Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 21, 1995 TAG: 9505220054
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As political rumpuses go, it was said to have been quite a spirited brawl.
The state Senate was hashing some bill about the Lake Gaston pipeline, and the chamber had become a pit for an urban vs. rural melee.
The commanders: a chain-smoking doctor from Virginia Beach and a grizzled banker from Windsor. Two wrinkled, Southern-drawled senators named Holland. Brothers, side-by-side, yet locked in battle from opposite political poles.
``This is urgent,'' declared Clarence Holland, the Virginia Beach skirmisher.
``Unfair,'' retorted Richard Holland, his Windsor counterpart.
``Important,'' said Clarence.
``Wrong,'' said Richard.
When the Senate scuffle finally subsided, the Capitol press corps rushed over to the Holland boys, hoping to see the battered brothers licking their wounds. Over and over, the same question surfaced.
``After all that,'' reporters asked, ``will you two be able to get along?''
``Pffft!'' Richard heaved, when reminded of the question recently. He reached for a smoke and looked away, as if to say no further response was necessary.
Then Clarence broke in, waving both hands away from his face as if the question were still floating around his head like a gnat.
``Lord, we've argued more over who was going to sit in the front seat of the car,'' he spat. ``Believe me, that was nothing.''
The two Hampton Roads brothers don't fight each other much, on the floor of the state Senate or anywhere else. They're best friends, in fact. Always get along.
But the two brothers aren't without their enemies these days: the Republicans who want their seats in the General Assembly.
Richard, 69, represents the rural vastness of the Isle of Wight-all-the-way-to-Appomatox 15th District. And 65-year-old Clarence - nicknamed ``Clancy'' since high school by a Richmond sports writer - hails from the comparatively urban digs of the 7th District, a bustling slice of Virginia Beach.
The Hollands are proven political survivors. Richard has run virtually unopposed for 16 years, even after successfully battling a drunken-driving charge in 1986. Clancy bested Virginia Beach's 1991 Republican onslaught, though the $100,000-to-$8,000 fund-raising advantage he had over his challenger won him just 1,800 votes to spare.
But as Republicans plot their strategy for a Senate takeover attempt in November, it seems the two Hampton Roads Democrats are ever in their sights.
The brothers' opponents will take new tacks this year: that Richard is out of touch with the western expanse of his district; that Clancy is a Democrat being circled by Virginia Beach's Republican sharks.
The Hollands, meanwhile, seem to have their usual, staid perspective on it all.
``We'll just have to wait, see how it goes and hope we can win,'' said Clancy.
``Yeah, that's right,'' said Richard. ``You have to treat any campaign like you could lose.''
Their father, Shirley T. Holland, a 20-year General Assembly veteran, tried half-heartedly to warn the two away from political life. (``He said we'd lost our minds,'' according to Clancy.) Their younger brother, Bill, a Richmond cardiologist, refused their urgings to follow.
Indeed, the brother senators can give little insight into their almost naughty affection for politics and its precarious power rush - except perhaps their father's example or the time each spent during high school as a General Assembly page.
It's as if they would have been content to live anonymous lives as frolicsome rednecks, had not their education and Virginia lineage dictated otherwise.
So look for no deep meaning behind the politics of the brothers Holland. No hardened philosophical slant. No sense of higher calling.
Look, instead, for some steady, disjointed convictions, with a knack for the job's furtive workings. And a shameless taste for the pomposity of it all.
Richard and Clancy Holland can deliver political spin like the seasoned savants they are. But then they'll wink or slap your back, as if to say they didn't mean it. Or that maybe they feel a little guilty.
They don't look much alike: Richard with leathery features, Clancy with glasses and light skin. They don't dress alike, either; Richard likes dark suits, Clancy earth-toned combos.
But the two are unmistakably kin.
Both bellow into their microphones with the same lazy Virginia drawl when formally speaking, then whisper so loud the press takes notes. And yet they let out gut-busting chortles without ever making a sound.
When the Senate is in session, the Hollands seem both titillated and repulsed by the political machinations - they'll play the games and ply the party line, until it no longer suits them.
For example: When General Assembly Republicans herded behind a bill by Democratic Sen. Virgil Goode of Rocky Mount to relax rules for carrying concealed handguns, most Senate Democrats frothed. For hours, the Democrats threw amendments at the bill, hoping to knock out its teeth.
But each vote went down, with Goode and the Hollands thwarting the Democratic majority. Their colleagues at times fumed behind them, but the Hollands just slugged back sodas, twisted their menthols and smiled so hard their eyes disappeared into the folds on their faces.
And as usual, there was little ideological underpinning to their party defiance.
``People in my district want that bill,'' said Richard.
``Mine, too,'' said Clancy. ``Couldn't vote against it.''
Such simple frankness makes the Hollands some of the chamber's more inspired gossips, too - favorites among those seeking the nitty, un-spun gritty.
The parallels between the two Holland brothers have existed since childhood. They mowed lawns together growing up in Windsor. Both were high school athletes and went on to college. Both did stints in the Navy.
Younger brother Bill did much of the same. So did their older brother, Shirley Jr., before he died during World War II, shot down flying a B-25 over Burma.
All four Holland brothers grew up in a tight, well-known Windsor family, founders of the Farmers Bank of Windsor and community mainstays in their house next to a church in the center of town. Clancy says he might never have left the Isle of Wight hamlet, but when he returned from the Medical College of Virginia in the early 1960s all the career opportunities were in Virginia Beach.
Their father ran Farmers Bank, just as Richard does today. And he spent 20 years in the House of Delegates, some as chairman of the Insurance and Banking Committee. Part of the Harry F. Byrd machine, they say. Won 10 elections in a row.
Richard served 24 years on the Windsor Town Council before his election to the state Senate in 1979. Clancy did 12 years on the Virginia Beach council - two as mayor - and joined the Senate 12 years ago.
That's a combined 64 years hard time in public office. Neither has lost an election.
``Wouldn't know what to do if I lost,'' said Clancy.
``No,'' said Richard. ``Wouldn't know what to do.''
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB