THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 23, 1994 TAG: 9410230067
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Compiled by staff writer Keith Monroe with assistance by staff
researcher Peggy Earle
LENGTH: Long : 141 lines
Now that the candidates are exchanging televised character critiques, the Virginia Senate race has turned into Sex, Lies and Videotape. Various pundits, columnists and reporters from around the country continue to comment on the race. Many of the remarks focus on the mesmerizing figure of Oliver L. North. And increasingly, those following the race are trying to handicap it.
Lloyd Grove caught the spirit of the thing in a Washington Post report (10/15).
``This week, as the Senate race in Virginia erupted in televised Armageddon. . . . Robb himself seemed oddly removed from the tumult, like a passerby happening upon a grisly accident.
``He's been reduced, more or less, to a single inglorious qualification, and Robb smiled ruefully as he stated it: `I'm the only person who actually stands between Ollie North and the United States Senate.'
``Yet many Virginia Democrats are in a panic over Robb's seemingly half-hearted attempts to take on his challenger, his reluctance to do what they know must be done: Carve Ollie up like a Smithfield ham.''
Chris Morris of the Canadian Press (10/11) acknowledges that North is in tune with an increasingly conservative spirit: ``He's pro-hunting; pro-guns; anti-abortion; anti-liberal. . . . He is still the gung-ho Marine whose boyish good looks and chestful of medals made patriotic hearts flutter'' in testimony before Congress. Norris quotes a Richmond business man as saying ``It sells. He's just the all-American boy. But then again everyone thought Chuck Robb was as well. I think what you have here is a choice between two failed Boy Scouts.''
John Young of the Waco Tribune-Herald (10/13) is among those who think Robb will nevertheless prevail. Why? He tells of a friend who surfaced from the Vienna, Va., Metro station to find herself ``face-to-face, eye-to-steely blue-eye, with the Republican nominee for Senate, Oliver North.
``There he was, `smaller than life,' as she put it, `and grayer, too.' She expected a towering, youthful figure with a chest thrust out to here. Towering, he was not.
``And North's presence was not as commanding as she thought, either. She stepped to the side and watched as commuters came within flesh-pressing distance, and she noted with amazement how many swerved out of North's reach and averted their gaze.''
Young believes that with Wilder out of the race, ``the battle will be won in the political center. North can't rely on a religious-right fringe and Republican blue-bloods. He has to convince the average Joe coming off the Metro. Fat chance. . .
``North must convince that individual that he's a man to be trusted, not some Lone Ranger who takes himself to be the law north, south, east and west of the Pecos. Just following orders.''
Yet, Young concludes that ``there's never been a more clear example of a candidate who, by his actions, has discredited himself in claiming to honor the Constitution and the institution in which he seeks to serve.
``It should be no surprise, then, to see people swerve out of his way at the subway station.''
By contrast, Sandy Grady, Washington columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote (10/13) that North has ``an excellent chance of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate to which he once lied - a victory his enemies say would be like Mike Tyson joining a girl's choir.''
But Grady only gives North the edge ``if his aides use duct tape - or better, welding - to clamp Oliver North's jaws for the next three weeks.
``Exaggeration and self-dramatization have always been to Ollie what double martinis are to an alcoholic. He can't get enough of them. . . . ''
Grady believes North's ``motormouth bravado now threatens his shot at the Senate.
``Candidate North keeps juggling the truth like a hand grenade until it blows up.'' Grady thinks North is ``cut in the mold of his one-time hero, Reagan: Superb when following a right-wing script, dangerously reckless when he wings it.''
In short, ``Ollie may yet talk himself into big trouble. And that's no lie.''
Richard Rorty, a philosophy professor at the University of Virginia, filed a comment on the race from Charlottesville with The New York Times (10/14). He thought if Ollie had an edge in the race it was because of middle class concern about the economic future.
``Virginia may select the most preposterous U.S. senator since the notorious racist Theodore Bilbo, but not because it is a poor, ignorant Bible-thumping state. Though it has areas of grinding poverty, it is, as a whole, wealthier and better educated than most of the country.
``If Virginia elects North it will be because the suburban middle class - who form, here as elsewhere, the majority of the people who get out and vote - is scared stiff, and has every reason to be.''
In The New Republic (10/31), Fred Barnes expresses the view that North will come up the winner because ``America is experiencing its first talk radio election.'' And he believes the anti-Washington, overwhelmingly sour tone of the race favors the attacker. But smart politicking has also helped.
``Should Republican Oliver North win the Senate race in Virginia, which I think is likely, it will be because of his popularity in the boondocks. The rural south - whites, anyway - have been voting Republican for president for many years. But in lesser races, they've remained leery of Republicans. Until now. North has stumped methodically in the sticks, if only to compensate for the loss of normally Republican voters in the Washington suburbs. It's worked.''
The National Review (10/10) is looking for someone to blame if North loses the race and has come up with a likely candidate: U.S. Sen. John Warner. It notes that Doug Wilder dropped out because he had no chance to win. It asks when Warner will ``encourage his instrument, maverick Republican Marshall Coleman, to recognize the same reality. Mr. Coleman cannot possibly win, so his only function is to sabotage the Republican nominee, Oliver North. Senator Warner disapproves of Mr. North and his Religious Right supporters. Fair enough. But Virginia Republicans disagreed with him. If Mr. Warner's contumacy prevents the GOP from winning the Senate this November, that will remove the last incentive for them to re-elect him thereafter.''
Some commentators go beyond handicapping the race and take sides. David Nyhan in the Boston Globe (10/14) likens North to H. Ross Perot and says neither has held office or participated in a political party. Thus, ``their education is incomplete. They have not learned how dangerous it is to play with rhetorical matches. With them, it's always bombast away.''
Nyhan thinks that ``most Americans know enough not to take Perot and North too seriously. They are the class wise guys, who'll say anything to stir up a ruckus and get attention.'' But he still worries that North in the Senate would amount ``to years of this trash-talk.''
And he concludes that ``North in the Senate could wreak severe havoc. Giving Saddam the wrong impression of what the United States can or cannot do is not what we want in an age when Saddam dials up CNN every hour to see what Washington is saying about him. We saw the destruction wrought by North and his nutty notions in the Iran-contra debacle. Now he's loose again. Throw a net over him.''
Newsday (10/11) expressed an editorial opinion on the race. It asks: ``Why should New Yorkers worry about a Virginia Senate race? Because a Who's Who of Republican presidential hopefuls - Bob Dole, Jack Kemp, Dan Quayle, James Baker, Phil Gramm - are supporting North in a crass display that shows they value the extreme right, the core of North's supporters, ahead of honesty. . . and the rule of law. Because the perfidy that has marked the man's career has no place in public life.''
And finally, in a race that has attracted unprecedented attention, even ``The Simpsons'' (10/9) has gotten in on the act. The show had its Rush Limbaugh character, Birch Barlow, describe Sideshow Bob, jailed for attempted murder, as ``another intelligent conservative railroaded by our liberal justice system - just like Col. Oliver North, Officer Stacey Koon and cartoon smokesperson Joe Camel.''
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES by CNB