Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 22, 1995 TAG: 9510230051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Long
Richard Ruth raised his iced tea higher and higher over his head, as if somehow that would stop the drips from falling down his arm.
"Hunter! Hunter!" rasped the 82-year-old retired restaurateur, plodding down Mallory Street at a leaden clip. Every few steps, he'd switch his cup from hand to hand to shake off the spillage. "Hey there, Hunter! Hunter! Hey, Hunter!" Ruth continued.
The target of Ruth's hailings was state Sen. Hunter Andrews, who at that moment was conversing with a clerk-of-court candidate, walking determinedly down the center of the road and otherwise minding no one's business but his own. Andrews was part of the annual Phoebus Days parade, surrounded by hundreds of people, flanked by supporters carrying his picture on colored placards and being tailed by an old acquaintance shouting his name - none of whom seemed to have caught his eye.
"Whoa, I almost missed you," Ruth said, finally gripping Andrews' hand after a blocklong chase. "Keep up the good work, now."
"Why, hello," Andrews managed. "Thank you."
Any 32-year Virginia statesman would look a bit off kilter, hiking his belly out over a pair of khakis and hoofing the asphalt with a crowd of sprightly candy-throwers. With Hunter Andrews, perhaps doubly so.
But the 74-year-old lawyer - dean of the Democrats in the General Assembly - is this fall the target of a six-figure campaign-fund assault from state Republicans. The race has become a partisan bellwether of sorts among the politicos, and has forced the veteran Andrews to dust off his campaign repertoire.
"This is the fifth parade we've done," Andrews said in mid-October, after walking the short route through urban Hampton. Then he gave his eyes a slight roll, shuddered and twisted his lips into a wicked grin. "And it's the last," he said.
You see, Andrews isn't just any other senator: He's the majority leader. Pooh-bah supreme. Despite what the lieutenant governor might tell you, the guy who runs the whole shebang. Andrews is responsible for the Senate's daily schedule of votes, and he serves as floor leader and a type of moderator for the debate. Of special concern to Republicans is Andrews' role in assigning members to Senate committees, where most nuts-and-bolts legislating takes place.
As part of their party's quest to win control of the General Assembly, Republicans in Andrews' district have this year come up with a candidate who might actually win. His name is Marty Williams, vice mayor of Newport News and a skilled hand shaker and baby kisser.
The 1st Senate District, which includes York County, Poquoson and parts of Hampton and Newport News, would seem ripe for change. Voters there supported Republicans Oliver North, George Allen and George Bush in recent elections - just Williams' kind of company.
And Williams likes to show off his poll from a GOP-friendly research firm that shows him winning the Nov. 7 election. Democrats, of course, call that so much bunk.
Either way, the vigor with which a powerful, veteran senator like Andrews is shopping for votes in his hometown shows how hard-fought this election is. Republicans are confident they will win the three Senate seats needed to gain a majority: Democrats insist they'll keep control.
And the enormous amount of Republican money, advertising and old-fashioned stumping headed Williams' way highlights another phenomenon: individual Democrats being opposed by the whole of the Republican Party.
"I'm a human being, and I'm running scared," Andrews said after a candidates' forum Thursday night. "But that's because I don't know any other way to run."
The GOP's motivation is twofold. It wants control of the chamber that Andrews now rules, for sure. Andrews' $390,000 bankroll makes him the best-financed candidate in the state, so a cooperative effort is the GOP's best hope. Various Republican organizations will help Williams in the campaign's final weeks, with $100,000 or more in mailings, radio and television advertisements or cash.
Equally delicious to Republicans, though, is the thought of toppling the fabled Andrews ego. "It's no symbolic race; it's a serious attempt to take a seat," said Scott Leake, spokesman for the General Assembly Republicans. "But he is certainly a symbol for the arrogance that Republicans have suffered under for decades."
For instance, Senate rules say both parties should have committee representation proportionate to their overall status in the legislature. But Andrews' 15-member Senate Finance Committee has just three Republicans.
