Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 4, 1995                   TAG: 9501060033
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK J. ROZELL AND CLYDE WILCOX
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VIRGINIA GOP

Right now the party is fighting over how best to select its standard bearer in 1996: by primary or convention. The conventional wisdom is that the incumbent benefits from a primary and an ideological conservative candidate benefits from a convention. In a primary, Warner could count on a strong crossover vote from Democrats and independent voters who, according to a statewide poll, actually hold the senator in higher esteem than do Republican voters. A convention would be strictly a GOP affair dominated by the conservative wing of the party.

Although this may be generally accurate, the differences between the two nominating processes are more complicated. We surveyed the delegates to the 1993 and 1994 Virginia GOP conventions, and our findings are instructive of what might happen in 1996.

Perhaps our most surprising finding is that, under certain plausible circumstances, Warner could be renominated in a convention. We asked the GOP delegates to express their preferences for the 1996 nomination. They favored home-schooling advocate Michael Farris (36 percent) only marginally over former Reagan budget director James Miller (31 percent) and Warner (27 percent). Other possible candidates received the remaining 6 percent.

With Farris and Miller receiving more than two-thirds support and Warner barely one-fourth, it is clear that ideological conservatives far outnumber centrists at GOP conventions. But should there be a multiplicity of conservative candidates in a party convention in 1996 - again, a plausible scenario - Warner could end up the party nominee for the fourth time.

We also asked the delegates to rate various GOP personalities on a scale of 0 to 100. Gov. George Allen was the most popular figure with a mean score of 86. His ratings were equally strong among delegates who identified with the Christian right and those who consider themselves party centrists.

No other Virginia GOP personality is held in such high esteem by the former Republican delegates. Indeed Farris, North and Warner are very divisive figures within the party. Among the possible GOP candidates in 1996, only Miller has the potential to unify a party convention.

Farris receives a mean score of 90 from Christian conservative delegates. Yet he receives only 32 from the party centrists. North scored 88 and 40 respectively from the two GOP factions. By contrast, Warner receives 31 from the Christian conservatives and 66 from the centrists.

Miller receives very favorable reviews from both GOP factions. No group gives him the intense support that Christian conservatives give to Farris and North and everyone gives to Allen. Among the Christian conservatives Miller rated a 74 and from the party centrists a 77.

Consequently, a Warner convention strategy should be to encourage all challengers and hope that as many as possible accept. The strategy for conservatives, assuming that Warner would remain a Republican at that point, is to unify early behind one candidate.

In the likely event of a primary nomination, do not assume an easy Warner victory. Our survey makes it clear that there is intense GOP opposition to Warner among conservative activists, who are capable of turning out in sufficient numbers in a primary. Certainly that was the case in 1989, when Marshall Coleman ran as a conservative and won the GOP nod in a primary.

It will nonetheless be difficult for party conservatives to prevail in a primary if two or more candidates split the right-wing vote. To defeat Warner for the GOP nomination and then have a chance to win the general election, the party will need a candidate who can both mobilize conservatives and appeal to a broader spectrum of voters. According to the GOP delegates, the party has a problem finding someone who can do both. North can mobilize the right wing and Miller has broad-based, but not intense, support within his own party.

Of course, the GOP factions could just decide to put down their swords and unify behind Warner, the only Republican in Virginia to have been elected three times to statewide office, easily hold that Senate seat and accrue all the benefits of having an influential four-term senator with a solid conservative voting record.

But no. That would make sense, and that is not the Virginia GOP way.

Mark J. Rozell, associate professor of political science at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, and Clyde Wilcox, associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., are co-writing a book on the Christian right in Virginia.