal eagles to emerge, briefly, as national hero. Faced with massive legal bills for his defense, he tapped into a gold mine of support that made him a millionaire and propelled him into serious contention for high office.
If a modern political leader must know how to get the most from a large staff, and use the resources of communications technology effectively, North has shown he has the right stuff.
Less clear is what it all signifies. Until North dismayed his handlers the other day by venturing a sensible opinion that young people ought to be offered some variant of Social Security, he has stuck to tried and true right-wing themes. Using his strange celebrity status of being famous for being famous, North has succeeded in personalizing the race. But if you listen carefully, there emerges a man not sure of his facts who has no coherent vision of how to make Ollie World a reality.
CHARLES ROBB is a special case. That a combination of poor judgment, elemental weakness and bad luck has wrecked a once-bright career is clear to all. But there is still something appealing about the man. There is the dignity he has mustered to endure the reversal of good fortune that has reduced him to the most tattered estate among the members of Congress standing for re-election, save Dan Rostenkowski. And during all his vicissitudes, he has resisted taking the easier paths of policy.
That doesn't mean Robb hasn't cast a great many silly and wrongheaded votes, often in pure obedience to party loyalty. There are times, looking them up on Congressional Quarterly, that I shake my head in disbelief. But on the most important issues, whether you agree or disagree, a hard thread of character emerges. It's not very fashionable now, but Robb seems to adhere to the old principle that beyond the sound and fury the business of government must go forward, and the president in office be reasonably sustained.
But the arrival of President Clinton seems to have brought to the surface a commitment to the goals of liberalism that many of Robb's critics believed they had long discerned. If he survives this election, that may become his stock-in-trade. If that is your cup of tea, by all means stick to it.
If not, you shouldn't allow that more than faint emanation of scam-artist-at-work prevent your voting for North. If you can't bring yourself to do either, there's no disgrace in voting for Coleman. But be prepared to wake up Nov. 9 to see that the greater of the two evils you didn't want will be your senator for the next six years.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
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POLITICS
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