State Sen. Kevin Miller, R-Harrisonburg, a certified public accountant and 15-year assembly veteran, never has held a seat on the money committee, and he blames Andrews. Miller is unopposed this year and has just more than $5,000 in his bank account, but he gave $1,000 of it to Williams.
"I would borrow money to support Marty Williams," said Miller. "We all have our priorities, and I believe that beating Hunter should be one of them."
Democrats don't even bother trying to paint Andrews as some lovable patriarch. They know his reputation: He drops his political opponents as sure as he drops his R's.
But three decades of hard-nosed politics have earned him an array of victories, particularly as the Senate's chief budgeteer. Andrews forever boasts how he "found the funds" to pay for education programs, police protection or other popular state expenses.
His abrasive style, friends say, isn't just born of his politics, but stems from a passionate respect for the rules of a system in which he has earned considerable clout. Few senators know the chamber's rules of debate as well as Andrews. Probably none are so endearing of them.
"I always respected his intellect, and his sense of fairness whenever you dealt with him on an official and respectful basis," said Wiley Mitchell, a Norfolk attorney who served 14 years with Andrews as a Republican senator from Alexandria.
"But Hunter was certainly not someone you would expect to cut you any slack. He sort of personifies my understanding of the word `imperious.'''
Said Gail Nardi, spokeswoman for the General Assembly Democrats: "If you decide to play hardball with Hunter Andrews, you'd better wear a hard hat. He's everything you don't want in an opponent."
It seems Republicans took that to heart the last few elections. They offered scant opposition, if any, to Andrews. When Barry Epstein lost to Andrews by just 2,000 votes in 1991 - and with virtually no party support - Republicans were stunned. And energized.
This year, instead of a party nobody, the GOP offered a scrappy contender, one who broke into Newport News politics in 1990 and since has defined himself as a partisan conservative.
Williams has lived in Newport News all his life, and developed a share of political allies. With his mustachioed smile and sturdy gait, he has an everyman style of campaigning that comes hard to Andrews. During the Phoebus Days parade, for instance, the Andrews entourage was all on foot. Williams offered a bright red truck screaming "Williams For Senate" to the masses. Andrews gave a few winks or thumbs-up. Williams plunged into the crowd with two-fisted handshakes.
The Andrews/Williams campaign has been characterized by a certain political brawn. Both candidates can rattle off their opponents' vulnerabilities - and are quick to exploit them in campaign literature.
Andrews for years has dodged criticism about his position as Hampton commissioner of accounts. The job of settling estates - a part-time post filled by judges that Andrews helps name to the bench - has earned him perhaps $1 million or more in the last 12 years. A bill to require commissioners of accounts to report their gross income from the post passed 100-0 in the House of Delegates, but was killed by a Senate subcommittee after Andrews told members he didn't think it was necessary.
"It's a broken system that allows elected officials to use their position to guarantee their large incomes," Williams said earlier this fall.
Williams made statewide headlines in 1992 when he was secretly recorded during a telephone conversation saying he could "fix" school board appointments. The Newport News councilman also was criticized for voting on city matters that could have benefited his own business interests.
Andrews' campaign has spent thousands of dollars researching Williams' business dealings in various jobs he's held over the last decade.
"Vote `NO' on Marty Williams," reads an Andrews brochure. "He works too hard ... for himself."
More than anything, however, Williams has been criticized this fall for running a campaign thin on local concerns but heavy on recycled Republican rhetoric. He spouts much of the same vitriol about Virginia's crime rate, education system and economy. His proposed solutions are often familiar - giving lottery profits to local governments, or adopting tough statewide school standards.
Much of Williams' message - like that of many Republicans around the state - comes straight from Gov. George Allen.
And the 44-year-old husband and father, a Ferrum College dropout, is unapologetic.
"You should criticize the Democrats for governing like clones, not us for running like clones," he said.
"This race doesn't have to be complicated. It's about Virginia's future, where [Andrews has] led it and where I want it to go. He's doing it. He's the most powerful man in the Senate. He likes the way things are going, and I don't."
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by CNB