THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603160014
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
It must have grated on state GOP Chairman Patrick McSweeney to ask federal judges to intervene in a family feud among Virginia Republicans. His party likes to ping the courts as usurpers eager to put their oar into matters best left to the political process. But McSweeney likes even less the prospect that Democrats and independents will vote in his party's U.S. Senate primary in June and assure renomination of incumbent John Warner.
That wouldn't be possible if Virginia's open primaries were closed, the end McSweeney seeks. Only members of the club could vote then; party bosses wouldn't have to fret about nominees, once elected, having ideas of their own. According to challenger James C. Miller III, Senator Warner's an ``arrogant old bull'' who would be put to pasture if party faithful had the whole say about Warner's bid for a fourth term.
Maybe so. Warner opted to run in an open primary rather than compete with Miller in a convention because he knows the depth of resentment against him. This Warner earned as a contributor to the defeats of two party nominees - Oliver North for the Senate and Michael Farris for lieutenant governor.
At this time two years ago Warner was saying he might, in very iffy circumstances, vote for a Democrat in preference to North whom he regarded as unfit to serve because of his conviction for felonies (later overturned on a technicality). Ultimately he recruited a Republican, Marshall Coleman, to run as an independent and pull votes from North in the latter's loss to Democratic incumbent Chuck Robb.
But these bare facts wrongly suggest Warner had taken flight solely on the wings of robust self-regard. For one thing, Warner knew of deep reservations about North among able Reagan-Bush advisers acquainted with his record. And it wouldn't have been amiss had he made calculations about Virginia's clout. Warner's Republican predecessor, William Scott, had felt moved to deny that he was the dumbest member of the Senate. Now Robb was laboring under a cloud of scandal. Would it help matters to replace him with an adventurer whose hearty contempt for Congress was expressed in deceiving it and in scornful rhetoric?
That question would never have arisen had Republicans in convention chosen Miller over North as their candidate. Miller clearly was the superior party man commended for good service as budget chief for the Reagan administration; standing as far right as one could on the issues; supported by Warner and given good marks in the polls for potential to unseat Robb.
What else could have been wanted in a Republican candidate? One answer was given by a party activist from Virginia Beach who said: ``Winning elections is not the only goal of the Republican Party. Our goal is to lead, not to follow, to try to effectuate a conservative agenda. Oliver North does that.'' That's another way of saying that it's OK sometimes to place principle above politics-as-usual which, interestingly enough, was Warner's justification for opposing North. Maybe McSweeney's effort to get back at Warner falls under the same rubric: He claims the Constitution gives Republicans the right to be free of association with non-Republicans in choosing their nominees. Nothing personal. A matter of principle.
Miller's argument for a closed primary is down to earth but dopey. ``If you were having a party at your house,'' he said, ``you could keep out a bunch of rowdies who wanted to disrupt.'' This paints vividly the old picture of Southern Republicans who checked pedigrees at the door, and offers offense to independents who often vote Republican but decline to give oath to a party that hankers after the Newts and Norths.
More to the point, how could Democrats and independents possibly ``disrupt'' by voting in the Republican primary? The answer is only by voting for Miller himself and thus relieving a lesser-known Democratic candidate of the burden of bucking Warner's popularity and seniority. ``Rowdies'' helping Warner would be casting a vote for GOP control of the Senate and strengthening the hand of Bob Dole. Is this not so? MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB