THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 10, 1996 TAG: 9606100126
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 57 lines
Young Mark Warner - that, his youth, is what's noticeable first - was nominated Saturday for the U.S. Senate by a jubilant crowd of some 2,000 or so Democrats in which youth predominated.
Energetic youthfulness will underscore his campaign whoever wins the Republican primary Tuesday - James Miller III on the sere side of middle age or U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, workaholic aging lion at the height of his clout in the Senate.
Democrats packed the floor of the Hampton Coliseum, with 200 filtering into the first balcony. A three-story Stars and Stripes hung behind the young candidate as he spoke.
People notice a touch of the young Kennedy about Mark Warner - a hint of charisma. He is not as handsome - no candidate is - and where JFK was urbane, Warner has a touch of the naivete of a novice campaigner, which may appeal in this era of cynicism.
That air of gangling trustfulness will wear off as Warner visits Virginia's every city and county as he swore to do by Labor Day.
He has an almost overwhelming grin, a degree toothier than that of the Kennedy family. In talking, he leans in toward you, a trait developed perhaps in fund raising for the Democratic National Committee.
Admirers say he resembles an Horatio Alger hero; but he hails from a middle-class home, not one of the dire poverty Alger drew.
But readers of Alger's books know that the rise of young men from poverty to opulence started from a stroke of luck, not initiative.
Phil the Fiddler, who fed his destitute mother by playing a violin on street corners, found a bulging wallet. He took it to the rich owner who took him into the business and into the family as his son-in-law.
Jed the Backwoods Boy walked into town, marveling, when a runaway horse, conveying a screaming maiden in a carriage, hove into view. Jed saved her; her father brought him into the firm.
Warner worked his way through college with grants and jobs. His audacity served well in fund raising, and that experience helped him win the backing of moguls for his business ventures in the complex world of electronics. That success nerved him to become chairman of Virginia's Democratic Party and then seek the nomination to oppose a popular, entrenched incumbent.
Mark Warner speaks of America's sunrise of the next century in the new electronics economy wherein he amassed $100 million.
Some voters, without the least conception of cyberspace, may be inclined to entrust the mastery of it to the visionary proclaiming ``Fourteen years ago, everything I owned fit in the back of my 1965 Buick, but I was given every opportunity. I know what hard work and a dream can do. I have been able to live the American dream. And I want to make the American dream real and possible for every Virginian.'' ILLUSTRATION: Mark Warner's youthfulness will be a factor in the
race for the U.S. Senate - no matter who wins the Republican
nomination in Tuesday's primary. He won the Democratic nomination
Saturday in Hampton. by CNB