Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 11, 1994 TAG: 9411110036
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS AND ALEC KLEIN STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Long the most popular politician in the state, Warner defied party leaders by opposing North's U.S. Senate candidacy, imperiling his own re-election bid in 1996.
Warner, unchallenged in 1990, is suddenly confronted with a list of potential rivals in his own party: Michael Farris, defeated for lieutenant governor in 1993 after Warner failed to support him; Jim Miller, who lost the Senate nomination to North in a GOP convention last June; and North himself.
"John Warner singularly is the problem," Farris said Wednesday as he emerged from a private meeting with Republican state Attorney General Jim Gilmore.
"I'm not engaging in any dialogues with Mike Farris," Warner replied in a telephone interview. "It's appropriate to give campaign-weary Virginia a rest, particularly the losers. Let them be with their families and collect their lives."
In that attitude "lies the first clear difference between John Warner and Mike Farris," the senator added.
Farris is setting up an exploratory committee, but said he has not yet decided whether he will challenge Warner in 1996. But he said he's "very interested in the job" and sported a bumper sticker on his Ford Explorer that read: "Is It 1996 Yet?"
"There is no credible data that it was Ollie's views on substantive issues that did him in," Farris said in defending the conservative Republican platform. "Something different happened in Virginia. What happened was we had Iran-Contra. We also had John Warner."
From across the state, prominent conservatives reported a groundswell of anti-Warner sentiment and predicted that North supporters will move quickly to challenge a law allowing incumbent senators to choose between a primary or a convention when they run for re-election.
Either way is fine with one GOP leader: "I want to beat his a-- in public," said Jim Ferreira, a regional vice chairman from Abingdon.
Fairfax GOP Chairman Pat Mullins said Warner was booed when he tried to speak Tuesday night at a victory party for Tom Davis, the 11th District congressional winner. "I think he got the message," he said.
But Warner appeared unfazed by the attacks. "I welcome all challengers," he declared.
One could come from Miller, a former Reagan administration official, who said, "I'm not ruling out '96" and criticized Warner for abandoning Republicans this year.
"I think John Warner should have abided by the party," Miller said. "I'm saddened he wouldn't support the party."
Miller himself questioned North's fitness for office during the nomination contest but ended up endorsing him.
Warner intends to be the GOP standard-bearer in 1996, running in a primary, banking on polls that place him among the state's most popular politicians.
"I accept my share of the accountability for what I did" in backing independent Senate candidate Marshall Coleman, he said. "We provoked Virginians to think ever so carefully about their choice."
Warner said his critics are forgetting that Coleman's campaign may have hurt Democratic Sen. Charles Robb more than North. Polls leading up to the election consistently showed Robb as the second choice of Coleman backers, by 2-to-1 over North. But Election Day exit polls showed about half the Coleman voters would have stayed home if he weren't in the race, and the rest would have split 50-50 for Robb and North.
While he was never asked directly by the North campaign to keep Coleman in the race, there were "quiet signals" from prominent Republicans that it would benefit North if the independent stayed in, Warner said.
Some Warner admirers said the party should look elsewhere for scapegoats.
"All across the nation, the Republican Party is triumphing. But right here in the great commonwealth, we're losing," 10th District GOP Chairman James Rich said. "With a performance like that, we ought to get some new leadership."
Rich, who led an unsuccessful attempt to oust state party Chairman Patrick McSweeney last year, said he expects cries to intensify for McSweeney to step down.
Several party power brokers vowed to see that Warner has to run in a convention. Despite his general popularity, analysts agree that the senator would face almost certain defeat in a convention dominated by the party's conservative wing.
North could not be reached for comment but appeared to leave the door open on another Senate bid in his concession speech Tuesday night.
Staff writer David M. Poole contributed to this story.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB