THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 7, 1994 TAG: 9411070070
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DWAYNE YANCEY AND DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
An end-of-campaign TV ad featuring junior high school student Dornin North is not the first time Republican Oliver L. North has drawn his youngest child into the U.S. Senate campaign.
On Oct. 1, North told supporters at a Bedford County shooting club that the most difficult part of campaigning was the time it took him away from his family.
``We've got a 12-year-old at home,'' he said. ``. . . and she's getting ready for a school play that Dad hopefully at least will get to see the dress rehearsal for.''
There is no play scheduled at Dornin North's private school in Middleburg until next Spring.
Was North caught telling another whopper?
North's aides say the Republican simply misspoke; that he meant to say his daughter was going to be in a field hockey tournament.
``It's a family function with his daughter,'' Mark Merritt, deputy campaign manager, said. ``He was telling the truth about it.'' R.E.M FOR ROBB
Chuck Robb got an unexpected endorsement last week - from the rock group R.E.M.
Campaign workers at Robb's McLean headquarters opened the mail to discover contributions from the Georgia-based band's members - $1,000 apiece from singer Michael Stipe and bassist Mike Mills (the maximum allowed by law), $500 each from guitarist Peter Buck and drummer Bill Berry.
An uncharacteristically hip Robb campaign promptly faxed out a press release headlined ``Automatic for the Senator,'' a play on a recent R.E.M. album called ``Automatic for the People.''
R.E.M. has a history of political activism; the band was a leader in the 1992 ``Rock the Vote'' campaign and the push for the motor-voter registration bill.
Other, more cynical, observers would note another similarity between Robb and R.E.M.: They both have a tendency toward obtuseness, Stipe in his lyrics, Robb in his campaign speeches. Generation gap. REPUBLICANS MORE ROWDY
What's the most visible difference between Democrats and Republicans?
It's not their ideology, nor even the color of their signs. It's that Republicans, at least the Virginia variety, devote a whole lot more time and energy to trying to rattle the other side.
Take last week's rallies in Roanoke for Oliver North and Charles Robb. Democrats steered clear of the North event. But a clutch of sign-waving young Republicans was posted outside the Robb rally, chanting ``Ol-lie! Ol-lie!'' and blasting Eric Clapton's ``Cocaine'' from a boombox - loud enough to be heard inside Robb's headquarters.
Why? ``Because we could,'' chuckles Trixie Averill, a GOP activist from Roanoke County who chaperoned the event. ``We had the volunteers.''
She says a Democratic neighbor saw her demonstrating and asked, ``Don't you have anything better to do?''
``Nope,'' Averill replied. FINAL 3 COLLEGES FOR NORTH
In the final round of mock elections before the real thing begins, North continued his unimpeded march across Virginia's college campuses. The last three schools to weigh in are:
Liberty University: North 90 percent, Robb 5 percent, Coleman 5 percent.
Virginia Tech: North 67 percent, Robb 23 percent, Coleman 10 percent.
James Madison University: North 63 percent, Robb 27 percent, Coleman 8 percent. POLITICAL STOCK IS MIXED
The University of Iowa runs a computerized political stock market, where political junkies from around the world can plug in via the Internet to buy and sell ``shares'' in various political candidates, based on how much of the vote they're expected to get in November. The final word from cyberspace is, well, mixed. The lead on the Internet see-sawed back and forth last week. As the trading headed into the final weekend, the investors were banking on a narrow Robb victory.
NORTH - down 0.8 of a percentage point, to 39.6 percent. ROBB - up 1.3 percentage points, to 41.6 percent. COLEMAN - unchanged, at 15.2 percent.
But that's only the part of the stock market where investors pick the candidates' final percentages. In a separate pool, they plunk down their money, winner-take-all, on who they think the winner will be. There, most investors were buying stock in North - 58.5 percent of the traders were betting on North to win; 41.3 percent on Robb.
KEYWORDS: CANDIDATE U.S. SENATE RACE
by CNB