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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 25, 1995                   TAG: 9502270051
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA                                LENGTH: Medium

GOP OPPOSES BUSH'S VISIT FOR WARNER MILLER TO STEP UP PLANS FOR NOMINATION

Bush is to speak at a fund-raiser in Richmond on April 10, Warner campaign consultant Jennifer Joy Wilson said.

State Republican Chairman Patrick McSweeney sent a letter to Bush on Friday asking him to reconsider, said David Johnson, executive director of the party.

McSweeney's tartly worded letter calls Bush to task for declining a similar invitation from the state party while agreeing to the Warner event.

``Your decision is a slap at a grass-roots party that supported you faithfully in 1992 while John Warner was hiding in the tall grass,'' McSweeney wrote.

Although he supported Bush, Warner complained that the campaign, and the 1992 nominating convention in particular, moved too far to the right.

Jim McGrath, a spokesman for Bush in Houston, said the event is on Bush's calendar, and he referred other questions to Warner's office.

Jim Miller, a former Reagan administration budget director, said the announcement about Bush forced him to accelerate plans to oppose Warner for re-election in 1996. Miller said he will announce his candidacy to supporters next week.

``His activity has given me no choice,'' Miller said. ``I had not anticipated going as public and getting under way as soon as I will have to do now.''

Warner is seeking a fourth term. Despite statewide popularity, he is a marked man in his own party, where activists deeply resent his refusal to support two recent party nominees.

Miller has also asked Bush not to take sides in an internecine fight.

``You should not underestimate the level of anger and distrust Virginia Republicans have for someone who betrayed our party,'' Miller wrote to Bush.

Miller, a strict conservative, unsuccessfully opposed Oliver North for the Republican nomination for Senate last year. Warner said North was unfit for office because of his Iran-Contra past.

North lost to Sen. Charles Robb in November, and Republicans lined up to blame Warner. Warner already was on unstable political ground because of his lack of enthusiasm for Mike Farris, the party nominee for lieutenant governor in 1993.

A moderate, Warner repeatedly has decried the power that conservative activists wield both in Virginia and nationally.

Keywords:
POLITICS