THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411060209
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 183 lines
It has been a titanic struggle among three men with controversial pasts whose redemption can come only through the grace of Virginia voters.
There's Republican Oliver L. North, once convicted of obstructing Congress, now seeking election to the body he deceived. There's Democrat Charles S. Robb, whose once limitless political career has been ravaged by reports of womanizing and partying with undesirables. And there's independent J. Marshall Coleman, who has refashioned his political beliefs every four years in an undying quest to win elective office.
On Tuesday, Virginia voters will have to select one of these men as their U.S. senator. And while recent polls suggest momentum may be building for Robb, the race remains too close to call.
Perhaps no other election in the United States will be as scrutinized. Beneath the personalities of the candidates lies a stark ideological debate that could affect the nation. At issue is the solidly Democratic, pro-Bill Clinton agenda of Robb vs. the hard-line Republican, anti-Clinton platform of North.
Pollsters predict solid Republican gains in Senate races from other states on Tuesday. The results from Virginia, they say, might well determine whether the majority vote in the Senate remains in the hands of Democrats or tips to the GOP for the first time since 1987.
During a normal political year, one might expect Virginia to resolve an ideological test with a strong Republican vote. After all, the Old Dominion has voted for Republicans in 11 of the past 12 presidential elections.
But there's nothing normal about this year. Despite record millions of dollars spent by the candidates and the unprecedented raw emotions they have roused, voters seem unable to resolve the issue of character. For two months, the race has been a dead heat between North and Robb - each with about 38 percent of the vote. Coleman, a distant third with about 15 percent of the vote, is positioned be a spoiler.
Barring a major gaffe by North or Robb during the closing hours of the campaign, the results of the election now seem out of their hands. It all comes down to grass-roots efforts by thousands of volunteers to turn out the vote for each candidate Tuesday.
At the center of this bizarre contest is North, 51, the former Marine lieutenant colonel whose six days of televised testimony in 1987 about his role in the Iran-Contra affair captivated the nation. North's open contempt for Congress - his admission that he deceived its members in 1986 - seems to clash with his current desire to join its ranks.
In May 1989, North was convicted of three felonies related to Iran-Contra: obstructing Congress, destroying and falsifying official documents, and receiving an illegal gratuity in the form of a $13,000 security fence an arms dealer bought for his house.
But North rose from the ashes. A federal appeals court, deciding that immunized testimony may have been used against North, voted 2-1 to reverse the convictions.
The ordeal made North an icon for conservatives across the nation, who saw him as as a bold warrior carrying out covert orders from the White House to battle communism in Central America. Through a massive direct-mail enterprise, North raised more than $21 million from national admirers to pay off his legal debts, hire bodyguards and promote a conservative agenda that would pave the way for his Senate run.
This year, North has raised an additional $19 million to fund his campaign - a record for a U.S. Senate candidate. Records show that 85 percent of the supporters who have sent North a total of $200 or more live outside Virginia.
North is a mesmerizing and polarizing campaigner, gripping supporters with fervent conservative appeals and demanding of others, ``Whose side are you on?''
North pledges to be a general in a cultural war with liberal interests over family values, limited government and prayer in schools. His impassioned voice has a special effect on those who feel disaffected by government and on blue-collar families who feel strained by their federal tax burdens.
But North is also an enigma. Despite his efforts to portray himself as a Washington outsider, he was the ultimate Washington insider in the 1980s, running covert operations from the White House. And despite his vow to ``shake up Congress,'' he is pledging to be little more than a dependable Republican vote against Clinton.
His platform is essentially warmed-over Reaganomics - lower taxes, higher defense spending, term limitations, a balanced-budget amendment and a presidential line-item veto. Although North calls the federal deficit ``a millstone around the neck of our children,'' he has declined to name one major entitlement program that he would cut.
While North has insisted that his campaign is about issues, his character has never left the forefront. His honesty has been questioned by many of his former White House associates, including former President Ronald Reagan, former first lady Nancy Reagan and former National Security Council Chairman Robert C. McFarlane.
The character questions have drawn media attention to a number of controversial statements North has made, then claimed were misreported, during the final month of the campaign. They include his assertion that Clinton ``is not my commander-in-chief,'' his support for display of the Confederate flag on public buildings and his suggestion that workers should have the right to opt out of Social Security.
Are these merely the slips of a first-time candidate, or is something deeper at play? North asks that he be taken at faith.
Perhaps North would be too controversial for Virginia voters if Chuck Robb, 55, were not his opponent. Rarely has a politician who seemed destined for so much stardom fallen so hard.
The son-in-law of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robb served a successful term as governor from 1982 to 1986 and catapulted to the Senate in 1989. His fiscally conservative, socially progressive mantra realigned the dormant state Democratic Party in the early 1980s and provided a platform that allowed centrist Democrats to dominate state elections throughout the decade. Equally important to his success was Robb's carefully cultivated image as a square-jawed, milk-drinking Marine who always told the truth.
That image began to crack in the late 1980s amid reports that he attended parties in Virginia Beach where cocaine was used and where at least 10 of his fellow revelers were subjects of a federal drug probe. Robb denied ever knowing cocaine was being used at the parties, and there is no evidence that he used the drug.
His image continued to crumble with the admission that he received a nude massage from a beauty queen.
Robb also was harmed by a feud with former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, a fellow Democrat. It peaked in 1991 when three top Robbaides leaked to reporters a transcript of a telephone conversation between Wilder and a political supporter.
With his all-American veneer stripped away, Robb has been laid bare for a political attack this year. North has charged that Robb has abandoned his centrist ideological roots to become a leading tax-and-spend liberal in the Senate. As proof, North cites Robb's record of voting with the Clinton administration 94 percent of the time in 1993, his backing of a $250 billion federal tax increase and his support for allowing avowed homosexuals to serve in the military.
Unlike most congressional Democrats this year, Robb has not tried to distance himself from Clinton. The president came to Virginia three times last month to raise money for Robb, who has collected more than $5 million for his campaign.
Robb has portrayed himself as a statesman who is unafraid to make unpopular decisions for the good of the country. To lower the national deficit, Robb said, he would consider further tax hikes and drastic program cuts that would take ``food from the mouths of widows and orphans.''
On the campaign trail, Robb has exhibited little flair and, unlike North, little ability to excite crowds. He is stiff, bumbling in his speeches and prone to lengthy policy digressions that lose the attention of audiences. While North solidified his Republican base and softened his public image this summer and early fall, Robb remained ensconced in the Senate.
In his own way, however, Robb has been effective. He eliminated a major threat this September by pressuring Wilder to end a 4-month-old independent bid for Senate. And late last month, Robb won Wilder's public endorsement - a development that led to a quick 12 percent surge in Robb's support from black voters. That and a last-minute television blitz of negative campaign ads against North seem to have fueled the campaign with long-awaited momentum.
Robb's once-obscure message has become focused during the final weeks of the campaign. He claims he is the only candidate who can stop North.
Coleman, of course, would disagreewith that. The independent candidate is offering himself as an untainted alternative to Robb and North.
Coleman, 52, has never been accused of lying or womanizing. But his presence in almost every statewide race over the past 17 years - always with an adjusted platform - has left him open to charges of opportunism.
As a young spokesman for moderate state Republicans, Coleman was elected attorney general in 1977. In 1981, he was the failed GOP nominee for governor, losing to Robb. Four years later, he unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor.
Coleman was a staunch supporter of abortion rights in all those campaigns. But in an effort to gain conservative support for a 1989 bid for the governorship, Coleman strenuously opposed abortions - even in cases of rape or incest. This year, Coleman is pro-choice again.
His campaign is strongly backed by U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican highly critical of North. But in recent weeks, Coleman has become something of a dilemma for Warner. Polls show that Coleman has little chance of winning and that his continued candidacy might ultimately help North. Two out of three Coleman supporters say they would support Robb if the independent dropped out of the race.
But with Coleman in the contest until the end, the mathematics of voting become complicated. Does a vote for one candidate have the unintended result of electing another?
Many Virginians, faced with the shortcomings of the three, will be more motivated by the desire to stop one candidate than to help another. Redemption may be the furthest thing from their minds. But someone will win. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
J. MARSHALL COLEMAN
OLIVER L. NORTH
CHARLES S. ROBB
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES CAMPAIGN by CNB