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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 13, 1995                   TAG: 9509130032
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

CUPP, MARYE GET DOWN TO BUSINESS

State Sen. Madison Marye earned low ratings from two business-interest groups and supports "most anti-business legislation," his opponent said Tuesday.

Pat Cupp, a Blacksburg developer and Marye's Republican challenger, said he would be "the best candidate running for Senate to see that business is treated fairly in Richmond."

Marye, in turn, didn't respond specifically but said the key business issue for Southwest Virginia is higher education. "E\ E + E," the Shawsville farmer said, meaning "Education is the engine of economic development." State cutbacks imperil that growth formula, he said.

Cupp, Marye, Del. Jim Shuler, D-Blacksburg, and his challenger, Republican Larry Linkous, spoke before and took questions from more than 80 members of the Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

The 40-minute, tightly formatted forum gave Cupp and Marye chances to zing each other on business issues and Cupp's allegiance to or independence from Republican Gov. George Allen's agenda. It also gave a Democratic lawyer a chance to put Linkous on the spot about why the candidate switched to the Republican Party two years ago, and allowed Linkous to claim that Shuler's bill last winter to eliminate the gross-receipts tax was "full of holes."

In one philosophically revealing question, the candidates were asked about the national Democratic Party's supporting the progressive income tax and "targeting" major employers.

"Primarily I've supported the little people, the guy who got ripped off by buying a hearing aid and couldn't get his money back," Marye said. "I don't know anything about what's going on in Washington. I'm in Richmond; there's not a whole lot I can do about what's going on in Washington."

Cupp condemned the national Democratic Party. "Instead of giving people the opportunity to pull themselves up, [Democrats] want everybody to come down. We had a system like that, it's called communism. It failed in the Soviet Union," Cupp said. "I totally disagree with class warfare as preached by the Democrats in Washington. I don't think it's quite as bad in Richmond ... and I sure hope it doesn't get that way."

As in past remarks, Cupp said he differs with the governor's agenda in funding for Virginia Tech and higher education and in the speed of cuts to the state work force. Cupp said he looked Allen in the eye at a recent fund-raising event and told him so.

Marye said that was too little, too late. "The time for him to say that was back when he was contributing thousands of dollars to the governor's campaign," Marye said. Instead, Cupp should have said, ```Hey, governor, you're about to really rape us out here in Southwest Virginia,''' Marye said. "It's almost a crime what happened to Radford University and what was about to happen to Tech."

The less-volatile Shuler and Linkous were overshadowed by Marye and Cupp.

Yet Linkous, in a question about the unpopular gross-receipts tax on business, said he would favor doing away with the tax. Allen proposed a five-year phaseout last winter, which Democrats, including Shuler, countered with their own bills. Shuler's version lacked both patrons and controls to prevent startup firms from simply changing names after two years to avoid the tax, Linkous said.

"Larry, understand the legislative process, my friend," Shuler chided him. His bill had five patrons but simply didn't make it out of committee, the same fate as the other proposals.

Linkous got put on the spot by one questioner who wanted to know why he switched parties in 1993 after being elected to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors as a Democrat in 1991.

"I think I made a big mistake when I joined up with your party," Linkous said. He said he realized he didn't fit in with the party's agenda after four or five occasions when he went to Democratic functions and heard speakers and party officials with whom he absolutely disagreed.

"Sorry that I got in to begin with, I still don't agree and I feel really comfortable right now and I think it's the best decision I ever made," Linkous said.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB