THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120681
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 55 lines
A friend, a lifelong Democrat, was gathering courage Tuesday morning to enter the GOP primary to vote for U.S. Sen. John W. Warner.
You'd have thought she was venturing into a snake pit.
It just didn't feel right, she said, and after this one fling she was going to return to the House of Her Fathers and vote in November for Democratic nominee Mark R. Warner.
She had the right to do that, I told her, since Virginians don't have to register to vote by party affiliation.
It's up to every voter, who intends to cross party lines, to follow his or her own conscience, I noted.
``Why, a good many Democrats, including some who were at Saturday's convention for Mark Warner, will be Republicans for a day and vote for Jim Miller because they figure he would be an easier candidate for Mark Warner to beat in November,'' I said.
``THAT'S NOT FAIR!'' she cried.
For that moment she was a full-time, full-blooded Republican.
When she entered the polling place that afternoon, everybody around her looked to be a Republican, different somehow, but it hadn't been too bad, she decided.
Republican Party regulars will hope that she and other visiting Democrats opt to stick in November. That is one way political parties grow in Virginia.
Some stick-in-the-mud disgrunts will bear a grudge against Warner forever. In 1994 he had the courage to say in a bleak four-word dismissal that Oliver L. North was ``unfit for the Senate.'' And he cast this election as a test of whether Virginians would support a candidate who put principle above party.
In a landslide they did.
Warner will be a major player at the August convention in San Diego when Republicans nominate Bob Dole as their presidential candidate.
In saying goodbye Tuesday to the Senate to take up full-time campaigning, Dole observed that Warner had been the first to urge him to try to become majority leader. ``Me!'' Dole exclaimed. And then, Dole said, he set about to do it.
Jim Miller, former budget director for President Reagan, fought a hard, resourceful campaign against Warner, so much so that many Warner supporters feared Miller might win if the turnout were light.
But buoyant Miller is not one to sulk over losses, and Warner, of course, will need his help in trying to heal resentments in the ranks.
Another arduous campaign is ahead for him as he faces energetic Democratic nominee Mark Warner, who is seeking to assure for Virginians through a new economy some of the success he has enjoyed in his meteoric career in electronics.
In November, Virginians will have a fine pair of public servants from which to choose. ILLUSTRATION: John Warner by CNB