ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607190028
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
MAYBE THE U.S. Senate race this year in Virginia will degenerate into dreary name-calling and irrelevant mudslinging. Too many campaign dollars are yet to be spent for a guarantee that it won't.
But with millions already spent by incumbent Sen. John Warner, the Republican nominee, and Mark Warner, the Democrats' choice, it's a good sign that the race so far is shaping up as the kind of contest in which Virginians might actually be able to take a measure of pride, the kind that might actually produce light as well as heat.
At the least, it should stand in sharp and happy contrast to the lesser-of-evils Senate election two years ago between Charles Robb and Oliver North.
For starters, and unlike the '94 election, neither of the two Warners carries the baggage of public scandal. Nor is there reason for either candidate to regard the election as apocalyptic, to regard political defeat as personal disgrace or political victory as an ideological watershed.
Mark Warner already has achieved success in the private sector as a cellular-phone entrepreneur. If he gets fewer votes than John Warner on Election Day, he need not take it as invalidation of his worth as a human being. In the perhaps less likely event that John Warner loses, he can still take pride in a long and distinguished political career, including most recently his successful rescue of the Virginia GOP from the excesses of the extreme right.
The Warners also have differences to highlight, in background and viewpoint, so that voters can make an informed choice. Once Mark Warner has finished introducing himself in TV ads, he and John Warner can start instructively citing contrasts on points that matter.
Mark Warner can point to his relative youthfulness and his private-sector experience in high tech as an indication that he would be a more future-oriented senator. As he points out, the information revolution is happening anyway: The question is whether policymakers can help manage its effects so big chunks of the population won't be left behind.
John Warner can counter that his 18 years in the Senate, and public service before that as secretary of the Navy, are indication of his reliability and tested ability to get things done - including bringing home the defense-dollar bacon.
John Warner is a Republican whose re-election could help ensure that the GOP continues to control the Senate; Mark Warner is a Democrat whose election would increase the chances of a return of Senate control to the Democratic Party.
The two Warners can examine each other's positions, elaborate differences and defend their own stances on issues like budget priorities, environmental protection, abortion rights and campaign-finance reform.
Virginia, and America, have had enough of candidates who run for personal vindication, or for whom politics is a crusade of the forces of light against the forces of darkness, or whose appeal is to the politics of unthinking resentment. This campaign has begun on a more intelligent plane than that. May it stay there.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESSby CNB