ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 14, 1995 TAG: 9512140028
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-17 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ray L. Garland
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
SIX MONTHS from now, Virginians so inclined will go to the polls to choose between John Warner and James Miller for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.
In granting Warner's request for the nomination to be decided by primary, the GOP state central committee - dominated by the senator's detractors - did the only thing it reasonably could do.
Back in '89, when Warner was still in fair standing with the faithful, he asked for and received a primary. It was grudgingly given. But it turns out the senator had more than his third-term election in 1990 in mind. He knew, as apparently they did not, that state law gave a U.S. senator once nominated by primary the right to insist upon the same at the next election. Incumbent members of the General Assembly have long enjoyed the privilege of choosing to be nominated by primary or convention.
As it happened, Warner filed petitions for a primary that wasn't held because no Republican challenger emerged. For that matter, neither did any Democrat. But in the eyes of the law, he had been nominated by primary.
Assured he could ever avoid having to fight for renomination in a convention, which might be controlled by those diehard Republicans who always wondered if his gods were their gods, gave the senator freedom to establish his bona fides as a man who puts principle above party.
The very odd thing about it is the extent to which Warner toes the party line. If you study his record in the Senate, you will find he supports the Republican position close to 90 percent of the time. But he does it quietly, never in the vanguard of those denouncing deficits, taxes and moral rot. And when Democrats are in hot pursuit of points, as in the case of the nomination of Robert Bork for the Supreme Court in 1987, Warner either deserts his party or is conspicuous by his absence from the firing line.
But this was as nothing compared to his open refusal to support Michael Farris for lieutenant governor on George Allen's ticket in 1993, or Oliver North for U.S. senator against Charles Robb last year. Republicans took particular offense at Warner's gratuitous wounding of Farris at a crucial moment in the '93 campaign, fearing (wrongly, as it proved) that it could harm the party's chance of ending a 12-year shutout at the governor's mansion.
Even as Warner piously claimed he didn't know enough about Farris even to extend a routine handshake, the far more important battle for the senatorial nomination the following year was in progress. The way to make certain he could exert no positive influence in persuading the party to nominate James Miller, the distinguished if bland economist who had served President Reagan in two high posts, instead of North, was by repudiating Farris.
Once Farris went down, there was no way Warner could be more than a negative influence for Miller, whom he claimed to be supporting. That was compounded when Warner loudly proclaimed North unfit to serve in the Senate, while maintaining total silence on Robb's catalog of sin.
If Warner was sincere in those numerous instances where he and Robb took opposite sides on important issues, he might have told Republicans to nominate a candidate who could beat Robb, giving him a conservative soulmate in the Senate. That would have gone down well among the party faithful. But it's far from certain Warner wanted Robb out. By enlisting Marshall Coleman as a hopeless independent Republican after North won the nomination, Warner took out extra insurance on the return of the Democratic incumbent.
In sum, Warner was right in seeing North as a terrible candidate, but wrong in the method by which he went about securing his defeat. Had he offered Farris even a tepid endorsement and been prepared to say where Robb was wrong on policy - leaving the more personal charges entirely alone - it is entirely likely he and Miller would now be colleagues instead of antagonists.
While the senator has a fight on his hands, he must be strongly favored to prevail. For one thing, Virginians do not register by party and are free to enter a primary that will attract close to a half-million voters. For all his knowledge of the federal government, Miller is still scarcely known and hardly the very model of a modern politician.
There is also the question of money. A strong showing in this primary will require at least $3 million. Warner will have that much and more. Indeed, he already has a sizable war chest.
There is national conservative money out there for Miller - lots of it, as North proved - but it must be convinced he has a chance to win. If Warner isn't their poster boy, at least they have no real beef with his voting record. And conservatives will be nervous about beating Warner if it means giving a liberal Democrat a better chance of claiming the seat.
It's also a fact that Miller's main issues of ending wasteful spending and balancing the budget were perfect for 1994, but may be less appropriate in the environment now unfolding. The voters - ever fickle - no sooner endorsed a regimen of fiscal restraint than they worried it might inconvenience them personally. By never identifying with the politics of austerity, but always with the gifts a benevolent government owed the people, Warner may claim his dividend when he needs it most.
Assuming he can raise the money, Miller can win the primary provided he confronts directly the danger of postponing the day of reckoning on entitlements. He will not win by harping on Warner's perfidy to party. That will only endear the senator to those who ignorantly insist that parties are irrelevant - as if the organization and discipline Americans prize in every other endeavor has no legitimate role in politics, arguably the most important endeavor of all.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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