THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406050090
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH: Medium
The winner, Oliver North, spoke as an outsider, a populist David ready to fell with his flip the Goliath bureaucracy inside Washington.
{REST} ``I've got a message for them!'' North cried. ``We're the real people. They work for us! We want our government back!'' Such sallies drew from his hearers full-throated roars of lions at feeding time.
At some point in the race someone is going to recall that North was the ultimate insider running in the White House complex a stealthy enterprise of disastrous results.
The loser Saturday, Jim Miller, saved his best speech for his last. Unlike North, who aimed his fire at the insiders and the media, Miller targeted U.S. Sen. Charles Robb, who happens to be the real foe.
Campaigning, Miller left the impression of an ungainly, at times naive, mediocrity. But then he was decent, a rarity. And mediocrity in stressful times can be quite restful.
Henry Doggett, his guide, noted during a break Saturday, he had advised Miller ``to keep in the back of his mind'' former Gov. Mills Godwin who, while restrained, mustered ``rolling thunder.''
In Miller, he observed, there was often a sense of emotions struggling with academic reserve. Miller flung out his right arm for emphasis in a sudden, jerky motion, as if it were rudely articulated on string, a hurried fly-casting for fish.
Miller's features, closely bunched in a broad, florid face, were those of an ordinary mortal betraying dismay at finding himself thrust, as in a dream, into public in his pajamas.
His tight little smile was that of Oliver Hardy pleading under pressure for understanding.
Unknown to most Virginians, Miller started tardily. That he had been Ronald Reagan's budget chief did not catch the media's fancy. Laboring along, he rode with Doggett from one radio talk show to another until he became as familiar as a guest host.
The Virginian-Pilot's Warren Fiske described Doggett as Huck Finn, which moved Doggett to exclaim to his boss, ``I guess that makes you the slave, Jim!''
Miller laughed, as he did often. In his earnest awkwardness, he was quite endearing, which accounted in part for the host of former Reagan aides who flocked to his side at fund-raisers.
In his opening speech Saturday, Miller recalled that he would call his mother and tell her how warmly he had been received in a lovely home full of supporters and then exclaim, ``Can you believe it, Momma!''
At which, he said, she would reply, ``No, I can't.''
In his concession speech, he was introduced to thunderous applause as ``a great Republican, a great Virginian, a great American!''
He had come from nowhere to win respect and affection.
``I accept your decision,'' he said and called for a united party.
Then he quoted a ballad: ``I am hurt, but I am not slain/ I'll lay me down and bleed a while/ and then I'll rise to fight again.''
And to the cheering thousands, he said, ``Momma now believes!''
As do many more.
Accepting the nomination, North managed to top even his first oration.
But that is matter for another story. Perhaps Monday.
{KEYWORDS} U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES REPUBLICAN PARTY REPUBLICAN CONVENTION RESULTS
by CNB