THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 11, 1995 TAG: 9512110034
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
The Virginia GOP Central Committee gave up Saturday and gave Sen. John W. Warner a primary to run for re-nomination next year to a fourth term in the U.S. Senate.
Irked at Warner's mulish independence - he acts as if he was elected to serve the people instead of party poobahs - hardline conservatives had aimed to ambush him in June by staging the nomination in a convention they could boss.
Reached Saturday at the Norfolk Naval Base where he was watching the commissioning of the John S. Stennis, which he helped put on the ways, Warner wouldn't gloat.
He suggested everybody enjoy the holidays and begin campaigning in January. That sort of magnanimity roils some bilious souls after they have been skunked.
His foes resent Warner's refusal in 1993 to back the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor, Michael P. Farris, and for fielding independent candidate J. Marshall Coleman against Oliver L. North in last year's Senate race.
Such refusal to conform would have hurt Warner in a GOP convention, but it will help draw independents and Democrats to his side in a primary.
In Virginia, either party's primaries are open to all voters. Crossovers from one party to another, back and forth, are as active as streams of jaywalkers at a rush-hour intersection. Virginians cherish the right to skip around and vote as often as they please.
Most Virginia voters don't want some punctilious supernumerary trying to order them around like a traffic cop when they are bent on voting as they wish. Republican officialdom ought to realize that. In fact, that party grew by urging Virginians to vote for the man, not the party.
A broad spectrum of voters is grateful to Warner for helping spare them the anguish of watching Oliver North's foreboding theatrics elevated to the Senate.
Warner's foe for the nomination, James C. Miller III, a former federal budget director, said he would beat Warner on any battlefield.
It is Miller's second run for the GOP nomination to the Senate. In losing to North in 1994, he still garnered 45 percent of the vote.
Some Miller supporters voted for the primary because they feared that a call for a convention would spur Warner to run as an independent in the general election.
Virginia Attorney General James S. Gilmore ruled that Virginia law assured Warner a choice of primary. To challenge it, some felt, might involve the party in another expensive lawsuit.
It already is battling with University of Virginia law students over fees, upward of $25, charged to people taking part in the nominating process of 1994.
Harry F. Byrd, political boss of bosses for 40 years, dared assess no more than the $1.50 poll tax at the voting booth. But then these are grandiose times. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
John Warner's refusal to conform to GOP party lines
would have hurt him in a convention, but will help draw independents
and Democrats to his side in a primary.
by CNB