THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 29, 1994 TAG: 9410290233
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS AND ALEC KLEIN, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
The chairman of the Virginia Republican Party said Friday that ``it doesn't make sense from a cost-effectiveness standpoint'' for the GOP to campaign heavily in the black community because of Democratic distortions, ``walking-around money'' and the influence of prominent black leaders.
Patrick McSweeney made the remarks in explaining why Oliver L. North, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee, failed to attend a Friday night candidate forum in Richmond sponsored by the state office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
North's two opponents - incumbent Sen. Charles S. Robb and independent J. Marshall Coleman - accepted the invitation.
North spokesman Mark Merritt declined to comment on McSweeney's remarks about blacks. North staged a rally in Northern Virginia on Friday evening.
McSweeney termed the cohesiveness of the black vote in most elections ``the most frustrating thing I've dealt with in politics.'' He had called a press conference to denounce a Democratic phone bank linking Republicans to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Saying that he spoke for himself and ``from the heart,'' McSweeney attributed part of the Democrats' success to Election Day payments to workers who knock on doors and transport voters in black precincts. ``We know what flushing, walking-around money is. We know how the votes are turned out,'' he said.
Asked if he was accusing Democrats of buying votes, McSweeney replied: ``I'm telling you very clearly, there's a different way money is spent. I'm not saying they're paid. There's a different way that a campaign occurs and we are not plugged into that, and if it's what I think it is, I will not be a part of it.''
Democratic tactics that ``make African-Americans think that all Republicans are white, minority-hating, Asian-hating'' ultimately make heavy Republican campaigning in the black community futile, he said. ``It doesn't make sense from a cost-effectiveness standpoint.''
Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor, called McSweeney's remarks ``cost-stupid'' as he entered a campaign event with black ministers.
But Wilder also criticized the Virginia Democratic Party for drumming up votes with a phone bank message linking the state GOP to David Duke. The former Klansman became a household name after winning the Louisiana GOP primary for governor; he was defeated in the 1991 general election and was disavowed by many prominent Republicans.
``We don't need that at all. We're not injecting race into this campaign. The people of Virginia are not going to be voting for David Duke,'' Wilder told the ministers.
State Democratic party spokeswoman Gail Nardi said the message is no longer being used because that phase of the party's get-out-the-vote phone campaign ended earlier this week. But Nardi made no apologies to the state Republican chairman: ``Mr. McSweeney can't even get any calls returned from his governor. He will not be in a position to give the Democratic Party of Virginia any orders.''
Nardi defended the phone bank's message, which cast the November election as ``a clear choice. On the one hand are the radical voices of the Republican Party such as Jesse Helms, Jerry Falwell and David Duke.''
Paid operators read that message from a script while calling into predominantly Democratic precincts across the state.
On the other hand, the message continued, are Democrats who ``will fight to protect equal opportunity, quality health care, and equal protection for all under the law.''
The message did not mention by name either Charles S. Robb, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, or his Republican challenger, Oliver L. North.
Asked if the next phase of Democratic calling mentions Duke, Nardi replied: ``I don't believe it does.'' But she said it is fair game to link North and Duke. ``They all come from the same wing of the Republican Party, the extremist wing . . . out there on the fringe.''
As he entered the minister's meeting with Wilder, Robb declined to disavow the phone bank message. ``We really don't know what it said,'' he noted, saying that several versions had been reported to him. His impression, Robb said, is that ``it's essentially generic-type phone banking, far less offensive than most of what I have seen coming directly from the North campaign.''
Before McSweeney's press conference, Democratic party officials describing get-out-the-vote efforts acknowledged that they plan to continue a longtime practice of paying workers - primarily in black precincts - to round up voters and get them to the polls on Election Day.
The practice, a tradition in many ethnic neighborhoods in Northeastern cities, ``is kind of a changing custom here,'' said Tim Ridley, who is overseeing the Democratic operation. He noted that some Democrats, including 3rd District Rep. Bobby Scott, have refused to make those payments, which typically are ``less than minimum wage.''
``It used to be this was important economically for people. Now it's much more of a gesture than anything else,'' he said.
But Nardi added that low-income people who might take a day off from work to help turn out voters ``need the money.''
McSweeney argued that many black Virginians share the conservative values pushed by Republicans. In elections such as last year's gubernatorial race ``when there's no systematic pressure,'' the GOP makes inroads with black voters, he said.
Gov. George F. Allen won about one-fifth of black votes, according to analysts. His opponent, Democrat Mary Sue Terry, received only a lukewarm endorsement from Wilder. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
McSweeney
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATE by CNB