THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120010
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 52 lines
The people have spoken: Warners for U.S. Senate will be on the Virginia ballot this fall.
Incumbent Republican Sen. John Warner's easy win over former Reagan budget chief Jim Miller in yesterday's GOP primary election is a reward for a job well done.
It is also a victory for sanity in the Virginia Republican Party.
Some will grumble that independents and Democrats turned the tide. But the result is nomination of a candidate who will be harder for Democrat Mark Warner to beat in the fall.
GOP tea-leaf readers should get the message: The party's fervid right wing may control the internal GOP apparatus, but it does not control the Virginia electorate.
Tuesday's primary outcome should be particularly daunting to Oliver North. The former Iran-Contra figure, who lost his 1994 Senate bid to Chuck Robb, has indicated that he'll run again for the seat in 2000. North lent his name and his fund-raising clout to Miller. Indeed, the bulk of Miller's support came from GOP activists seething over Warner's refusal to back North in the 1994 race.
In this year as in that one, however, Northites controlled the GOP convention, only to be overwhelmed at the polls. As liberal Virginia Democrats learned to their sorrow in the 1970s, the power to nominate candidates does not advance one's cause if the nominees can't win general elections.
The fall match-up between John Warner and Mark Warner will pit age against youth, experience against innovation.
Mark Warner, 41, is a Harvard-educated businessman who is parlaying a cellular-phone fortune into a Senate bid. He has worked hard and well in the Democratic Party, but he is unknown to most Virginians. Hoping to fill the familiarity gap, he'll today begin a lavish media campaign.
The picture he paints will be of a middle-class kid, first in his family to graduate college, who turned bright ideas and boundless energy into a multimillion-dollar bankroll. Now he'd like to lend that combination to public service.
But first Mark Warner will have to convince Virginians to give the boot to three-term incumbent John Warner. This will not be an easy sell. The senior Warner also has worked hard and well. And he is better positioned to advance Virginia's interests in Washington than a freshman Democrat, however savvy, would be.
Before Nov. 5, Mark Warner will have ample opportunity to make his case, and John Warner to respond.
Look for a lively campaign.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA PRIMARY ELECTIONS
REPUBLICAN PARTY RESULTS by CNB