THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604120035
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Margaret Edds
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
It is Paul Goldman's maiden voyage on the high seas of talk radio, and the going just now is choppy.
The opening-day guest - political-lightning-rod-turned-talk-show-host Oliver North - is lost somewhere in the air waves over Fredericksburg. There's a caller on the line, but the line isn't working. And, Goldman's nasal undertone - ``Ha'ir we doin'?'' - probably wasn't intended to be audible in radioland during this commercial break.
Even so, how we're doing is just fine.
As generations of Virginia candidates and precinct workers know, if there's one thing Paul Goldman can do without ceasing, it is talk. Celebrities or no, callers or no, filling an hour with opinions and theories and philosophical contrails is as easy for Goldman as, say, feeding a baby - which the 50-year-old Democratic-strategy wizard is also doing these days.
In his latest incarnation as Richmond radio's ``Rebel With a Cause,'' the offbeat iconoclast who has been a sometimes-venerated, sometimes-shunned, always-colorful fixture of state politics for two decades has found a natural niche.
Time will tell whether the New York transplant whose soaring moment was the 1989 victory of the nation's first elected black governor, Doug Wilder, can crack the competitive world of radio syndication. The odds against it are great, and particularly so for a liberal.
But for now, Goldman has the financial backing, thanks to a wealthy Tennessean who is also the fiancee of another former Wilder intimate, Joel Harris. He has a start in the 11 a.m. weekday slot on WLEE, all-talk radio. And when it comes to gab, he has the gift.
For Monday's opener, Goldman strolled into the studio 10 minutes before showtime armed with newspaper clippings and a string of one-liners on topics from Ross Perot to the Unabomber:
``Hello, Virginia,'' he boomed moments later. ``I've got my southern accent, that's southern New York, cranked up today, and we're ready to go.''
From there it was on to an opinion piece by Ross Mackenzie, conservative editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, linking the Unabomber to leftist political thought: ``Illogical and the kind of thinking that needs to be exposed.''
To Perot: ``The guy with all the money and no sense.''
To presidential politics: ``Bob Dole's biggest albatross is the conservative movement in Congress.''
To Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr: should be removed because of his dual role as ``the lead dog for the tobacco companies in their litigation.''
To talk radio: ``Sort of a wasteland of conservative rabble and babble.''
And to his plans to change it: ``Call me anti-establishment. Call me a rebel. Call me a Yankee. By almost any definition, I'll come up on the left more so than not.''
Goldman, who these days is also advising Senate hopeful Mark Warner, practicing a little law, and burping Thomas Louis Benjamin Goldman (age 4 months) looks more conventional than in years past. Only the trailing laces on his untied sneakers and the red ball cap are visual clues to the free spirit whose antics spawned a ream of campaign trail lore.
But he has lost none of the zest for ideas or passion for offbeat strategies that have made him a friend of underdog candidates since Norfolk lawyer Henry Howell's upset victory in the 1977 Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Goldman's most enduring achievements to date stem from his connection to Wilder. The former governor, who does not share credit lightly, singled out Goldman as the architect of the abortion strategy that enabled him to overcome race and win.
The two have not spoken in almost two years, however. ``That's his choice, not mine,'' says Goldman when asked to explain the rift. ``I worked for the guy, gave him all that advice, he never paid me a dime other than in campaigns, you do all that, then you pick up the paper and he's sort of attacking you.''
A shrug. ``That's life.''
And life is moving on. ``I stood up over the course of years to open up this state,'' he says, citing his proudest achievement. Now, he'd like to do the same for conservative-dominated talk radio.
Queried about his ambitions, The Rebel flashes a familiar grin, broad and sly. ``Twenty-four hours, round the clock, me and Ted Turner.'' MEMO: Ms. Edds is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB