Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 29, 1994 TAG: 9410310063
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS AND ALEC KLEIN STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Patrick McSweeney made the remarks in explaining why Oliver North, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee, failed to attend a Friday night candidate forum sponsored by the state office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
North's two opponents - incumbent Sen. Charles Robb and independent Marshall Coleman - accepted the invitation to the NAACP event in Richmond.
North spokesman Mark Merritt declined to comment on McSweeney's remarks about blacks. North staged a rally in Northern Virginia Friday night.
McSweeney termed the cohesiveness of the black vote in most elections "the most frustrating thing I've dealt with in politics." He had called a news conference to denounce a Democratic phone bank linking Republicans to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Saying that he spoke for himself and "from the heart," McSweeney attributed part of the Democrats' success to Election Day payments to workers who knock on doors and transport voters in black precincts. "We know what flushing, walking-around money is. We know how the votes are turned out," he said.
Asked if he was accusing Democrats of buying votes, McSweeney replied: "I'm telling you very clearly, there's a different way money is spent. I'm not saying they're paid. There's a different way that a campaign occurs and we are not plugged into that, and if it's what I think it is, I will not be a part of it."
Democratic tactics that "make African-Americans think that all Republicans are white, minority-hating, Asian-hating" ultimately make heavy Republican campaigning in the black community futile, he said. "It doesn't make sense from a cost-effectiveness standpoint."
Former Gov. Douglas Wilder called McSweeney's remarks "cost-stupid" as he entered a Senate campaign event with black ministers.
State Democratic Party spokeswoman Gail Nardi said the phone bank message is no longer being used because that phase of the get-out-the-vote campaign ended this week. But she made no apologies to the state Republican chairman: "Mr. McSweeney can't even get any calls returned from his governor. He will not be in a position to give the Democratic Party of Virginia any orders."
Before McSweeney's news conference, Democratic party officials describing get-out-the-vote efforts acknowledged that they plan to continue a longtime practice of paying workers - primarily in black precincts - to round up voters and get them to the polls.
The practice, a tradition in many ethnic neighborhoods in Northeastern cities, "is kind of a changing custom here," said Tim Ridley, who is overseeing the Democratic operation. He noted that some Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Robert Scott, have refused to make those payments, which typically are "less than minimum wage."
"It used to be this was important economically for people. Now it's much more of a gesture than anything else," he said.
But Nardi added that low-income people who might take a day off from work to help turn out voters "need the money."
McSweeney argued that many black Virginians share the conservative values pushed by Republicans. In elections such as last year's gubernatorial race, "when there's no systematic pressure," the GOP makes inroads with black voters, he said.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB