Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 2, 1994 TAG: 9411020080
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MITCHELL LANDSBERG ASSOCIATED PRESS NOTE: below
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A Hawaiian congressional candidate has vanished. A bank robber is running for the Legislature in Montana. A dead man is likely to be re-elected in West Virginia.
And around the country, more than one candidate is making this promise: ``Elect me. I'll resign.''
Putting aside the serious issues in next Tuesday's election - whether more Bush offspring will be elected than Kennedys; whether Californians will make their state nanny-free - 1994 has had more than its share of political oddities.
Take Alaska. (Please.) While voters there have been enthralled by the quadrennial debate over whether to move the state capital from Juneau to someplace colder, a real issue has taken root in the race for governor.
Republican Jim Campbell, who is partly bald (this is actually relevant), is attacking Democrat Tony Knowles for, among other things, having ``good hair'' like President Clinton.
Does this mean that Knowles gets his hair cut on airport runways by someone named Christophe? That hasn't emerged as an issue so far; but this being politics, it's probably too early to rule it out.
Nor has Knowles retaliated yet by comparing Campbell to former President Ford. There's time for that, too.
From Alaska to Alabama, negative campaigning is the favored tactic this year. But some candidates are willing to balance the attacks with some references to their own qualifications.
For instance, Joseph Brennan, a Democratic candidate for governor in Maine, says he has ``more experience with firearms than any other gubernatorial candidate.''
Specifically, Brennan, an Army veteran, has attested to his competence with machine guns and bazookas.
This has prompted some chuckling in Maine - cartoons of Brennan in full combat regalia and so forth. But seriously, with weapons like that, who needs the line-item veto?
There is one tactic taking hold this year that is harder to categorize as negative or positive. What do you say about someone who promises to quit if elected?
There are several of these kamikaze candidacies around the country. In Sheridan County, Mont., Mary Nielsen is running for assessor with the slogan: ``Elect me. I'll resign.''
There is some logic to this. The Montana Legislature abolished the duties of county assessors last year, but Sheridan County missed the deadline for abolishing the post locally.
Nielsen, a Republican, says she could save the county $117,000 in salary and benefits over her four-year non-term.
In Texas, state Treasurer Martha Whitehead is looking to abolish not only her job, but her entire agency. In a TV commercial, her image slowly vanishes as she intones: ``Fewer bureaucrats, less waste, starting with me.''
Who knows? In a year of anti-incumbency, it may be the ultimate campaign strategy.
In Hawaii, Republican congressional candidate Robert Garner has issued no ultimatum - or anything else. He has disappeared.
Garner defeated two opponents in the Sept. 17 primary to take on Democrat Patsy Mink. That was about the last anyone heard from him.
Garner is said by acquaintances to be alive and well and on a boat somewhere. GOP Chairman Jared Jossem calls him ``an extremely independent Republican.''
In West Virginia, popular state Delegate Odell Huffman stands a good chance of being re-elected, which wouldn't be much of a story except that he committed suicide last month.
Then there's Lennie Thompson, a Democratic nominee for state House in Montana. Thompson volunteered at a candidates' forum last spring that his rsum included a stint as a bank robber.
He had, in fact, served 21/2 years for robbery in Washington state in the late 1970s.
``There's nothing to be gained by trying to hide something in your past,'' he said. ``My past is not who I am today.''
As a campaign slogan, that should do in this era of diminished expectations. Still, it doesn't quite have the ring of ``Elect me. I'll resign.''
Then again, what does?
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB