Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510160048
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: STEWARTSVILLE LENGTH: Long
Septic tank pumper Raymond Dillon clamps his pipe between his teeth, tamps down the tobacco and ponders the election hoopla swirling around him like a thick cloud of smoke.
"I don't think many people down here even care who goes to Richmond," he says as he settles back into his window booth at the Valley Restaurant. "At least, they don't talk about it."
The five-way Bedford County sheriff's race? Now that's a big deal. Just check out all the signs along this stretch of Virginia 24.
But the General Assembly showdown between House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell and Republican challenger Trixie Averill, a race that's drawn the personal attention of the governor and big-name Republican donors across the state, a race that Averill has declared to be nothing less than a referendum on the governor himself?
"I haven't heard anybody but my wife say anything about Cranwell and what's-that-woman's-name?'' Dillon says, shaking his head. As for his wife, "she's satisfied with what we've got."
Over in Botetourt County, at the Blue Ridge Minute Market along busy U.S. 460, it's much the same story. "We don't hear too much," cashier Nancy Wilkes says. "Now, the Botetourt candidates have been by campaigning. And we hear all about Bedford's sheriff's race."
So how come there's not much interest in a legislative race that pits Gov. George Allen's arch-nemesis - "the chief obstructionist," as Allen calls Cranwell - and one of Allen's best-known campaign workers, a contest that's become one of the most expensive in the state?
Bookkeeper Kathy Wooldridge has an easy answer. "We're just thinking about our own community," she says.
Politicians may be calling this year's General Assembly races "the election of the century," but from casual conversations in popular local hangouts where public affairs usually are the order of the day, there are unmistakable signs that voters so far don't agree.
Take voter registration: When the books closed last week, fewer new voters had signed up this year than during the same election cycle in 1991, even though this year features more contested races, a dramatic story line in the conflict between a Republican governor and Democratic General Assembly, and the GOP's all-out push to win a majority.
This apparent lack of interest could point in either of two directions:
One is that both parties - but especially Republicans - are having difficulty convincing voters that this year's legislative races, historically local affairs turning as much on personality as politics, are part of a bigger statewide picture.
Allen himself alluded to that difficulty after a recent campaign rally on Averill's behalf in Vinton. "Historically, turnout in state legislative elections is lower," he said. "There's not the attention you get in a presidential race or a gubernatorial race." That's why, he said, Republicans needed to devote "a lot of attention" to educating voters about how partisan control of the General Assembly is at stake and what a change of party would mean to ordinary Virginians.
The second possibility is that with so little interest and the television campaigns for both sides just now getting under way, anything can happen during the next three weeks as voters begin to focus on the choices before them.
"In the next week or two, I want to get up on things a little more," says retired heavy equipment operator Aubrey Leonard as he mops up a plate of gravy at the Dogwood Restaurant in downtown Vinton. Judging by how he stands on the issues - he wants lower taxes, smaller government and politicians "with more godly principles" - he seems a likely Republican voter.
However he and his neighbors come down on Election Day, it's difficult to avoid noticing one thing that comes through loud and clear in random interviews with voters:
Many Virginians - even those who support Allen - actively resist Republican attempts to frame the election as a statewide referendum.
Perhaps nowhere in the state have Republicans tried harder to do that than in Cranwell's district, a 50-mile-long expanse that rambles from rural western Bedford County, cuts a swath through Roanoke County from Clearbrook to Bonsack to Catawba, covers increasingly suburbanized southern Botetourt County, and ends at the West Virginia line in Craig County.
Voters here cast 63 percent of their ballots for Allen in 1993 (at the same time they were re-electing Cranwell with 59 percent of the vote), and Averill has staked her candidacy on getting those Allen supporters to vote for her this year.
She's charged that Cranwell has "sold out" his district by opposing the key elements of Allen's budget- and tax-cutting agenda, saying the governor is entitled to a legislature that will pass his programs - which prompts Cranwell to lecture about how the Founding Fathers insisted on a system of checks and balances in government.
Where many politicians like to advertise their independence, Averill invokes Allen's name at almost every opportunity and makes much of her ties to the chief executive. "I differ with him on occasion, but I don't expect much," she told a rally Oct.5.
Yet after listening to Cranwell and Averill debate Allen's programs before the Fort Lewis Civic League, many residents vigorously shake their heads "no" when asked if they'll base their vote on how they feel about the governor.
"I don't care if the person happens to be a Democrat or Republican," says Ralph Riggs, who's retired from a computer forms manufacturer. "If an idea doesn't have merit, I'm opposed to it."
His neighbor Tim Smith, a corporate pilot, regards all the talk about which party controls the General Assembly as politics as usual. "The Republicans just want to get the Democrats, just so they can get a majority," he says.
Over morning coffee at the Parkway Bar and Grill in Blue Ridge, retired air traffic controller Guy Davis suggests that the Republicans' emphasis on Allen and their desire to control the legislature could even backfire. "As crazy as this may sound, I have always liked to see somewhat of a balance between Democrat and Republican in any form of government. I don't want to see it get too one-sided for any one party."
Mac Johnson, a Roanoke College administrator who lives along Bradshaw Road in western Roanoke County, says the press, the pundits and the politicians are trying too hard to make the election into a watershed. "My sense is voters don't think of things in that kind of historical dimension very much. I'm much more concerned that government work well than some ideological position we have to get to."
Nadine Stump, a retired department store worker from Troutville, voices disdain for trying to make the election a referendum: "That might turn me off on a candidate that uses that approach. It reminds me of the O.J. Simpson trial, where Johnnie Cochran said 'acquit O.J. if you want to send a message.''' Stump says she's not interested in sending any messages. "Governor Allen's not running in this election. They are. What they stand for should be enough to consider."
Indeed, there's a strong sense among many voters that they want their legislative races to be about local issues, not state ones.
Richmond, to these voters, is a long way away - and their state legislator is as much an ambassador as a lawmaker. "We like to feel there's someone down there who cares about what's going on down here, who says 'Yes, we'd like the streets paved in Roanoke County,''' says James C. Martin, a retired trucking company service manager from Vinton. "We'd like to have someone down there who cares about what's going on at home and not just interested in what the governor wants." Instead, he worries about legislators who "become too acclimated to the capital."
That's one of the arguments Averill is making against Cranwell - that he's been in Richmond so long he's now pursuing a statewide agenda, not a local one. But Martin sees things just the other way, worrying that Averill is too beholden to the governor while viewing Cranwell as the region's defender.
"This end of the state, from here to Grundy, is hurting," Martin says. "For all his faults, Dick Cranwell is the only guy we've got down there who'll stand up for this part of the state and get anything done."
Martin's comments illustrate one obstacle Averill must overcome if she's to win: Cranwell's experience seems to count heavily with many voters.
Troy Simms, who operates the 460 Quick-In and an adjoining freight-hauling business in Blue Ridge, considers himself a Republican. On one issue after another, he takes Allen's side.
Lottery revenues turned over to localities? Check.
Fewer regulations on small businesses? Check.
Tougher welfare rules? Check again.
Yet he's a vocal Cranwell supporter. "Cranwell, he's responsible for bringing in a lot of jobs. That's what I like about him: He's a hustler. I bet he's responsible for something like 60 percent of the jobs that have come in here. He helped on the UPS hub. He helped on Hanover Direct. And he was with the lobbying group that had the railroad put their new building downtown."
Averill has warned that Cranwell's power will be "kaput" if Republicans win control of the House of Delegates.
At the Stewartsville diner, though, Dillon puffs on his pipe and lets his coffee turn cold. "I imagine Cranwell will keep the job," he says. "Experience more than anything else. Why should they change and get mixed up again? That's the way I feel about it."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB