THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505070052
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 193 lines
There comes a time in some politicians' lives when a principle becomes so dear that, public reaction be damned, it's time to speak out.
For Patrick M. McSweeney, chairman of the state Republican Party, the clarion call came early this spring when he was invited to speak at the dedication of a monument to the Confederate flag in Danville.
Never mind that display of the flag is offensive to many blacks. Never mind that the state GOP was on the verge of announcing a major effort to recruit minorities. Never mind that McSweeney, himself, was jarred by accusations of racial insensitivity as recently as last fall. In McSweeney's eyes, Southern culture was under siege. And that meant that he had to act.
``What I will not do is bow either to white bigots who would appropriate the symbols of the Virginia tradition . . .'' McSweeney declared in his speech, ``or to black racists who would accomplish the same by insisting everyone who attends such an event as this or finds something valuable in the Virginia tradition is filled with hatred for black people.''
In the complex mind of Pat McSweeney, 52, deeper meanings always exist. That some would see the Confederate flag as merely a symbol of slavery is, in his view, a symptom of the rootlessness and lack of values and discipline in today's society.
His hard-line beliefs and unwillingness to compromise have become a symbol for the deep divisions within the state GOP. While leaders of the party's Christian conservative wing hail McSweeney as a man of principle, moderates say his demands for ideological purity are increasingly isolating the party from mainstream voters.
Virginia's two highest-ranking Republican office holders - Gov. George F. Allen and U.S. Sen. John W. Warner - refuse to associate with the chairman. McSweeney is openly sympathetic to efforts to deny Warner renomination in 1996 because of the senator's refusal to support two recent party nominees. McSweeney is considering running against Warner himself.
Allen has accused McSweeney of trying to undermine his 1993 campaign, and tried to impeach the chairman shortly after being elected governor. The GOP's ruling Central Committee fell short of the required three-quarters vote to oust McSweeney, but a full two-thirds of the members sided with Allen. Despite the lack of confidence, McSweeney has refused to resign. Allen, in protest, refuses to help the state party raise money.
The tensions take on a special meaning this year as Republicans need gain only three seats in both chambers of the General Assembly to control the legislature for the first time. Few expect McSweeney can unite the party.
``Pat shows no signs of flexibility,'' said James Rich, Republican chairman of the 10th Congressional District in Northern Virginia. ``His view of loyalty is so narrow that even Ronald Reagan couldn't meet it. If you don't agree with him, he wants to kick you out. He thinks he can build a party by subtraction.''
McSweeney is unapologetic. The Republican Party is not for the squeamish, he argues.
``Reagan understood that to have a governing majority, you had to have about 52 percent support, and to identify that, you had to stand for something and cling to it,'' he said. ``Bush figured he inherited that 52 percent and could go as high as 75 percent, and in doing that, he lost all of his base. The point is that we have stark choices and if we worry about the way the media portrays us and try to overcome that, then we'd be a party of the lowest common denominator and we'd just get lost in the mushy middle.''
McSweeney is a tall man with the trim build of a college quarterback, which he once was at the University of Virginia in the early 1960s. Although his hair is gray, his face retains a youthful handsomeness.
He's not one given to small talk or sound bites. During a recent three-hour interview in his Richmond law office, he never once cracked a joke. His is a world of classical books and treatises and history, which he cites constantly in a never-ending quest to impart absolute sense to a chaotic world.
``I know that this is very unpopular these days, but I believe in absolutes,'' he said. ``This is metaphysical, but you can't tell right or wrong, truth or falsehoods without believing in absolutes. Recognizing that distinguishes people who do believe from everyone else.''
McSweeney's absolutes are grounded in a strict Roman Catholic upbringing. He was born and reared in Richmond, the oldest of seven children. His father and uncle owned a successful meat-packing business. As a youth, McSweeney received a classical education in private schools, played sports and basked in the discipline of church.
``The one strong feature of Roman Catholicism is that you just do certain things because that's the way it is,'' he said. ``You just create a pattern of behavior and go to church, not because you enjoy doing it or because you like the sermons, you just do it.''
McSweeney picked up his reverence for the South through books. His ancestors are of Northern descent, boast of no Civil War heroes and settled in Virginia sometime just prior to 1900.
It was at U.Va. in 1961 that McSweeney's infatuation began. Those were heady times at the Charlottesville campus. William Faulkner, the legendary Mississippi author who wrote that the South can never come to grips with the future until it comes to grips with its past, was a visiting professor that year. McSweeney, a sophomore English major, devoured Faulkner's novels, attended his readings and routinely walked by his house just hoping see or exchange words with the great writer.
The impact was profound. McSweeney lists Faulkner among his greatest heroes - along with his parents and Mother Theresa. Aside from Faulkner, he rejected many current-day authors of his college studies as ``rootless, ungrounded, a bit arrogant and rationalist.'' He says he embarked on a lifetime reading quest to understand civilization and Southern culture, starting with the works of Cicero and Virgil.
McSweeney says a football injury kept him out of the military when he graduated U.Va. in 1964. He stayed in Charlottesville for law school and was editor of the law review his senior year.
``He was an academician who seemed more interested in the theory of law than the practice of it,'' said Reginald Jones, a Richmond lawyer who was a classmate. ``Pat was a grinder who was constantly working at being the top in our class.
``He's always been very engaging when talking about ideas,'' Jones added. ``But he's never been the kind of guy you're going to sit down and drink a beer with and talk about your kids.''
Following law school, McSweeney worked on a commission that redrafted the state constitution and worked briefly in the Justice Department under Richard Nixon. He returned to Virginia in 1974 and spent four years heading the staff of a legislative panel that sought to reorganize state government.
In 1978, McSweeney went into private law practice. Today, his firm employs 19 attorneys. He lives on a 21-acre farm in Powhatan County and has four children.
McSweeney unsuccessfully ran for the state Senate in 1983. His rise in the Republican ranks came through his longtime leadership of the party's policy committee, starting in 1985. He impressed the party's ever-growing evangelical wing with his insistence that the GOP stand on hard-line conservative issues and oppose abortion. With their backing, he was elected chairman in 1992, despite warnings from Warner and other moderates that he would drive the party too far to the right.
McSweeney explains his positions - both political and legal - by calling on his unswerving devotion to heritage and tradition.
For example, McSweeney strongly opposes Virginia Beach's plan to build a 79-mile pipeline and tap water from Lake Gaston. He is the lawyer for the Roanoke River Basin Association, a collection of Southside communities hoping to stop the project. To him, it all comes down to an argument of preserving Southern culture.
The economic vitality of the small towns around Lake Gaston, he argues, is tied to the water and its allure to industries such as power plants, paper mills and farming. ``To the extent that more and more of the resources are transferred to large urban areas, the less likely it is that people will be able to remain in the rural areas,'' he said.
McSweeney said he insists on rigid party discipline because the future of the democracy depends on it. The purpose of having two political parties, he said, is to offer voters a clear choice on the direction of government. ``If we don't have people within the Republican Party who are prepared to abide with the will of the majority, then we will never have the capacity to put together a governing agenda and implement it.''
That's why, in McSweeney's eyes, Warner committed an unforgiveable act by refusing to back two recent Republican nominees - Oliver L. North for U.S. Senate in 1994 and Michael P. Farris for lieutenant governor in 1993. That's why McSweeney has favored disciplining scores of other moderate Republicans who followed Warner's course.
``We set up a fair system of procedures (at Republican conventions) and it's absolutely essential that all Republicans be bound by it,'' he said. ``If you say it is an absolute impossibility to do that, then the only conscientious choice is to leave the party. . . . If every individual can interpose his conscience, then what we would have is anarchy.''
Critics say McSweeney is so blinded by his absolute beliefs that he goes beyond good sense. And some of the discipline he demands of others, they say, he lacks himself.
``He's always standing on his own beliefs, trampling everyone else's beliefs and falling on his sword,'' said Donald Moseley, a Republican activist in Southside.
For example, McSweeney insists that there is a stark line between his personal actions and those he takes as party chairman. His appearance in Danville on behalf of the Confederate flag - and his subsequent decision to allow the Richmond Times-Dispatch to reprint his speech - is in no way a reflection on the GOP, he says.
Many Republican activists, still scratching their heads over the incident, beg to differ. ``Discretion being the better part of valor, he never should have gone,'' said Gary Byler, a Virginia Beach Republican.
Last fall, McSweeney made front-page news across the state by arguing it would not be ``cost-effective'' for Republicans to court black voters in the U.S. Senate race. And this winter, he enraged moderates by relegating Warner to a back table at a party dinner and omitting the senator's name as he introduced dozens of other GOP office holders.
Ultimately, McSweeney's tenure as chairman appears doomed by his feud with the governor. Allen insists that McSweeney discouraged businessmen from contributing to his 1993 campaign and ridiculed his chances of winning. McSweeney has denied the charge.
McSweeney's term as chairman expires in 1996, and Allen has vowed to find a replacement. McSweeney hasn't said whether he'll seek re-election, but few think he can win a popularity contest against the governor.
``I've supported Pat in the past, but in a choice between him and my governor, I've got to chose my governor,'' Byler said.
McSweeney sighed last week when asked if his self-righteous style has alienated people.
``I don't have any need to be loved,'' he said, ``and I think a party chairman who does is just as bad as an elected official who does.'' ILLUSTRATION: LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE COLOR PHOTO
Patrick M. McSweeney, Virginia GOP chairman
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