Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504180156
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Two years ago, voters in one part of Virginia could have it both ways.
They backed George Allen for governor with 63 percent of their votes.
They also re-elected Richard Cranwell, the House majority leader who would go on to become Allen's chief nemesis, with 59 percent of their votes.
This year, voters from Montvale to Paint Bank, from Clearbrook to Cloverdale, will have to decide whose side they're really on.
The impending contest between Cranwell and Republican challenger Trixie Averill could be the closest thing to an election showdown between Cranwell and the governor himself; at least that's the way some party activists on both sides are already framing the choice.
"Who carried that district for governor?" former state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Goldman asks. "That answers your question. Allen got 63 percent there. She's trying to talk to those people and say, `Give me a chance.'''
And that means this self-proclaimed "little ol' housewife's" campaign against Cranwell could escalate into one of the marquee races in Virginia, if it hasn't already.
"I think people will see this as Allen and his people really going after Cranwell," Goldman says. "She's definitely going to be the Allen candidate. It's going to be made on the third floor [the governor's office in the State Capitol]. That's both a plus and a minus for her."
Certainly Averill, in her campaign kickoff, sounded many of the issues that Allen has championed - and which a Democratic-controlled General Assembly, led by Cranwell, deep-sixed with gusto this past winter.
She's for charter schools; Cranwell vowed to "drain the blood" out of the charter schools bill if it ever came up in the House. She's for the state directing lottery proceeds to localities; Cranwell led the fight to dedicate lottery funds to education. She's for Allen's proposed tax cut; Cranwell opposed it. She's for term limits; he has served in the House since 1972.
But those are the same issues most Republican challengers are taking up across the state this year.
What makes Averill different is her close ties to the governor - ties that even many sitting legislators can't boast.
Averill, who during the past decade has evolved into one of the most prominent Republican activists in the state, ran Allen's campaign in Western Virginia in 1993.
Many candidates are lucky to draw more than the die-hard party regulars to their announcement. But Averill's drew the A-team of Virginia Republican politics - a clutch of Allen campaign staffers, plus three aspiring statewide candidates. Even Boyd Marcus, the acclaimed political strategist who orchestrated Allen's campaign, was in attendance.
"When Boyd Marcus shows up at a House of Delegates announcement, it tells you something," Roanoke lawyer, developer and GOP activist Gilbert Butler Jr. says. "Here's a man who runs gubernatorial campaigns, and usually you never see him at campaign events, because he's in the back room with the computers. That has to tell you this is a significant race."
Averill is careful to portray herself as more than just an Allen stand-in. "First of all, I've been involved in politics a heck of a lot longer than I've known George Allen," Averill says. "I didn't meet him till '91. And the whole reason I supported him was because he echoed my views. No one can accuse me of being his clone."
Nevertheless, it's the Allen connection that sets Averill apart from other potential challengers - and has catapulted her campaign into one that Republicans leaders say will draw statewide, perhaps even national, financing.
Two years ago, when Cranwell faced a retired engineer who'd lived in Virginia for only 15 months, the contest was as much a financial mismatch as it was an electoral one. Cranwell, taking no chances, raised and spent almost $200,000 - setting a record for a House of Delegates race in Western Virginia. The Republican, Bud Brumitt, raised just $37,000, although the state GOP kicked in $15,000 more to bring the total spent on Brumitt's behalf to $52,000.
This time, Brumitt is Averill's finance chairman and predicts Averill's campaign will raise $100,000 at "an absolute minimum."
"And we're looking for $150,000," he says.
"This is not going to be a dime-to-dollar campaign," Roanoke County Republican Party Chairman Hugh Key says. "This is going to be a dollar-to-dollar campaign. Partly because Trixie is well-known in the party, but also because Mr. Cranwell is not universally loved. He's made a lot of enemies outside the district. When one of your favorite sayings is that you're going to cut somebody's heart out, sooner or later, the people being cut make a decision to defend themselves."
In terms of money and attention, "this could be our own local North-Robb race," predicts Roanoke steel fabricator Ralph Smith Jr., who has emerged as one of the party's leading fund-raisers in the Roanoke Valley.
Key chortles that Cranwell, who hadn't faced a re-election challenge in more than a decade until Brumitt took him on, doesn't know what he's in for. "I don't think he's run across a battle like the one he's run into this year."
It won't just be a financial one, either. "This is going to be an in-your-face kind of campaign," Virginia Tech political analyst Bob Denton says. "It's not going to be about smaller government. It's going to be about what he said, his opposition [to the governor's agenda]. I think it'll be highly personal. He's the one with the record, and she's the one with the charges."
Cranwell is regarded as a skilled - some would say ruthless - debater. But Denton, whose specialty is communications, has seen Averill in action as a surrogate speaker on the campaign trail and says she's capable of giving as good as she gets.
"She's an ideologue," he says. "By the nature of his opposition, there can't help but be generated a number of sparks in the campaign" - probably enough to overshadow the state Senate race between Republican incumbent Brandon Bell and Democratic challenger John Edwards, which also is expected to be one of the state's most watched contests.
"By comparison, I think that's going to be a much duller kind of race," Denton says. "For one thing, they're duller candidates."
Democrats concede that Averill is a stronger challenger to Cranwell than Brumitt was two years ago. "Because of the current fervor, I think she'll get more votes than you'd normally see for a candidate like that," says Steve McGraw, Roanoke County's Democratic clerk of court.
But he believes Allen has overreached and the Republican tide of recent elections is receding - especially now that Cranwell has rallied opposition to Allen's agenda, both in the legislature and a highly publicized campaign-style tour around the state.
If the fall campaign is to be a referendum on Allen's agenda to cut state spending, then Cranwell seems eager to join it. "As I understand it," he says, "Trixie's position is virtually identical to the governor - cutting funding for education, cutting funding for higher education, cutting funding for law enforcement, and eliminating programs like Meals on Wheels for senior citizens. So I have already engaged in that debate."
Actually, Allen didn't propose eliminating the meals-for-the-elderly service, but his proposed spending plan - rejected by the legislature - would have cut some funding for the program.
Cranwell also disputes the Republican notion that this fall's election will be a statewide contest, played out in 140 different legislative districts - or that voters in his district will experience any special tension because they backed both Allen and Cranwell so strongly two years ago.
He adheres to the Tip O'Neill maxim: All politics is local. "I have found political races are uniquely about choices between individuals, as opposed to choices between political parties.
"I don't think my district is a Republican district or a Democratic district. People are fiercely independent. They expect their legislator to be independent and stand up for them and not march to any particular governor's drumbeat. My constituents remember I opposed Doug Wilder when I thought he was wrong."
Goldman sees statewide implications in the Cranwell-Averill race nonetheless.
Cranwell disclaims any interest in statewide office, but Goldman insists that's how other Democrats around the state see him - especially after this session.
"Do I think he'll run in '97 for governor? No. Do I think he'll run for any other office? No, not right now. Do I think the Democratic Party sees him as a potential statewide candidate? Absolutely."
And if Cranwell wins big in the face of such a direct challenge, Goldman speculates, "it could really add a big boost to Cranwell's prestige."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB