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

DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995                   TAG: 9509290029
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VISITING SPEAKER SHOOTS FROM THE HIP

Pundits usually get to prognosticate as detached observers; it's not often that an expert has to face the subjects of his considered opinions.

But it happens. Ask Virginia Tech communications professor Bob Denton.

The smooth-talking Denton, a staple of WSLS-TV and public television political coverage, expected most New River Valley candidates to be out campaigning elsewhere when he accepted the Montgomery County Republican Party's invitation to talk elections at its monthly luncheon Wednesday.

But Larry Linkous, the Blacksburg-area House candidate, and Pat Cupp, the party's state Senate candidate, were both sitting dead center of Denton's view, at the far end of the hotel dining room.

Denton painted a somewhat challenging, if not grim, portrait of the state Republican Party's chances of winning control of both chambers of the General Assembly. He said Gov. George Allen is popular, but his policies, particularly the emphasis on tax cuts and building prisons, are not.

"There is no Republican mandate in the Commonwealth of Virginia," Denton said.

He said education is the No. 1 issue on people's minds, and the Democrats have successfully defined it in their favor - to the point that many of his fellow Tech employees blame the governor for all cutbacks. Democrats, he said, have portrayed the election as a referendum on Allen. To that end, Linkous and Cupp have wisely tried to distance themselves from Allen on education issues. He called Linkous, in particular, "savvy" for declining to sign the party's "Pledge for Honest Change" last week.

It wasn't all kudos, though. Denton said he was concerned by comments he's heard from Republicans about the "lack of unity and focus in terms of how the campaign should go" in Cupp's effort to unseat 22-year state Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville.

Afterward, the candidates got to have a word. "I don't agree with him totally, but he's right on top of the issues," Cupp said.

Denton had private conversations, too, with the candidates when the lunch broke up. But just before, he summarized the experience of the gentle art of very public campaign critique: "The nonverbals were quite intense."

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB