THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411070248
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REALIPOLITIK
Occasional dispatches on the offbeat side of Virginia's 1994 U.S. Senate
race.
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: URBANNA LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
A mob of several hundred swarmed near a booth at the annual Urbanna Oyster Festival early Saturday afternoon.
Suddenly a woman with an ``Ollie!'' bumper sticker plastered to her forehead let out a squeal.
``There he is, that's him,'' she screamed, jumping up and down and pointing. ``There, in the plaid shirt.''
The ubiquitous plaid shirt.
You know the one. It's flannel, dark blue, light blue with a thin line of gold.
You saw it at the Labor Day parade. You see it on his television ads. You see it almost everyday on the campaign trail.
Even without the face you know who's inside The Shirt. It can't be Chuck - he's the one in a starched white dress shirt. Or Marshall - he's probably wearing a loud sweater.
It's Ollie.
Part Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, part lumberjack.
North usually pairs The Shirt with a pair of khaki slacks and his black cowboy boots.
Dozens of reporters set out for the Urbanna Oyster Festival with news on their minds.
All three candidates were planning to wade into the crowd which was estimated at 50,000 in a last-minute effort to get votes.
Not us.
Realpolitick braved miles of scenic countryside, Indian summer weather and air heavy with the aroma of oysters to get the inside story on The Shirt.
But Ollie was busy. He was signing autographs, shaking hands, smiling into Instamatics.
And he doesn't like the press anyway. He says we ask dumb questions.
So we asked Stuart North about his dad's shirt. Hey, Stuart, exactly how many blue plaid shirts does he have?
``One, he only has one,'' Stuart said, grinning and jerking his thumb at The Shirt. ``That's it.''
Suddenly we had an image of North rinsing out the shirt, night after night, in the tiny basin in the campaign Winnebago.
``Nah, we take it out and defog it,'' Stuart said, laughing.
Stuart denied that he ever washes it for his father.
``I'd do almost anything for my father, but I draw the line at his laundry,'' the Washington and Lee graduate said.
Actually, North always wears a clean short-sleeved white T-shirt under The Shirt, so laundering it isn't so important.
But there was a Shirt crisis recently which went unreported in the media.
A pen, probably one of the dozens of Sharpies Ollie keeps within easy reach, exploded in the pocket.
Talk about a mess.
On Saturday Ollie had a North sticker strategically placed over the giant blue ink stain. But a trained observer could see several parts of the inkblot creeping out.
After cracking The Shirt story we headed off to find the other two Senate candidates who were pressing the flesh and chowing down on bivalves.
We never did found Coleman in the crowd. Perhaps that's symbolic.
We did, however, see one Coleman supporter.
Dave Lott, of Chesterfield, who defiantly wore two Coleman stickers through a sea of ``Ollie'' and ``Robb'' ones, insisted he was not going to waiver in his support for Coleman no matter what the last-minute polls showed.
``The other two are just scumbags,'' he said.
``Robb has no morals and North is a liar.''
Tell us how you really feel, Dave.
We caught up with the man Lott would like to see out of the U.S. Senate when we spied a television boom mike bounding down Urbanna's main street. Under it was a starched white shirt, topped by a head with licorice black hair.
As we approached we saw what looked like a dangerous situation brewing: Robb was reaching out to grab the hands of a beauty queen, Allison Price, Miss Shamrock of Richmond. At an oyster festival, no less.
But the Senator and the beauty queen emerged unfazed by the encounter.
Just two more days, sports fans. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
APPEARANCES
Saturday's campaign schedule for Virginia's three U.S. Senate
candidates:
J. Marshall Coleman: attended homecoming parade at Norfolk State
University; campaigned at homecoming at the College of William and
Mary, in Williamsburg; attended Urbanna Oyster Festival.
Oliver L. North: news conference in Richmond; attended Urbanna
Oyster Festival; dinner with former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander,
Bristol.
Charles S. Robb: attended homecoming parades at Norfolk State
University and I.C. Norcom High School; attended Urbanna Oyster
Festival.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES
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