ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605280044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
REPUBLICAN EVENTS in Western Virginia have become a hotbed for a conservative rebellion against Sen. John Warner. But does that really mean Jim Miller will run up his score in this part of the state?
In what was once the heartland of Virginia Republicans, the very mention of John Warner's name can bring a partisan crowd to its feet.
Unfortunately for the three-term senator, that ovation these days is usually accompanied by jeers and catcalls.
At regional party conventions in Virginia's western corner the past few weekends, Warner surrogates have been heckled and hooted down. "Traitor!" some shouted at the 5th District GOP convention in Bedford County, so loudly that the convention chairman had trouble gaveling the place to order. "Betrayal!" "Go home!" "We'd rather have Liz."
These outbursts haven't been from just a raucous few, either. At the GOP's 5th, 6th and 9th congressional district conventions, the vast majority of delegates wore stickers for Warner's challenger, former federal budget director Jim Miller. Only a handful of delegates were openly displaying their support for Warner.
"I think there are people here who support him but don't want to cause any problems," said Marilyn Lusser, a Warner backer from Roanoke County, at last weekend's 6th District convention in Bridgewater. "It's a quiet campaign, if you know what I mean." And for good reason.
The depth of anger toward the party's senior senator is difficult to overstate. "The activists, they want to go out and kill Warner," says Ray Schneider, a GOP activist from Harrisonburg. "I wouldn't vote for Warner for dog-catcher on a good day." Don Calaman of Martinsville has another animal in mind: "I wouldn't trust John Warner with my cat, because he comes around and lies to us."
The reason many Republican activists now despise their senior senator is well documented: Warner, never a favorite among conservatives, failed to back the two most conservative nominees the party has put forward in recent years. He declined to endorse Mike Farris, the home-school advocate who was the party's nominee for lieutenant governor in 1993, and he recruited an independent Senate candidate in 1994 rather than support North, a principal figure in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages affair.
What's less certain as the June 11 Republican primary approaches is the breadth of this anger - is it enough to make Warner the first Virginia senator toppled in a primary election in 30 years?
Warner has brushed off the demonstrations against him at Republican events this spring with a broad swipe. "This party is half a million Republicans in this state," Warner declared last weekend, "not these 300 or 400 that gather on these Saturday afternoons, or the few thousand that go to these conventions."
A few days later, Warner followed up by announcing he won't speak at the party's state convention in Salem on Friday and Saturday, where the main item of business will be to elect a new state party chairman. Warner says there's no need for him to speak; Miller's campaign contends he's afraid of being booed and charged that Warner had committed a "slur" against the party's rank-and-file.
Indeed, the real question on June 11 may be one that's not on the primary ballot, but one which underlies the entire Warner-Miller primary race: Who really speaks for Virginia Republican Party?
Is it the new generation of conservative activists who have come to dominate local party committees, who supply the bulk of the grass-roots organizers and who control the party's conventions? Or can Warner somehow organize an unorganized mass of voters who have cast ballots for Republicans but never participated in a GOP event, and whose political center of gravity is presumed to be closer to that of the general public?
Perhaps nowhere is this question more pertinent than in Western Virginia, where pro-Miller and anti-Warner sentiment has been the most vocal - and the most visible.
Warner's strategists concede that their own polls show Miller leading in Western Virginia, but contend the real campaign will take place in the populous suburbs of Northern Virginia and military-minded Tidewater, where they're counting on Warner's stature as the second-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee to carry the day.
At last weekend's 6th District convention, former state party chairman Don Huffman of Roanoke needled Warner for not showing up at party events in Western Virginia this spring. He noted that when Warner has ventured out to Republican meetings, they've been ones in Northern Virginia and Tidewater "where he thinks he'll be safe." And why wouldn't Warner be "safe" politically in Western Virginia? "This is conservative country," Huffman said.
Yet the notion that Western Virginia anchors the state Republican Party's right wing itself represents a fundamental realignment in Virginia politics. Once, the region west of the Blue Ridge was a bastion of moderate "mountain valley" Republicans - who at the time were the only Republicans in a state ruled by conservative Democrats. It was these "mountain valley" Republicans who produced the state's first GOP congressmen in modern times (William Wampler of Bristol and Richard Poff of Radford in 1952) and the state's first GOP governor (Linwood Holton of Roanoke in 1969).
But over the past decades, conservative activists - many of them animated by social issues such as abortion and drawn into politics by the campaigns of Pat Robertson, Mike Farris and Oliver North - have swelled the party's ranks, overwhelming or displacing the moderate leadership.
Their strength was first seen in Western Virginia in 1982 when conservative activists denied the 6th District congressional nomination to front-runner Ray Garland of Roanoke on the grounds that he was insufficiently attentive to their issues. This spring's ruckus in Franklin County, where conservatives packed a meeting to oust party chairman Carthan Currin, a prominent Warner supporter, was merely the latest jolt in the party's shift to the right.
A look at the Republican Party in Western Virginia this spring would seem to give Warner little hope in the part of the state that once would have been a moderate's natural base in a fight against a conservative challenger:
In Botetourt County, "we're taking the Warner campaign underground," Warner supporter Robert Platz says. "There doesn't seem to be any support as far as the committee is concerned."
In Staunton, longtime GOP activist Pearl Klotz says she knows of only two Warner supporters on a city committee that numbers more than 30 people.
And Roanoke County Republican Chairman Hugh Key says Warner is almost a nonentity to the people who now run the party in the county. "At the executive committee meeting in January, I asked who are the Warner staffers in the Roanoke Valley and nobody knew a single name. Nobody knew a single name. That tells you how much Mr. Warner cares about Republicans in the Roanoke Valley, when his staff people are not known to the really strong center of the Republican Party, the elected leadership."
So how can Warner hope to win when his support appears nonexistent among Republican workers? His advisers make the case that just because the party activists have turned against Warner doesn't mean all Republican voters have.
"Our challenge is to get the people who have voted for the Bob Goodlattes and the George Allens, but who may have never participated in a Republican convention, to vote in the primary," Warner consultant Randy Hinaman says.
To some extent, Warner and Miller aren't even appealing to the same types of voters. One telling example came a few weeks ago, when both candidates passed through Roanoke on the same day. Miller spoke to party activists at the home of city Republican Chairman Ralph Smith, a key leader and fund-raiser from the GOP's conservative wing. Warner, meanwhile, spoke to retired military officers at the Hotel Roanoke.
It's a pattern repeated throughout Western Virginia - and the rest of the state, as well.
Miller is targeting constituencies known for being able to mobilize large numbers of activists to party events - playing up his endorsement by the National Rifle Association and spending his Sundays worshiping at conservative churches with politically active congregations.
Warner, by contrast, is running a Chamber of Commerce campaign designed to appeal to the business community and moderate voters motivated by practical concerns, not philosophical ones. In Western Virginia, that means talking up his role in routing Interstate 73 through Western Virginia, touting his support for the Appalachian Regional Commission, cutting ribbons at public works projects funded during his tenure.
Warner's approach has further alienated many Republican activists, who grumble that he's trying to win by going "outside" the party. "Warner can't win without some Democratic crossover," says Schneider, the Harrisonburg Republican.
This isn't an election where undecided voters will make the difference. Instead, says GOP activist Trixie Averill of Roanoke County, "it's going to really be a matter of who turns out to vote - that's what it all turns on." A low turnout, dominated by party activists, helps Miller; a high turnout, swelled by more moderate voters, helps Warner.
Even if he wins, though, Warner will still have to deal with his low standing among Republican workers. At the 6th District convention, Averill found symbolism in the way candidates were pushing their literature: most GOP hopefuls had set up shop at a long row of adjoining tables, but Warner's workers opted for a separate display. "You see all those tables?" she asked. "You see where Warner is, isolated, separate from Republicans, by himself? He put himself in that corner."
Staff writer Richard Foster contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Long : 160 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESSby CNB