Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 8, 1994 TAG: 9411080120
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Just when one Senate race is ending, another one is beginning - this one for the Roanoke Valley's seat in the state Senate.
Sen. Brandon Bell, a freshman Republican, is up for re-election next year, along with all the other members of the General Assembly, and Democrats have already begun plotting a challenge for what could become one of the marquee races in Virginia.
When will the 1995 race start?
"Wednesday," Roanoke County Supervisor Bob Johnson said Monday.
If it hasn't started already.
Democrats consider Bell one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the state, so prospective challengers have spent much of this fall jockeying for position among party activists for the chance to run against him. It's a race well-formed enough that one candidate has already announced he's not running.
Roanoke lawyer John Fishwick Jr., who contended for the party's nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives two years ago, started telling fellow Democrats a few weeks ago that he's too busy with his law practice to make a run for the state Senate seat that covers the city and most of Roanoke County.
That leaves at least two candidates who appear almost ready to enter the race, and at least two others who say they're still thinking about it:
The most definite candidate appears to be Johnson, a real estate company president who represents Roanoke County's Hollins District. "I'm actively considering it," Johnson says. "A lot of folks have called and expressed an interest in me running and that's very flattering."
Meanwhile, a new prospect has surfaced who seems intent on challenging Johnson.
Allen Trigger of Roanoke County, who runs a computer consulting firm and teaches speech and management at Virginia Western Community College, says he is "very close" to making a decision to enter the race.
Trigger, who's also a doctoral candidate in public administration at Virginia Tech, said he's motivated to run partly because Republicans have demeaned his field of study. "These people are running against public administration," he says. By attacking "bureaucrats," Republicans are "destroying public confidence" in government, Trigger says.
But Trigger, vice chairman of the Roanoke County Democratic Party, also says he'll present himself as a "clean" candidate, suggesting that other candidates may not be. "You'll never pick up a paper and read about me getting busted for driving under the influence, because I don't drink, or some real estate development deal I've cooked up, because I don't do that."
That seems a not-so-veiled swipe at Johnson, who pleaded guilty in 1990 to drunken driving after he "celebrated a little too much" following his second-place finish in a golf tournament.
Johnson, told of Trigger's comments, fired back that Trigger wasn't much of a Democrat. "I haven't seen him at too many events this fall," Johnson said.
Yet to be heard from are two other Democrats who have expressed an interest: former state Sen. Granger Macfarlane and Roanoke Vice Mayor John Edwards. Macfarlane, who lost the seat to Bell in 1991, says he'll "analyze" today's election returns and then decide. Edwards says "it's too early to make a decision."
It's not too early, though, for Democrats to start telegraphing their line of attack on Bell. Trigger calls him "the invisible senator" who's done nothing memorable in his term.
Nor is it too early for Bell to start laying the groundwork for his re-election bid. Last month, state Secretary of Transportation Robert Martinez was in town for a fund-raiser. In December, state Secretary of Health and Human Resources Kay Coles James, herself mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 1997, will help Bell raise money.
Bell won't say how much.
But he does say he's always expected a stiff challenge in what has historically been a competitive district - and says the 1995 General Assembly session will find him at the forefront of some legislative action, especially on school choice, which he favors.
"Republicans are unfortunately still in the minority in Richmond," he says. That, Bell suggests, will be one of his key campaign planks - if Roanoke Valley residents want to give Gov. George Allen a Republican majority in the legislature, then they need to start by re-electing him.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB