THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 20, 1994 TAG: 9407200020
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Realpolitik
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HOT SPRINGS LENGTH: Long : 127 lines
Beginning today, staff writer Kerry Dougherty will be filing occasional dispatches on Virginia's '94 U.S. Senate race. Her observations for Realpolitik will take readers along to hear what the candidates and voters are saying, sometimes when the microphone is on - but usually when it's off. Realpolitik will appear in The Daily Break.
PETER GARLAND, barefoot, bald and 7 months old, offered his assessment of the U.S. Senate candidates' debate Saturday night in the bowels of the magnificent Homestead resort.
No sooner had Marshall Coleman begun to opine on the role of women in the military than Garland let loose with a loud, wet raspberry.
Bleech!
Lawyers in the rear of the audience began to laugh. One said loudly, ``My sentiments exactly.''
The attorneys were angry. Several weeks before the U.S. Senate debate at the annual Virginia Bar Association conference, each lawyer had received an orange postcard saying that the four-way free-for-all had been moved from 9:30 a.m. Saturday to 8:30 p.m.
No explanation was offered for the change.
The lawyers later learned that Oliver North's campaign had demanded the time change, effectively ruining what is always a festive evening at the elegant retreat and forcing the 500 bar association members and spouses to jockey for early reservations in the hotel's dining room. An overflow dining room was finally set up to handle the agitated attorneys.
North, who repeatedly ridicules lawyers and refers derisively to his opponents for the Senate as ``these three lawyers,'' did nothing to endear himself to the hostile audience when he called - not once but twice - for tort reform.
Afterward, North downplayed his antagonism toward attorneys.
``I don't hate lawyers,'' he said, jogging behind campaign workers rushing him to a post-debate reception, ``I just think there are too doggone many of them in government.''
But during the closing minutes of the debate, Doug Wilder reminded North that he was heavily in debt to the legal profession.
``Ollie North, thank God there are lawyers. You might not be here,'' Wilder said, as the audience spontaneously violated the no-applause rule.
It was an evening full of inanities.
In response to a question about the role of women in military combat, Wilder took a bold stand against pregnant women in combat.
Robb accused Wilder of flip-flopping on the striker-replacement issue, saying he had a copy of Wilder's previous statements in his room.
``The debate isn't in your room, Chuck, it's down here,'' Wilder shot back.
You'd expect a question about whether the candidates smoked cigarettes to elicit a straight answer. Not likely. North never replied to it. Robb said he had not been a smoker ``for the first 55 years of my life'' leaving room, presumably, for taking up the habit later. Coleman answered that he was not a smoker but was able to ``recognize tobacco when I see it,'' a reference to the parties Robb attended at which cocaine was reportedly used. Wilder said he had been a smoker ``some years ago.''
Through it all, young Peter Garland managed to hold his tongue - until Marshall Coleman again began to speak. This time, Coleman introduced a bit of jingoism: ``I'm a native Virginian, so is Doug Wilder, and so are many of you,'' he said pointedly as the two come-heres looked on.
``BLEECHH,'' erupted Garland, louder than before, drawing a spattering of applause in the back of the room.
The debate was barely half over when members of the formally dressed audience began tiptoeing out the back door, having spent enough of their Saturday evening at the $200-a-night-and-up Homestead listening to politicians.
The debate ended just minutes before most newspaper and television deadlines, forcing the spin doctors into overdrive.
Campaign workers, armed with forced smiles and grips of steel, seized reporters by the elbows, propelling them toward their candidates while spinning a story about how the consensus was that their candidate had won.
A handful of academics who offer themselves as analysts had hovered around the back of the hall during the debate. When it ended, they dove into the fray, straightened their ties and prepared to face the television cameras.
``Dr. Bob, there's Dr. Bob,'' yelled one Richmond television crew as they spied Dr. Robert E. Denton, chairman of communication studies at Virginia Tech.
Soon the lights were trained on Denton, who pronounced Wilder the winner.
``Doug Wilder was the star of the show,'' he declared. ``He took control, set the pace all evening.''
Tall, dark, mustachioed Larry J. Sabato, the dean of the political analysts and a political scientist from the University of Virginia, also saw Wilder as the quickest wit of the debate but praised Coleman for being articulate.
Coleman seemed intoxicated by the attention.
``Everybody's saying I won, I can't argue with that,'' he declared, smiling broadly and playing an imaginary violin when when asked if the three-on-one debate had been fair to Robb. ``There's a reason he has three opponents. He's done a lousy job.''
Wilder, too, was ebullient.
``They're saying I won,'' grinned Wilder. ``I was the only one who wanted to be straightforward, who wanted to talk about things people care about, like crime.''
A boy, plastered with Ollie North stickers, approached the former governor and whispered in his ear.
``Son, would you like to repeat what you just told me?'' he asked, beaming.
``I said if I were old enough I'd vote for him,'' the boy said shyly, admitting his parents were North supporters.
``How old are you?'' Wilder asked, hugging the child.
``Twelve,'' he replied.
``I'm in favor of lowering the voting age to 11,'' Wilder declared.
The best spin doctors in the world couldn't convince even Chuck Robb's best friend that the senator had won the debate.
``It was three against one all night,'' complained a flushed Robb as he tried to walk and talk to the media after the debate, but kept stopping. ``It's absolutely unheard of to have three candidates all running against one. It's unwieldy . . . What makes it worse is I'm not only the incumbent, I'm the front-runner.''
So it would actually be better for Robb if he were behind in the polls?
``Yes. Well, no,'' he said, stopping at the foot of the carpeted Homestead stairway. ``Actually when the polls came out this week and my staff was so happy I cautioned them that being in front was going to make me more of a target.''
Robb shrugged, ``I think the general assessment tonight was that the debate was very boring.''
Seven month old Peter Garland might agree.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA DEBATE by CNB