THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 5, 1995 TAG: 9509050058
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DWAYNE YANCEY, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: BUENA VISTA LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
Gov. George Allen urged Virginians on Monday to consider this fall's legislative elections a referendum on his Republican administration. He warned that Democrats will ``backslide'' on tough new welfare rules and parole abolition if they stay in power.
``I'd like it to be a referendum, not on me personally, but more on my ideas,'' Allen said at Virginia's traditional campaign kick-off in this small industrial city at the foothills of the Blue Ridge.
If Republicans fail in their bid to win control of the General Assembly from the Democrats this fall, Allen said, ``all I'm going to be doing (during his final two years in office) is vetoing their backsliding.''
Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, responding for the Democrats at the annual Labor Day celebration marked by political speech-making by both parties, said Allen's depiction of the voters' choices this fall bears little resemblance to the truth.
``For the record,'' he said, ``I don't know anybody in the Democratic Party who wants to roll back welfare reform. For the record, I don't know anybody in the Democratic Party who wants to let loose murderers and rapists.''
Beyer faulted Allen for being short-sighted and failing to focus on the issue he said mattered most to Virginians this Labor Day - job security. ``Even with 84,000 new jobs, more people are concerned about losing their jobs than at any time in our history,'' he said.
Beyer said Virginia needed to make ``fundamental investments'' - in education, in transportation - to create a high-wage economy based on workers with improved skills. However, under the Allen administration, he said, ``we're in a period of benign neglect.''
Between their two speeches to more than 200 people gathered beneath the picnic shelter at Glen Maury Park, and their follow-up comments, the Republican governor and the Democrat who hopes to succeed him outlined their two parties' differing approaches to the problems facing Virginia. Mostly, that meant Allen talking tough on crime and welfare, with Beyer emphasizing the need to spend more on education.
Without naming names, Allen also delivered a pointed warning to a Northern Virginia-based group of business leaders - many of them prominent Republican contributors - who have been urging legislators to support a tax increase to raise more money for the state's colleges and universities.
``I'd veto any sales or income tax that came across my desk, and we don't need to be jacking up the gas tax, either,'' Allen said. ``Anyone who wants to lie in that bed can explain why they're for it.'' by CNB