ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9606030093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
note: below
THE SENATOR ignored the political fray in Salem to ponder Tech's more subtle disciplines.
John Warner learned his lesson Saturday.
Fortunately for him, this one came at the hands of Virginia Tech scientists, not the Republicans gathered at the state GOP convention in Salem.
While Republican activists from across the state used their state convention as a platform to thunder against Warner and brand him a traitor to their party, the state's senior U.S. senator was 35 miles away, serenely touring the biotechnology center at Virginia Tech.
Accompanied by a delegation of Tech administrators - but without a politician in sight - Warner spent the morning peering into Petri dishes and getting a minilecture about the Tech-sponsored genetic research that is producing "transgenic" plants and animals capable of growing human proteins for use in medicine.
"I think this has the greatest economic potential of anything, next to aerospace, for this country," Warner enthused, as Tech officials nodded in agreement.
It was a decidedly apolitical stop designed to keep Warner well above - and away from - the fray in Salem. As such, it was a classic example of how Warner is hoping to use his incumbency to bypass the party activists who are angered by his refusal to back Oliver North's 1994 U.S. Senate candidacy and instead appeal to independent-minded voters to join in the June 11 Republican primary.
Saturday, his target was farmers and agri-business leaders. His visit to Tech was intended to showcase his interest in agricultural research. Then he flew off to Weyers Cave, in the heartland of Virginia's farming country, where he was joined by a group of agricultural leaders endorsing his candidacy. The biggest name: Robert Delano, former head of both the Virginia and American Farm Bureau Federations.
Both events gave Warner a chance to tout his position on the Senate Agriculture Committee - the first Virginian to sit on the panel in nearly 30 years. At Tech, he noted how that committee determines how federal research grants are allocated. In the Shenandoah Valley, where poultry is a leading industry, he talked up his role in persuading Russia to reverse its recent ban on importing American chicken.
If that weren't enough, Warner took a swipe at challenger Jim Miller, warning that the former federal budget director wants to abolish the Rural Electrification Administration and has called present farm subsidy programs "inefficient and immoral."
"You look pretty moral to me," Warner told the Tech scientists.
And at every opportunity, Warner repeated his invitation to "all Virginians" to cast a ballot in the GOP primary. "As United States senator, my first duty is to explain the law, and explain that they have the right to participate in that primary," Warner said.
Throughout, Warner insisted he wasn't paying any attention to the GOP convention going on at the same time - even though he brought it up several times during his Tech tour.
Once, when a slide presentation by a Blacksburg-based genetics company used an illustration of a balding, middle-aged man to make a point about how its products are used in medicine, Warner blurted out: "Kind of looks like a guy named Miller."
Another time, he jokingly lamented that his biotechnology tour was being overshadowed by events in Salem.
"All they're interested in today is Ollie North," Warner told Tech officials. "As far as they're concerned, I don't exist on the planet Earth."
That brought a quick response from Tracy Wilkins, director of the Fralin Biotechnology Center: "Quite a few people want to shake your hand because of Ollie North."
"As the days spin out," Warner replied, "there'll be quite a lot of that."
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB