THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280617
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Senate Race '94
11 DAYS UNTIL ELECTION DAY
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MCLEAN LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb and Republican challenger Oliver L. North on Thursday picked at sensitive generational and racial divisions in the electorate, sharpening attacks that figure to be central to the final days of their campaign.
Robb, with the new backing of a national organization of senior citizens, accused North of touting ideas that could bankrupt Social Security. He said the Republican's suggestion that some taxpayers be permitted to opt out of the system would force thousands of elderly Virginians into Great Depression-style poorhouses.
North, meanwhile, suggested a re-elected Robb would be ``Marion Barry's lap dog'' and attacked the Democrat's support of statehood for the District of Columbia. Former D.C. Mayor Barry, forced from office after police photographed him smoking crack cocaine in 1990, is favored to reclaim his old job in the Nov. 8 election.
The flurry of charges signaled a campaign windup that could be the domestic political equivalent of war in the Balkans, as each man pits important voter groups against each other in his drive to fashion a plurality at the polls.
Robb, trying to counter the strong appeal to the elderly of North's ``traditional values'' campaign, has seized slowly this week on the Social Security issue. North on Monday suggested that future generations willing to forgo Social Security benefits when they retire might be excused from payments into the system before retirement.
Such a plan could have powerful appeal to young voters who see Social Security taking progressively larger bites out of their paychecks each year. But it alarms retirees who depend on Social Security payments, and financial analysts agree almost universally that it would destroy the system.
North on Thursday tried to distance himself from the idea. A shift to voluntary payments and benefits is only ``one of the options on the table,'' he insisted.
Still, even a hint of change in the system was enough to bring the National Council of Senior Citizens, which claims 5 million members in affiliate clubs nationwide, into the race Thursday on Robb's behalf.
``Without the current system of mandatory contributions, the next generation of Virginia senior citizens will be in poverty,'' said Larry Smedley, the group's executive director.
``The math is simple,'' Robb agreed in a prepared statement. ``If the next generation stops paying in, there won't be enough money for this generation when it retires.''
But within minutes of bestowing his group's blessing on Robb, Smedley was drawn into a polite dispute with the senator over another Social Security question: benefit caps.
Robb has indicated a willingness to consider limiting benefits to the wealthiest recipients - perhaps all with annual incomes of over $100,000, he suggested Thursday - as a way to ease pressure on the Social Security trust fund. The seniors group would oppose that, Smedley said, adding that there is no senator with whom the council agrees 100 percent of the time.
While Robb courted the elderly Thursday, North went after the votes of Northern Virginia commuters and old-line conservatives downstate with his attack on the D.C. statehood proposal.
The issue is a thorny one. Statehood is popular among African-American leaders, in part because it likely would mean the election of two additional blacks to the Senate. More than 60 percent of D.C. residents are African-American; they now are represented in Congress only by a nonvoting delegate.
But polls show most white voters are opposed to statehood, and a constitutional amendment to make ``New Columbia'' the 51st state failed miserably in the 1980s.
``Chuck Robb well knows that as a state, New Columbia would have the right to tax nonresidents who work within its borders,'' North said Thursday. ``The hard-working families of Virginia who work in Washington should not be forced to bankroll the fiscal incompetence of the Washington, D.C., bureaucracy.'' The district has a budget shortfall in the hundreds of millions.
Robb said Thursday that ``as a matter of equity'' for D.C. voters, he would support a statehood bill if one came to the Senate floor. But ``it's not gonna happen,'' he added.
North earlier this week accused Robb of injecting race into their campaign, complaining specifically of Robb's comparison of him to fellow Republican David Duke. Duke, a Louisianan who has run unsuccessfully for governor and the Senate, is a former Ku Klux Klan leader who has been rebuffed by most national GOP leaders.
On Thursday, it was Robb's turn to accuse North of a racial appeal, though he refused to do so explicitly. By drawing the link with Barry, whose political comeback and candidacy has at times highlighted racial divisions in the district, North raised ``an inference . . . so clear that you don't have to rely on me'' to describe it, Robb said.
The current campaign isn't the first time Republicans have tried to use D.C. statehood against Robb. When Robb ran for governor in 1981, former Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. raised statehood and several other racially tinged issues in what was widely seen as an appeal for white support for GOP candidate J. Marshall Coleman.
The Godwin gambit later was credited with boosting black voter turnout critical to Robb's victory over Coleman.
The same Coleman, of course, is running against Robb and North for the Senate this year as an independent. Of North's comments Thursday on statehood, he said: ``I don't think it's necessary to bash the District of Columbia to advance the interest of our state.'' MEMO: Staff writer Alec Klein contributed to this report.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE CAMPAIGN CANDIDATES by CNB