Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 5, 1994 TAG: 9412050027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Roanoke Valley Democrats are bringing back the smoke-filled room, only without the smoke.
Hoping to head off a potentially divisive three-way fight for their party's nomination to face freshman Republican state Sen. Brandon Bell in 1995, Democratic leaders have been meeting privately to orchestrate a consensus behind a single choice.
"I see a lot of party leaders really hoping that happens, so only one person actually announces," says Sam Garrison, the Roanoke lawyer who heads one of the party's main factions and has attended some of the sessions.
If party leaders have their way, he says, this time around the candidate's formal announcement will not mark the beginning of his quest for the nomination - but rather the end, amid a partywide show of unity.
Del. Richard Cranwell of Roanoke County apparently initiated the process, convening a series of dinner meetings this fall that brought together different faction leaders at the Roanoker Restaurant. Participants say Cranwell sounded out his dinner companions about who they thought would make the strongest candidate - and asked if key party activists would pledge to unite behind a consensus choice if one emerged. Some did; some apparently didn't.
At the same time, the Progressive Democratic Coalition - a faction of liberals who have dominated party nominations in the city in recent years - has been holding its own meetings with the three most likely candidates: Roanoke County Supervisor Bob Johnson, Roanoke Vice Mayor John Edwards, and former state Sen. Granger Macfarlane.
And other Democratic activists have been holding still more brainstorming sessions about which of the three could best reclaim the seat, which covers Roanoke and most of Roanoke County.
"There is a conversation happening, as it should," says Dan Frei, a Roanoke-based political consultant who managed David Bowers' 1992 campaign for mayor and is known to have devoted considerable study lately to how Democrats can defeat Bell. "There is no 'they.' There is a community of interest, and there are conversations within that community of interest."
Gary Waldo, a Roanoke teachers' lobbyist and key Democratic activist, calls this "an invisible primary."
"I do think a lot of people do not want to have an intraparty fight," Waldo says. "There have been meetings, and I think there's more consensus building behind this nomination than I've ever seen."
So far, though, that consensus appears to deal more with the process than the nominee who eventually emerges.
Right now, says Roanoke County Democratic Chairman Dana Martin, "I don't see one candidate perceptibly stronger than the other."
Waldo agrees, "There is no favorite at this point."
However, what Garrison calls "the widespread, if not universal" belief among key party activists that Bell can be beaten - but only if Democrats are united - has directly affected the tone of the campaign.
For one thing, it has silenced the candidates - at least publicly.
Johnson, Edwards and Macfarlane have refrained from making any public declarations of candidacy, although their interests are by now well-known among party activists.
As Billy Bova, business manager for the politically active Local 891 painters' union, puts it, "Edwards is definitely in, Johnson is definitely in, and Macfarlane is the 300-pound gorilla threatening to get in."
Instead, Garrison says, "The candidates themselves seem to be encouraging the process we're describing."
Each of the three, he says, "is acting with great caution, and with the same goal in mind, to test the waters and see whether it is possible to create an early consensus among the different factions in both city and county in favor of him. A whole lot of people are approaching this in exactly the same way, to explore privately, in one-on-one conversations, in group meetings, what their chances are."
Indeed, one of those candidates - Macfarlane, who held the seat for two terms before being upset by Bell in 1991 - is even publicly calling for Democrats to select their nominee through a "meeting of the minds" of party leaders.
"The leaders of all the factions of the party should get together and decide who they think is the best person," he says. "I'd back what their decision is."
For their part, many party activists appear to agree; many are declining to commit to a specific candidate.
"I think there's more holding back than would otherwise be the case," Garrison says.
Why are Roanoke Valley Democrats - who in 1992 packed nearly 2,000 people into a mass meeting to nominate a candidate for mayor and this year turned to a primary to entice even more people to participate in their selection of City Council candidates - hoping to choose their nominee behind closed doors?
The biggest reason seems to be that they're still tender from the self-inflicted wounds suffered during those highly public nomination struggles, most notably the brutal three-way struggle for the 6th District congressional nomination in 1992.
That contest - between Edwards; John Fishwick; and the eventual winner, Steve Musselwhite - took six ballots to decide on the convention floor and produced ill feelings that rankle some Democrats to this day.
"The 1992 contest has defined everything from then forward," says Debbie Jordan, a former legislative aide to Macfarlane.
At the same time, many Democrats are sobered by the recent Republican victories, both in Virginia and across the country.
To be sure, they see Bell - whom they criticize as a do-nothing legislator - as vulnerable. And they're mindful of former state party Chairman Paul Goldman's contention that the Roanoke Valley campaign could be the biggest legislative race in the state next year.
"This would be the No. 1 targeted seat for Democrats," Goldman says. "If you wanted to make a statement that Democrats are coming back, winning a seat in the western part of the state, where Republicans have been doing well, would have more impact than anything else."
But Democrats also recognize, Garrison says, "to win, the Democrats need to have just about everything going for the nominee."
That's one reason he has agreed to participate in this "invisible primary," despite some philosophical misgivings.
"The whole process does bother some," he says. It's the modern equivalent of the old smoke-filled room, he says. "But the qualms people have about participating are outweighed" by the pragmatic consideration of uniting the party early - and the fact that all factions are being included in the discussions.
Still, some party activists are starting to speak out against the process.
"What happens to the new people we need to bring into the party?" asks Jordan, who lives in Botetourt County but frequently organizes for Democrats in the Roanoke Valley. "Every time we have a nomination, we need to bring in new people. If not, we get stagnant."
That's how Republicans have expanded their ranks, she says.
The current round of meetings may involve leaders of all the main Democratic factions, but by definition they exclude newcomers who aren't yet involved in the party - but may want to be, she says. She says party leaders are too worried about a rift.
"You can have a fight without having a war," she says.
A public fight might happen anyway. Party leaders "would become very nervous if we can't have a resolution very early in the new year," Garrison says. Likewise, the longer the process goes on without a consensus candidate emerging, the more pressure there will be on candidates to go ahead and announce.
A group of Edwards backers recently held a strategy session of their own at the Holiday Inn-Civic Center, and battle lines are beginning to harden. Bowers, who attended the Edwards meeting, openly declares Edwards to be "the hot ticket of the Democratic Party" - although he adds he's not making an endorsement "at this time."
Johnson warns that if a candidate announces now, "you can screw up some very delicate negotiations." He adds that in ordinary circumstances, an early announcement might serve to galvanize support. This year, he says, it might backfire. So for now, he's lying low.
Once a candidate announces, there may be no turning back, warns Onzlee Ware, the 6th Congressional District Democratic chairman.
"If one jumps in and starts posturing as a candidate, the others will have to, too," he says.
However, Martin, the county Democratic chairman, believes the behind-the-scenes efforts to narrow the field to one will come to naught.
"I'm taking it for granted there will be a contest for the nomination."
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