THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 27, 1994 TAG: 9410260155
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: JOHN PRUITT
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
IF YOU VIEW the Virginia Senate race as a diversion, as someone counseled the other day, it ranks up there with the best free entertainment around.
You retain your obligation to vote for the person you're convinced will do the best job for the state, this friend holds, but you don't become so serious that you miss the hilarity of it all.
In a commonwealth known as the Mother of Presidents and where silk-stocking bluebloods stiffly uphold the heritage of this ``gret stet,'' the shenanigans of Democrat Chuck Robb and Republican Ollie North fit like a flannel-shirted lumberjack walking, open beer can in hand, into a proper English tea.
It's not always a graceful show, but who even expected that of two brawling Marines? Especially these two, whose stories read like a torrid Harlequin novel and an ever-changing tale of international intrigue.
You need a chart to keep up with who said what about whom. In the case of North, leave plenty of room to note how his handlers ``clarified'' what he said - so we aren't confused into thinking he said what we heard him say.
Add to the mix Republican-turned-Independent Marshall Coleman and former governor, former Robb nemesis, former candidate-in-this-race Douglas L. Wilder, and there are plenty of ingredients for guffaws.
The potential is only heightened when you mix supporters who see the colonel as either the messianic maverick come to save the nation or a devilish beast who devours all who disagree with him.
Coleman keeps baying at the moon, apparently believing that Virginians who rejected him for state offices would send him to the Senate.
Republicans are disgusted that he'll siphon votes from their colonel. Democrats fear that would-be Robb votes will go for Coleman. And Coleman keeps hoping that all those disturbed voters will swarm to him.
Nah. The struggle is between voters who are so angry that they'd elect a demagogue just to teach somebody, anybody, but particularly Bill Clinton, a lesson, and those who believe Robb's substance exceeds North's flash.
And that is the stuff of comedy. Just ask Jay Leno and a host of other entertainers who've found this dirty race fertile hunting ground.
Who'd ever have thought dignified Virginia, with senators as stiff as Robb and John Warner (who himself has had plenty of mud thrown his way by fellow-Republicans who are soooo upset that Warner says no thanks to the colonel and supports Coleman) would have hosted host such a mud-wrestling match? You know, though, mud wrestling has never been more popular.
We say we want candidates to skip the character stuff and discuss issues. Sure! As if an analysis of the colonel's battle plan for lower taxes and more military spending were half as interesting as his offhanded, then later-corrected, observations about all that's wrong with just about everything.
The sleaze factor is no more extricable from this race than the tradition of electing worthy leaders is from Virginia history.
Could it have been any other way, when the lead contenders are a man who's confessed to behavior unbecoming to a married man and another who brokered illegal arms deals? Not as long as Robb's behavior is disdained and North's declared heroic.
Mr. North should not be deprived of his deserved honors, but election considerations must focus on the strenth of Virginia's congressional delegation rather than figuratively thumbing our noses at our imperfect system of government.
We can join the friend in enjoying the show until election day, then we have to vote so that the next act is not a tragi-comedy.
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