THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 12, 1994 TAG: 9411120138
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A01 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Real Politik
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
A final dispatch on the offbeat side of Virginia's 1994 U.S. Senate race.
Gassed out and cotton-mouthed, our eyelids as fat and heavy as an elephant's tongue, the whites of our eyes looking like a road map of every Virginia tank town we'd stumped in the past four months, Realpolitik staggered from bed Wednesday morning and went on a lightning coffee jag.
We should never have opened our eyes.
All it did was let in the stabbing light of a new reality. Reagan was right, it is morning in America, and all we had to show for it was a horrid pounding in our head from the night before.
Fumbling with the TV, we were greeted by a mildly cross-eyed CNN anchor running down the list of new congressional committee heads: Jesse Helms, Foreign Relations; Strom Thurmond (of the party which supports term limits, although he's in his 40th year in the Senate), Armed Services; Orrin Hatch, Judiciary; and Alfonse D'Amato, Banking.
It was like gargling with lighter fluid.
The only consolation for the nation's stunned liberals and hungover Democrats was that it may be morning in America but at least Ollie North was not at the breakfast table.
And in Virginia, where $23 million couldn't buy us a decent candidate (think about it, the Menendez brothers would have had to kill four sets of parents for that kind of dough) this is what it came down to: six more years of trying not to laugh when you say Senator Robb.
As the day wore on, we learned that Realpolitik was not alone with its mixed emotions.
In the only state - beside Massachusetts - not to see Republicans sweep into office, politicians in both parties were behaving like they suffered from a certifiable bipolar disorder.
There were enormous bouts of depression and euphoria on both sides.
On one hand, Virginia Democrats were relieved that Chuck Robb hung onto his Senate seat by a few greasy black hairs. But how smug could they be when the incumbent senator won with just 46 percent of the vote - meaning that 54 percent of voters cast ballots for conservative principles or against the lothario incumbent.
But Virginia Republicans were not having a totally bad hair day. They did watch in horror as Virginia joined ultra-liberal Massachusetts in bucking the national Republican riptide. But, then they got a Republican Congress and consequently, a more impotent Sen. Robb.
That alone was something to smile about.
Moderate Republicans - if that's not an oxymoron - were happier still. They captured Capitol Hill while leaving North behind. Now they could prepare for the inevitable ugly internecine battle to reclaim their political party.
Before it is over, we expect to see Republican guts being spilled all over the Commonwealth as old-line moderates, like former Gov. Linwood Holton and Marshall Coleman, try to snatch back the GOP from the likes of Pat McSweeney, Mike Farris and Pat Robertson.
And we in the Realpolitik control room can't wait to see what the future holds for Robb and his Democratic pals on the Hill now that Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole are at the helm. So stymied are the Dems likely to be, the Chuckmeister may have to just take a long vacation.
C'mon back to the beach, Chuck. Most of the old gang's out on parole by now.
Robb just may not have the stomach for what's to come, since the fights over political pork are going to make a day at the Smithfield Foods slaughterhouse look tame. And it'd be a shame for Chuck to ruin all those neat black suits.
Of course Robb may feel invigorated. Compared to 91-year-old Armed Services committee Chairman Strom Thurmond, Chuck may delude himself into feeling like the young promising politician he seemed to be when he first burst on the Virginia scene.
OK, just suppose the Republic survives the next two years. Then we're facing the mother of all election years.
The 1996 presidential fiasco will raise all sorts of thorny questions: Will Clinton seek a second term? Will he face a primary challenge from his own party? Will he be impeached first? Will the Republicans have the good sense to nominate Jack Kemp and Colin Powell or will they attempt suicide by putting Dan Quayle on the ticket?
And in Virginia?
It will be mortal combat in the GOP for John Warner's Senate seat. And you don't think the Democrats are so appreciative of Warner's role in helping to re-elect Robb that they'll do the decent thing and refuse to nominate an opponent do you?
Whatever you do, don't count Ollie out.
He's still got the most amazing direct mail fund-raising machinery in the history of the civilized world. With the exception, of course, of Publisher's Clearing House.
And had it not been for Robb campaign aides Nancy Reagan and Doug Wilder, North would now be chowing down on ham and eggs at the Republican breakfast table.
It's morning in America. Pass the coffee, hold the toast. We're skipping breakfast for now.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE
by CNB