Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 9, 1995 TAG: 9511090044
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But seven incumbent senators were defeated: four Democrats and three Republicans. The GOP gain of two seats in the upper house was achieved when Del. Steve Newman captured easily the Lynchburg-area seat left open by the retiring Democratic incumbent, Sen. Elliot Schewel.
Satisfaction with a Republican governor facing a Democratic legislature was even more evident in the House of Delegates, where both parties lost but a single incumbent and the division remained exactly as it was: 52 Democrats, 47 Republicans and one independent.
Even more remarkable was the fact that aside from those two House incumbents who lost, all others - of both parties - won by comfortable margins. There were 54 serving delegates - equally divided between the parties - re-elected with at least 55 percent of the vote, and many of these exceeded 60 percent.
This good showing by House incumbents may testify to the skill of Democrats in drawing the boundaries of legislative districts. By first looking to protect themselves from credible Republican challengers, they have succeeded in reducing to a minimum those seats that are truly competitive between the parties. In the much larger Senate districts, that process of protective reapportionment is more difficult, hence the far greater turnover of seats there, both now and four years ago.
Both parties can - and will - claim vindication, though Democrats might have a slightly better claim. Against the strongest Republican challenge to their historic control of the assembly ever mounted, they held on. But when the dust settled, the GOP held more seats than ever, continuing a trend of eating away at a Democratic majority that seemed all but unassailable a dozen years before.
The three incumbent GOP senators who lost had seats anchored in the older cities of Roanoke, Alexandria and Charlottesville. These are now likely to remain in Democratic hands for some considerable period. But the same can be said for the seats of the four defeated Democratic incumbents, plus the seat claimed by Newman. As presently drawn, these are districts with pronounced Republican leanings.
But three senior Democrats who survived strong Republican challengers - Sens. Madison Marye in Montgomery County, Joe Gartlan in Fairfax and Charles Waddell in Loundon - hold seats the GOP stands a good chance of claiming in the not unlikely event these venerable gentlemen decide to make this their last term. Of course, the political landscape in 1999, when senators are next on the ballot, may be changed beyond recognition.
The question of whether Allen misjudged this election will long be debated. He can rightly claim, "They went down while we went up; enough said." But that doesn't quite cover it. The governor's unprecedented effort on behalf of his party created the expectation that victory or defeat would be measured by whether Republicans won control of at least one legislative house.
But considering the burdens of a bold and controversial incumbency - both in his own administration and with the GOP majority in Congress - the governor didn't come out of this badly. In politics, you always look to where the strongest emotions lie. In this election, logically, they resided with voters more likely to vote Democratic.
That said, the governor might have been better advised to take a somewhat lower personal profile in this election, and let some positive trends since he took office speak for themselves.
Whether he had anything to do with it or not, crime is down and jobs are up. There have been several major industrial-development coups for Virginia on Allen's watch, such as Motorola's choice of Goochland County for its newest high-tech venture. These would have lent themselves nicely to TV ads touting the governor's pro-jobs conservatism. Voters could have far more easily identified with something tangible like this than lottery profits, parental notification or charter schools.
And Democrats shouldn't have gone unanswered on education. That famous $92 million cut they kept harping on - whether sensible or not - was in the context of granting citizens significant tax relief, and spending on education has gone up under Allen. Merely informing voters of the $7 billion a year we're now spending on public schools - and how it has grown - might have blunted the assumption the state is starving education.
By losing seats instead of gaining them, it will be hard for Democrats to claim legitimately that Allen's mandate has been withdrawn. In the gingerly way they approached the governor in this campaign, Democrats tacitly conceded his continuing personal popularity.
It would be a pipe dream now to expect the elephant to lie down with the donkey. Having opposed Allen with all their might and narrowly prevailed, Democrats can be expected to exploit every possible advantage leading up to the gubernatorial election, which won't be held for two years but now begins in earnest. And whatever you may think of Allen, he is dedicated to his party and the conservative philosophy with which it is now almost exclusively identified. He will continue on his opponents' track, bearing with him what he hopes will be the sword of justice in 1997.
In sum, an election full of sound and fury that changed little. The issues both parties brought to the contest had a dismaying unreality to them, perhaps. Voters reacted by concluding their safest course was to leave things almost exactly where they were when it all began.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
by CNB