THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 1, 1996 TAG: 9606010018
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 32 lines
Henry Clay of Kentucky, six-term speaker of the House of Representatives, won the title of ``The Great Compromiser'' for his 19th-century work forestalling the breakup of the union over slavery.
Chesapeake Del. Randy Forbes might want to look up Clay's biography.
The genial minority whip in the Virginia House of Delegates, Forbes has just taken on a new challenge: chairman of the state GOP. Melding the party's warring factions into a united front will require all the diplomacy and fancy footwork displayed by Clay in an earlier era.
The good news for Republicans is that Forbes may be equal to the task. This will be a welcomed relief for a party whose internal bickering has contributed to its setbacks and overshadowed its successes in recent years.
No sooner had Gov. George Allen won a landslide victory for governor in 1993 than he and former GOP Chair Pat McSweeney began a slugfest over control of the party apparatus. With Forbes' selection to succeed McSweeney, an ideological purist, the match goes to the governor. But the victory has been a long and not-very-pretty time coming.
``My feeling is more like Ronald Reagan's,'' Forbes said recently. ``If somebody is with me 80 percent of the time, I prefer to think of them as a friend 80 percent of the time rather than as an enemy 20 percent of the time. I'm not going to have an enemies' list.''
Amen to Forbes.
For Republicans, it's a better way of preserving a more-perfect union. by CNB