THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 10, 1994 TAG: 9411100645
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A17 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
J. Marshall Coleman always knew politics was a tough game, and in 20 years of campaigning across Virginia he earned a reputation as a tough player.
But as Coleman's independent U.S. Senate campaign shut down Wednesday, some of his friends were whispering privately of how a tougher old operator, Senate GOP leader Robert J. Dole, fed their man's desire to run and then undercut his longshot bid before it could get started.
Dole, who figures to be Senate majority leader when Republicans take control of Congress in January, spent Wednesday savoring his party's stunning victories and planning for the future. His office declined to comment on his involvement in the Virginia campaign.
Dole campaigned repeatedly this fall for Republican nominee Oliver L. North, even making a swing across the state with him last weekend. But he often appeared less than enthusiastic about North and discomfited by questions about North's honesty and role in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Public worries about North's truthfulness caught up with the GOP nominee as he narrowly lost Tuesday's election to incumbent Democrat Charles S. Robb. Coleman finished a distant third, with just 11 percent of the vote.
But because exit polls indicate about a quarter of the Coleman vote came from Republicans, he and his supporters were being blamed Wednesday by some GOP activists for North's defeat. Against that backdrop, any suggestion that Dole somehow encouraged Coleman could come back to haunt him.
Coleman went back to work Tuesday at his Washington law office and declined to rehash the campaign. ``I wish Bob Dole well,'' he said.
But other sources said the two men had several conversations in person and by telephone in May and early June, as lifelong Republican Coleman explored an independent challenge to Robb and North.
In the first of those meetings, a brief, chance encounter outside Dole's Watergate apartment, a grinning Dole greeted Coleman as ``Senator!'' and asked if he was really going to run, one source said.
Coleman, hoping for and thinking he'd gotten a signal, followed up with at least one phone call to Dole's office. In one chat, the Kansan allegedly assured Coleman that the controversial North would get little help from Republican senators and told him: ``Nobody here's for North, except maybe Strom Thurmond.''
Thurmond, a 91-year-old South Carolinian, is the Senate's oldest and perhaps most conservative member.
At one point, the source said, Dole even invited Coleman to attend a regular Wednesday luncheon of GOP senators at the Capitol. ``Marshall was on Cloud 9,'' the source recalled.
In the midst of the discussions, Dole and Sen. John W. Warner, Coleman's most prominent supporter, traveled to Normandy as part of a Senate delegation observing the 50th anniversary of D-Day. There, Dole voiced what sounded like reservations about North's candidacy and disclosed that he'd soon be meeting with Coleman in person.
The comments triggered a wave of protests from other GOP senators. Those Republicans, according to accounts from several sources at the time, warned Dole that he could not survive as party leader in the Senate if he did not support Republican candidates exclusively.
Dole and Coleman subsequently met, on June 8, with Dole explaining that he couldn't actively oppose North but telling Coleman: ``I won't say anything to hurt you,'' the source said. He followed that by meeting with North the next day to deliver an endorsement and a $5,000 contribution from Campaign America, his political action committee. by CNB