Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 1, 1994 TAG: 9411010093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS|
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium
Afterward, Warner, a Republican, said he has no regrets about backing independent Marshall Coleman's bid against Robb and Republican Oliver North for the U.S. Senate. He said he intends to keep on campaigning for Coleman.
In Emporia, North called on his supporters to tell everyone they know to vote Nov. 8 and posed for a photograph with a man wearing a T-shirt that said, ``Let's Stop Robbing the Taxpayers.''
``I love it,'' North said as he greeted small groups of people at a restaurant, auto dealership and drug store lunch counter.
Coleman was also on the campaign trail Monday, meeting morning commuters at Virginia Railway Express stops in northern Virginia and coming to this Peninsula city in the afternoon to join Warner and greet shipyard workers.
``There's no discussion about me pulling any plugs,'' Warner said when asked whether he planned to encourage Coleman to withdraw from the race. ``We're going full bore.''
The event that brought Warner and Robb together was the signing of a new contract at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. The deal with a Greek shipper was made possible by federal loan guarantees that Robb, Warner and other members of the state's congressional delegation supported.
The ceremony also brought Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, who in his remarks to about 100 assembled dignitaries praised the loan deal as the fulfillment of a promise made by President Clinton to help the nation's struggling maritime industry.
Pena also said Robb cast a key vote that made the loan guarantees possible.
After the ceremony, Warner and Robb answered a few political questions but denied that the timing of the signing had anything to do with the election.
Warner said he's not sorry for backing Coleman rather than North, who he has suggested is unfit to serve in Congress. He said he would be able to work with North if he wins.
``Virginia always has had a congressional delegation that put aside politics for the good of the nation and good of the state,'' he said.
Robb planned to host President Clinton at a private fund-raising event Monday night at his McLean home. It's Clinton's third trip to Virginia to help Robb, who has raised about a fourth of North's nearly $18 million.
Earlier, while campaigning in Pennsylvania for Sen. Harris Wofford, Clinton took a swipe at North over North's statement that Social Security could be voluntary in the future.
``Say no to this radical attack on Social Security,'' Clinton said.
North, who traveled from Danville to Emporia and then to Lawrenceville, said he wouldn't have any problems working within a Congress that he has criticized as an outsider.
``I'm going to bring the Republicans a majority,'' he said. ``It's going to be a collegial relationship with those who want to get the Clinton administration off our backs and lower our taxes.''
When North was in Danville in September, he sparked a controversy by saying he supported the public display of the Confederate flag at a city museum. Asked about the subject this time, North said, ``I well recognize that that is a painful reminder of the past, but I am deeply concerned about inequities of the present.''
North, who was wounded in Vietnam when he was a Marine officer, said the flag that flies at his home is the U.S. flag - ``the one that I fought for and bled for and that Chuck Robb voted to allow to be burned.''
Robb said he believes the results of the election will vary more from region to region than is customary in Virginia. But he would not elaborate, other than to say he feels that different areas have different perceptions about what the issues are.
Coleman told Arlington commuters that he'd push for ways to deal with northern Virginia's traffic congestion if he were elected. He said he'd like to study incentives to encourage commuters to car pool and use alternative transportation.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB