ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 8, 1996 TAG: 9606090049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: ELECTION '96
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
NOTE: LEDE
SEN. JOHN WARNER, bypassing angry Republican activists, is appealing to other conservative-minded voters who aren't involved in the GOP to turn out in Tuesday's primary. But is anyone paying attention?
Tom Fame doesn't expect any big surprises from next week's Republican primary.
"John Warner has been in a long time, and maybe people are happy with him," he said. "You see Bob Dole out with him, and he's not going to put his face next to a loser."
Fame was standing in the ballroom of the Salem Civic Center, where less than a week earlier three out of four delegates to the Republican state convention voted in a straw poll for Jim Miller over Warner. The partisan slogans and catcalls were gone; in their place was a piano pounding out a Barbra Streisand song. As the music switched to a bouncier tune, voices joined in a rousing rendition of "Smile and the World Smiles with You."
The Salem Rotary Club was holding its weekly lunch meeting. There were a good number of Rotarian Republicans in the house, but there was little talk of the coming primary over the fare of prime rib and broccoli.
"I read about it in the paper and I said, 'My gosh, there's a vote coming up,' and I didn't know anything about it,'' Fame said.
Still, he said he'll probably vote Tuesday.
"I think most Rotary Club members are more prone to vote than the general population," said John Rodman, a visiting Rotarian from the Roanoke Valley chapter. "Overall, I'm not sure people get that fired up on an election till it gets closer to Election Day. The primary is considered kind of an inside thing, which really it isn't. They certainly do have a stake in it. It's important."
It's particularly important, he said, because Virginians may wake up Wednesday morning and discover they've lost their senior senator.
"He's a very key person," Rodman said. "Losing his influence will be detrimental to Virginia."
So why aren't people talking about the primary?
A few hours earlier, there was plenty of talk as members of the Brambleton Avenue Hardee's Breakfast Club convened. The club boasts 56 members, with about half that number showing up on any given morning in their baseball caps, sneakers and golf shirts to enjoy coffee, biscuits and conversation. But they weren't talking about the primary, either.
"People just got wore out with these elections," Hootey Slusher said. "You've got to go vote, but as far as discussing it, they don't have anything to say about it. I'm retired. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me."
What do they talk about instead?
"Women ... when women ain't around," said Woody Goad, a retired postal worker.
"We really work the politics over real good," added John Blankenship. "Not religion. We don't talk about religion. Politics and girls."
Not to mention grandchildren, David Letterman's most recent monologue, the weather, the downfall of the modern educational and judicial systems, Medicare, automobiles and the health problems of family and friends.
But when the conversation turns to politics, it's more likely to be about Ike, LBJ and JFK than Warner and Miller.
Try to coax them into talking about the primary, and they soon veer off on another subject: Elizabeth Taylor.
"I'm just jealous and envious of Senator Warner because he was married to Liz at one time," said one man. That confession out in the open, he decided against revealing his name.
Liz won't be on the ballot Tuesday, but the breakfast club plans to vote anyway.
"I vote every time they open the door," Blankenship said. "It's a Republican primary, but I guess anybody can vote in it."
In fact, Darrell Branstetter has already voted absentee. The most political member of the club, he ran for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate himself back in 1970. He pulls a tattered campaign pamphlet from his wallet. The issues of the day included student riots, peace and Vietnam.
Twenty-five years ago, the Republicans were the hawks, and Branstetter voted for Warner. Yes, Warner is a big guy on the Senate Armed Services Committee, but today, Branstetter said, Republicans are the anti-waste party, and military spending is part of the problem.
A Miller Republican, Branstetter doesn't think much of his Democratic coffee mates' plans to participate in the primary.
"It's oranges and apples," he said. "You should be loyal to your orange party."
"I'm a Democrat," Slusher said. "That don't make no difference. I'm going to vote for Warner."
The conversation reminded Goad of his first vote in a Republican primary. It was 1952. A member of his own church challenged Goad's right to vote, because his father was a Democrat.
"I said, 'Well, my momma was a Republican. I'm in the middle, buster,''' he recalled.
A case of the mumps had kept him away from the polls four years earlier when Harry Truman stunned political pundits by defeating Thomas Dewey, so Goad wasn't about to walk away under fire.
But he and his friends realize many people won't go to the polls next week, even though they won't have to argue their way into the voting booth. Most members of the breakfast club share the common experience of being shipped far away from their families and friends as young men to fight against Nazism and imperialism. For them, Adolph Hitler isn't some guy on the Arts & Entertainment Channel. He's a personal enemy. Democracy isn't something they studied in school. It's something they've killed for, and risked their lives for.
"You've got a vote," Goad said. "If you don't exercise it, you can't complain."
"I think after a while people get tired of politics all the time," Branstetter said.
"They're not interested in voting on anything, I don't think," Blankenship added.
Liz's secretive admirer squirmed in silence, his urge to say something stifled by his previous revelation. Finally, he snatched up a napkin, scribbled something on it with his pen and held it up. It read: APATHY.
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. 1. Members of the Brambletonby CNBAvenue Hardee's Breakfast Club get together every morning to
socialize and chat. color. (headshots) 2. Fame. 3. Rodman. KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESS