THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120479
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 136 lines
Defying conservative leaders who branded him a traitor, U.S. Sen. John W. Warner turned to the public Tuesday and cruised to a landslide victory in the Republican primary election.
Unofficial results showed Warner capturing 65.5 percent of the vote in his victory over James C. Miller III, a former federal budget chief under President Reagan.
Warner, 69, will be the favorite to win a fourth term this fall against Democrat Mark R. Warner, an Alexandria cellular telephone magnate who is not related to the senator.
In refusing to back two recent high-profile Republican candidates, Warner outraged many conservative party loyalists who dominate the state party. His triumph was widely seen as a repudiation of those views.
``My good friends, I came in second. Virginia, as a state, came in first,'' a subdued Warner told about 250 cheering supporters at his Richmond victory celebration. ``We're ever so fortunate as Virginians to live in such a great state of people, common sense and wisdom.''
Miller, in his concession speech, called on Republicans to rally behind Sen. Warner this fall. He told supporters that they had succeeded in pressuring Warner to begin voting more conservatively, alluding to a number of studies showing Warner has drifted to the right in the last year.
``This campaign is not a rejection of the conservative ideas we have been talking about,'' he told about 100 supporters. ``We even changed the behavior of a U.S. senator.''
Miller, 53, was non-committal about his political future. It was his second unsuccessful bid to win the GOP Senate nomination; in 1994 he lost a convention fight to Oliver L. North. ``Maybe I'm too honest and too intellectual to be a full-blown politician,'' he said. ``I don't know. I'll leave that for others to decide.''
Almost 488,000 of Virginia's 3.03 million voters - or 16.1 percent - cast ballots. The turnout was higher than Virginia's past two primaries: the 1989 Republican contest for governor and the 1994 Democratic race for the U.S. Senate.
With all but eight of the state's 2,229 precincts reporting, the unofficial results showed Warner with 321,448 votes and Miller with 169,308.
Warner wracked up huge victories in the urban and suburban corridor arching from Northern Virginia to Hampton Roads. ``John Warner has to be extremely happy that he not only fended off the challenge, but he did so convincingly,'' said Robert Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Unofficial results showed him carrying 73 percent of the vote in South Hampton Roads, where he argued that his senior status on the Senate Armed Services Committee would protect defense-related jobs on naval bases and in shipyards.
The senator unofficially won 71 percent of the vote in Northern Virginia and 59 percent in the Richmond metropolitan area. He won 71 percent of the vote in the Roanoke Valley.
The victory snubs the dominant conservative wing of the state GOP, which had urged Warner's defeat. Outside the deep southwest corner of the state, Miller failed to carry a region despite the support of the Christian conservatives, the National Rifle Association and a national organization backing term limits.
``My sense is that this is going to have long-term repercussions for the Republican Party,'' said Holsworth. ``Moderate conservatives are going to argue that these results demonstrate that people who have a very narrow appeal have exercised much too much influence in the Virginia Republican Party.''
Many party activists had been furious at Warner's refusal to back two recent state Republican nominees: home-schooling proponent Michael P. Farris for lieutenant governor in 1993 and Iran-Contra figure Oliver L. North for the Senate in 1994.
At a state GOP convention earlier this month, Miller won the support of the delegates in a straw poll and a rousing endorsement for North.
Warner's easy primary victory ``proves decisively that the activist core that turns up at conventions is out of touch with the broad sector of Republicans in the state,'' said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.
Sabato said the results were particularly devastating to Republican evangelicals. Miller has received backing from Farris and a widely publicized $1,000 contribution from broadcaster Pat Robertson, and received favorable reviews on a voter's guide published by the Christian Coalition.
``The results tonight show the Christian Coalition can't even win a Republican primary,'' Sabato said.
Earlier this month, Del. Randy Forbes of Chesapeake was installed as state Republican chairman, pledging to work with Gov. George F. Allen to bridge the rift between the party's conservative and moderate wings.
From the start, the campaign was a referendum on Warner's loyalty to the state Republican Party. Warner had long irritated the dominant Christian conservative wing of the GOP by taking moderate stands on abortion and other social issues and in 1987 voting against the nomination of Robert H. Bork for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Warner further alienated the right wing in 1993 when he refused to endorse Farris, the party's nominee for lieutenant governor. The final break came when he opposed and labeled as dishonest the party nominee for the U.S. Senate, former Iran-contra figure Oliver L. North.
Warner recruited and endorsed Independent J. Marshall Coleman in the 1994 race, an action many Republicans believe split conservative votes just enough to allow Democrat Charles S. Robb to be re-elected.
Former state Republican chairman Patrick M. McSweeney and other GOP leaders criticized Warner's action as an unpardonable betrayal of the party. Warner defended his deeds as an expression of conscience.
GOP leaders hoped to make this year's nomination at a state convention, a process dominated by a few thousand party activists who were believed likely to oppose Warner. The senator, however, defied the party by invoking a little-known state law that allowed him to insist on a primary. McSweeney unsuccessfully sought to challenge the law in federal court.
Warner, 69, believed most voters who participated in a Republican primary would not care about his tiffs with the party. The three-term incumbent argued that his seniority was important to Virginia, particularly his standing as the second most senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Warner's incumbency helped him raise $2.5 million while Miller collected $1 million. Thirty-one percent of Warner's money was donated by political action committees, many of them representing defense contractors.
Warner's bankroll paid for a series of negative and sometimes misleading TV commercials alleging Miller, as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in the early 1980s, spent more than $100,000 redecorating his offices and flying first class on airplanes.
Miller's campaign could not afford television advertising and was unable to respond to Warner's charges.
On issues, there was not much that separated the candidates. Miller ran to the right of Warner on social issues such as abortion and gun control. He also endorsed term limits and vowed not to serve more than 12 years if elected to the Senate. Warner, having held the seat since 1979, opposed limitations. On defense and economic matters, the candidates were largely in agreement. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot
Sen. John W. Warner told cheering supporters in Richmond Tuesday:
``My good friends, I came in second. Virginia, as a state, came in
first.'' The victorious incumbent will face Democrat Mark R. Warner
in November in the latter's first bid for statewide office.
LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot
In conceding, James C. Miller III told supporters they had made John
Warner change his behavior and urged them to rally behind them.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA PRIMARY ELECTIONS
REPUBLICAN PARTY RESULTS by CNB