THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406050088
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID M. POOLE AND ALEC KLEIN, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH: RICHMOND
``Washington,'' North said, ``has gutted our nation's defense and surrendered our sovereignty to the United Nations.''
{REST} ``Yes!'' Quillen cried.
``This is wrong,'' North said.
``Yes, it is!'' Quillen said.
``Now it is time to stand for what is right.''
``This is it!''
``But it won't be easy.''
``No, it won't!''
Quillen was so swept up in the moment, it seemed he might cast aside his walker and dance a jig to the Marine Corps Hymn.
All around him it was the same, a barely controlled revivalistic fervor that ultimately swept North to the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in a crusade to overthrow what his followers see as a morally and philosophically bankrupt U.S. Congress.
Nowhere was emotion stronger at the GOP convention than in delegations from rural areas west of Richmond.
In fact, North would have lost the nomination to James C. Miller III if not for a 941-vote margin in the Southside, Shenandoah Valley and the far Southwest.
Quillen, who has been coming to GOP conventions since the late Ted Dalton created the modern Republican Party in the 1950s, said he had never been so excited by a candidate.
``Liberalism needs to be put down,'' he said. ``We can change this thing. We'll stop it. We'll change it. Ollie can put down those liberals.''
Ollie's army of supporters wore their allegiance like a badge of honor, or, in the case of 59-year-old Vietnam vet Glyndon A. Logsdon, as a sticker on the forehead.
``I would get in a foxhole with this guy. I trust him,'' said the Virginia Beach resident. ``He's got the pulse of the guys in the trenches. He thinks like us.''
World War II veteran Charles McKenna of Fluvanna County walked around with an orange North bumper sticker across the back of his sport jacket. ``Miller's a good man, but he's a Washington insider,'' he said. ``That's what we don't need. (North's) for the little man, the hard-working people.''
Raved 25-year-old Danielle A. LaFrance, of Chesapeake, ``I think Ollie North sticks to his guns. He does what he thinks is right, no matter what the consequences are. He's a Christian. He's a real family man.''
Which is far from how the conventioneers viewed leaders in the Democratic party, like incumbent Sen. Charles S. Robb, North's likely adversary in the fall.
``I think there's a basic bottom-line character flaw in Robb's personality,'' said Patrick J. McKenna, a 37-year-old attorney.
While vendors hawked ``Rush Limbaugh for president'' T-shirts down the convention aisles, others outside the Coliseum were capitalizing on disgust at the First Family with an ``Impeach Hillary'' T-shirt and a red bumper sticker that read:
``Clinton's the answer? It must be a stupid question.''
Not all Miller supporters saw the common ground. Few stayed around to hear North's victory speech or Miller's appeal for party unity.
Streaming out of the muggy Richmond Coliseum after the final vote was announced, many said they were uncertain if they could support North in November.
``It's going to be awful difficult to keep the party united,'' said Mike Alford, a former Portsmouth schools superintendent. Once a North supporter who had switched to backing Miller, Alford said he didn't know how he would vote now: ``I've got to think about it.''
Such disaffected Republicans were met outside by volunteers for Democrat Virgil Goode, a conservative state legislator from Rocky Mount who is challenging Robb in a June 14 Democratic primary.
One Miller supporter, Greg Eanes of Crewe, already had donned a Goode pin.
Eanes, the GOP chairman for the area around Nottoway County, predicted North's three felony convictions from his role in the Iran-Contra affair will sink him in the general election, even though the convictions were overturned on a technicality.
``That's just like a rapist who wasn't read his rights - guilty but free,'' Eanes said. ``The party turned its back on me by nominating a common criminal.''
{KEYWORDS} REPUBLICAN CONVENTION REPUBLICAN PARTY U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA RESULTS
by CNB