THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9410210597
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Independent candidate J. Marshall Coleman is ready to debate ``any time, any place, under any format'' with Democrat Charles S. Robb and Republican Oliver L. North. What would he do, Coleman was asked, if the date selected for the debate conflicted with one of his own engagements?
``I would just have to accommodate myself,'' he said.
Robb and North are not so amenable about a fourth debate before the Nov. 8 senatorial election.
Robb, while pressing North to debate, insists that Coleman should be excluded. The race, Robb asserts, is between him and North.
``Chuck Robb doesn't want to be compared to a normal person,'' Coleman retorted. ``He only wants to be compared to North.''
The fact is, he said, polls suggest that voters don't want Robb, and ``I am the only alternative to North.''
``Robb and North, two mute Marines, are trying to silence a third one. I don't intend to be shut up.''
North has said he would take part only if the three-way exchange were patterned on the Lincoln-Douglas debates. They used to run three hours or more.
``Nobody can lie that long,'' Coleman commented.
(Robb and North have been accusing each other of lying about their checkered pasts.)
The chief similarity between North's proposal and the Lincoln- Douglas debates is not the length, but that the candidates would speak more or less in turn to one another without a panel of reporters to pose questions.
After several gaffes in remarks last week, North spent much of this week dodging the press. And a panel would keep debate focused on issues, including ones that candidates might shun.
That, Coleman noted, has been the format for presidential debates and others since Kennedy and Nixon met in 1960.
``Wouldn't it be nice for voters to have a chance to look at the three candidates and take their measure one last time before going to the polls, rather than have the final two weeks dominated by paid advertisements?'' Coleman asked.
TV ads, he said, ``don't give anybody a frame of reference or an opportunity for give-and-take among the three of us, face to face.''
And with only Robb and North debating, ``it would just be a case of their saying, `Your scandal is worse than my scandal' - and that's not entirely edifying.''
Coleman was reached on his car telephone after a day in Norfolk, including time with the Trexler-Macrini radio talk show on WNIS.
A wrathful caller said that he and his wife were preparing to go in June to the GOP convention in Richmond to nominate North when he heard on TV that Republican Coleman would enter the race as an independent.
``HOW DARE YOU!'' the caller cried. Coleman, without missing a beat, said to host Tony Macrini, ``I put him down as undecided.''
Coleman said he joined the Republican Party as a youth to help bring about a competitive two-party system that would make for better government ``and enhance civic virtue, not destroy it.''
One's first loyalty, he said, is to the nation and the state, not the central committee of the GOP.
``How dare the Republican Party nominate Oliver North?'' he asked.
``The people can send a message to Washington through me without having to pay the terrible price of having Oliver North in the Senate.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
J. Marshall Coleman says Robb and North are ``two mute Marines . . .
trying to silence a third one.''
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES by CNB