THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 10, 1994 TAG: 9411100638
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Marc Tibbs
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Joe Wright is a 57-year-old retired postal worker.
As president of his neighborhood watch group, he's tough on crime.
Wright believes in the right to bear arms, wants big government off his back and is fed up with a welfare system that isn't working.
Sounds like the type of voter Democrats would love to hate, right?
Wrong.
Wright's vote was one of the 300,000 cast by black voters statewide Tuesday for Sen. Charles Robb, helping to bury Republican challenger Oliver North.
Ignoring African Americans was perhaps North's biggest mistake.
Robb got 91 percent of the black vote. Had North managed to draw even a third of the total, he might have been partying Tuesday night with his Republican buddies.
North's handlers blame independent candidate J. Marshall Coleman for the GOP loss, but Republicans needn't look any further than Ocean View, Bowling Park and Portsmouth's Cavalier Manor.
Black voters in core cities like Norfolk and Portsmouth might not have even gone to the polls had North not allowed the Democrats to define him.
``I voted so hard for Robb, the machine started shaking,'' said Norfolk resident Fran Taylor, who is black. ``I actually was voting against Oliver North.''
Strom Thurmond. Jesse Helms. David Duke. Such was the company with which the Democrats lumped North. And for his part, North made only meager attempts at reaching out to African Americans.
In fact, North seemed to go out of his way to offend blacks, defending the Confederate flag and opposing statehood for the District of Columbia. Not prima facie racial issues, but issues he just as easily could have avoided.
It's become vogue in GOP circles to be politically incorrect. Wooing black voters isn't ``cost effective,'' said state Republican Party Chairman Pat McSweeney.
That meant North stayed away from voters like Joe Wright. He lives in Cavalier Manor, an enclave of black homeowners with a median family income of about $32,000. A place where mortgage payments range from $600 to $680 per month. Whites with these demographics were the heart and soul of the North campaign.
``The Republicans don't seem to reach out to the black community enough,'' Wright said. ``They've said it's a waste of time.''
Yet few black voters were casting their ballots because they were giddy over Robb. ``I voted for Robb because he was the lesser of evils,'' Wright said.
North was pummeled in black precincts like those in Cavalier Manor, where he garnered only 86 votes to Robb's 4,200. Coleman trailed with 70.
But with a little effort, North could have done better, Wright said.
``I've voted Republican before,'' he said. ``I don't think they're all bad guys. If they would reach out a little more, they'd get more black votes.''
KEYWORDS: ELECTION RESULTS
by CNB