Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 4, 1995 TAG: 9503060058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
He suggested that the Democrats no longer represented his views. But in a typically ambiguous statement, he said he would continue to vote as he had in the past, which has been with the Democrats and President Clinton 78 percent of the time, according to tallies by Congressional Quarterly.
``I can no longer represent the agenda that is put forth by the party,'' Campbell told a packed news conference in Washington on Friday morning, ``although I certainly agree with many of the things that Democrats stand for.''
Those who know Campbell, a sartorial maverick who wears bolo ties and his hair in a pony tail, said his defection had more to do with growing personal antagonisms he had experienced within the Democratic Party in Colorado than with any ideological split.
They said Campbell had become increasingly estranged from his party since last year, when he got into a bitter public dispute over personal finances with his former chief of staff, Sherrie Wolff, who was running for secretary of state. Party officials blamed Campbell for costing her the race.
``He has a very, very sharp temper and has a hard time controlling it and he will lash out at real or perceived slights,'' said Lawrence Dodd, director of the Center for the Study of American Politics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. ``When he gets in fights, he tends to settle them publicly.''
Campbell only alluded to his internal party problems Friday, saying, ``I have not been able to live up to the expectations of the Democratic Party, so it's just very clear that we go our separate ways.''
The well-kept secret of his defection outraged Democrats in Colorado as well as his staff in Washington, most of whom quit on the spot when they heard the news this morning. ``We're Democrats, not Republicans,'' one said.
Republican leaders in Washington cautiously welcomed Campbell into the fold. But no one seemed under any illusion that Campbell, 60, who roars around town on a highly accessorized Harley-Davidson, would necessarily hew to the Republican line.
Indeed, President Clinton said that when Campbell called him Friday morning to report his switch, he told the president ``he essentially supported our economic policies, our education policies and our social polices and that he would not change that.'' Clinton said that he hoped Campbell would continue voting as he has since his election to the Senate in 1992.
Campbell is viewed as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, a Democrat who supports a balanced-budget amendment and a capital gains tax cut but also supports abortion rights. He has sided with developers and the timber and mining industries, earning the enmity of environmentalists.
``I've always been considered a moderate, to the consternation of the left wing of the Democratic Party,'' he said Friday. ``I imagine my continued moderacy will be now to the consternation of the right wing of the Republican Party.''
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB