Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 30, 1994 TAG: 9411300075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALEC KLEIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Robb and other Democratic Party leaders were quick to agree.
Wilder, however, was too much the gentleman to trumpet his role outright. Instead, the nation's first elected black governor asserted that the black vote - which Wilder helped galvanize - won it for Robb.
``I think the main reason that [Republican challenger] Oliver North lost the election was simple arithmetic,'' Wilder said in prepared remarks to the Society of Professional Journalists. ``... Only 5 percent of North's vote was African American, and only 37 percent of Robb's vote was white. If the total African-American vote were removed from this election ... Robb would have lost to North.''
Robb would have lost to Wilder, had the latter had his way.
Wilder, a Democrat, had entered the Senate race as an independent candidate, calling Robb ``unfit'' for office. But with limited funds and poor pollings, Wilder dropped out before resurfacing suddenly in the final weeks of the race as a Robb ally. Wilder campaigned side-by-side with his erstwhile foe, courting the black vote, which accounts for nearly 20 percent of the electorate.
By energizing voters, particularly in the black community, Wilder said, ``Chuck Robb was able to escape the fate of his colleagues and fellow Democrats around the country [who lost re-election], many who had better personal records as well as better records of achievement in office.''
Robb, in a prepared statement, graciously tipped his hat to Wilder without responding to his barbs.
``I appreciate Gov. Wilder's help and support during the campaign and agree with his assessment that the African-American vote played a crucial role in the election, as it has in past elections,'' Robb said. ``As Gov. Wilder said in his speech today, his endorsement wasn't obligatory. It was real and it was important.''
Wilder did give some weight to other factors leading to Robb's victory, such as North's not exploiting Robb's flaws.
``For some unexplained reason, the North camp failed in tying the character of Robb associates and/or employees directly to Robb,'' Wilder said. ``The criminal convictions, the signed affidavits ... set forth with particular clarity the dilemma which engulfed Robb.''
Wilder was referring to the oft-chronicled tale of the illegal taping of a cellular telephone conversation in which then-Lt. Gov. Wilder gloated about Robb's political fall from grace. The tape fell into the hands of some Robb aides, who leaked the tape to the press and later pleaded guilty in federal court to crimes related to their activities.
Wilder also blamed North's hubris for his own demise: ``Oliver North had decided long ago that all he ever needed to win was himself and money. He had plenty of both, and on that issue he lost.''
Wilder added, ``The problem was that North had enough money to do what he chose to do, and he chose to believe what he was surrounded with, sycophants who believed that a cult psyche could be created and that Ollie-mania would carry the day.''
Wilder left enough room in his analysis to knock a couple of other Republican heavyweights:
On Gov. George Allen's tepid endorsement of the GOP candidate: ``North's election certainly was not cause for Gov. George Allen to be celebrating, and Allen's late and curious entry into the campaign is still somewhat puzzling.''
On state GOP Chairman Pat McSweeney, who remarked late in the campaign that it was not worth pursuing the black vote from a ``cost-effectiveness standpoint'': ``His write-off of the African-American vote [was] no more than that which has been the pattern and style of the Republican Party for years ... while many observers perceive Democrats as taking that vote for granted.''
Indeed, Wilder cautioned Democrats, both nationally and across the commonwealth, to be inclusive.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB