ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 1996 TAG: 9611060088
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITER
Democrat Mark Warner promised Virginians a farsighted vision and youthful change. He wanted to refire the government furnace with the world's new technologies. If voters were happy with the status quo, Warner kept telling them, they wouldn't want him as their representative in Washington.
That message nearly toppled the status quo Tuesday - Republican Sen. John Warner, a man who has occupied one of Virginia's U.S. Senate seats for 18 years, whom opinion surveys call the state's most popular politician. John Warner, who deserved credit for highways, sewer systems and thousands of defense-industry jobs, even a piece of Oliver North's defeat, clung to the slimmest of leads late Tuesday as vote counts from precencts around the state trickled in.
After several news networks and The Associated Press declared John Warner victorious, the senator delivered a victory speech and accepted a concession call from his opponent. But his reported lead withered to less than 25,000 votes at midnight, with 94 percent of the precincts reporting.
Expecting a comfortable victory, John Warner's aides promised to have the senator available for interviews as soon as the polls closed at 7 p.m. But he hadn't appeared by 9:30. He wanted ``a firmer feel for the numbers,'' his press secretary said.
The senator finally surfaced just before 10 p.m., said that his opponent had just called to concede, and then wished Mark Warner and his family well.
``I learned a lot from this campaign. It was tough - a tough two years,'' John Warner told supporters gathered in Northern Virginia. ``And I hope I emerged from it a much tougher senator. I fear no challenge. I fear no challenge to lead Virginia into the next century.''
Several miles away, as Mark Warner delivered a concession speech, the crowd started to boo. Mark Warner told them to stop and praised his opponent.
``I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we hope that salty old Virginia ham continues to bring home the bacon to the commonwealth,'' he said.
Then, halfway through his speech, someone shouted ``Mark! You're 50-50!'' and the crowd erupted in applause. Mark Warner calmed them again and said, ``I want to finish this, but if I have a chance to use version A, don't worry, I'll be back.''
If John Warner's lead holds, he will have won a fourth term, just as the polls always said he would. The only surprise would be the narrow margin. Turnout in Republican districts was perhaps squelched by Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole's poor odds.
Independent polls in the final weeks predicted John Warner would win by either a comfortable double-digit spread or an all-out landslide. Only Mark Warner's estimates predicted otherwise, and few thought that more than wishful thinking.
Interviews with voters around the state showed that a Mark Warner defeat would say little about him. Instead, it showed that his biggest campaign hurdle was perhaps insurmountable - as much as Virginians liked Mark, he was not John.
Said Shannon Little, voting in Alexandria, ``There are probably a dozen good reasons to vote for John Warner, and no reasons to vote against him.''
The 69-year-old senator's return to Washington would mean he bested everything even his friends could throw at him. When partisan Republicans branded him a traitor and tried to boot him in a summer primary, Warner survived 2-1. In a way, he campaigned this fall as a nonparty candidate, fetching support from Democrats who liked how he bucked the GOP, and Republicans who had nowhere else to turn.
Mark Warner spent more than $10 million of his own fortune trying to topple John Warner, and at times that seemed to irk the senator more than his opponent's criticism. He called it ``un-Virginian'' that a man would spend so much for a seat in Congress, and Tuesday, after voting in Alexandria, he promised a move on Capitol Hill to keep it from happening again.
But that can wait, John Warner said. The priority for the 105th Congress will be the federal budget, and a fix for the Medicare system that, he said, will otherwise be bankrupt in six years. Warner's expected victory also means he will lead the seapower subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, assuming Republicans control the Senate. That would give him sway over Navy shipbuilding projects that are the lifeblood of much of the state.
Virginians who remember the Oliver North-Charles Robb fracas two years ago probably didn't recognize what a U.S. Senate race in Virginia had become. With few exceptions, this year's race stayed clear of the political gutter.
Mark Warner stumped in every jurisdiction in the state, preaching his promises of educational innovation and fiscal common sense. Only toward the end did he become openly critical of his opponent.
But with John Warner, even the occasional campaign glitch seemed to bounce off like bullets on a battleship.
His 20-point lead faltered in the end, but so slowly that only the most optimistic of critics thought it mattered. The senator just plowed on throughout the state, showing off a stack of newspaper endorsements as if they were photos of the grandkids.
Landmark News Service writers Dale Eisman, Laura LaFay and Elizabeth Thiel contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Sen. John Warner\Holds on to U.S. Senate seat. 2. M.by CNBWarner. color. KEYWORDS: ELECTION