THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608020024
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
LENGTH: 65 lines
It was hardly surprising to see a To-Be-Continued line at the end of one of Mark R. Warner's television ads. The electronic campaign aimed at convincing Virginians to elect a largely unknown multimillionaire to the U.S. Senate has a never-ending air and the pace of an arthritic turtle. Here it is August, three months on, and the story so far amounts mostly to a big hello.
Viewers who just look in from time to time may have learned only that Mark R. Warner (no relation to John W. Warner, the three-term Republican incumbent he seeks to unseat) has an attractive family; wasn't always rich; once drove an old car; and is now heading off in a van to campaign in every county in Virginia.
When he says every county, the candidate intones, he means every county. That insistence somehow recalls the repeated assurances of Richard Nixon that no state would go unvisited during one of his presidential campaigns - as if to say he was staking all on getting to Idaho and would deserve election if he did.
Oh, well, it's Mark Warner's story and his money (he gave his campaign $1.6 million between May 20 and June 30), and he can tell the story any way he wishes.
Even so, it seems fair to wonder if the teevee saga ever will cut to the chase - that is, to positions on political issues that may commend Mark Warner over John Warner. The question, after all, is why a Warner never elected to public office should take the place of a Warner running on a record of 18 years in the Senate.
On the other hand, that may frame the question too much in favor of the incumbent. John Warner also began at the top. When elected in 1978 by the thinnest margin ever in a Virginia campaign, he'd served as secretary of the Navy but never in an elective office. His first marriage (to a Mellon heiress) had brought him a fortune and his second (to Elizabeth Taylor) a crowd-pulling magnetism beyond price. He had his own good looks but lacked heft and was disparaged by some as a dilettante. There was scant basis for any claim that he had defeated Andrew Miller, the Democratic candidate, on the basis of individual merit.
Evidence of that would come later as John Warner made a reputation for hard work, gained standing among Senate influentials like Sam Nunn of Georgia, and demonstrated in fights with party elders that he had his own convictions about political philosophy.
The John Warner camp is not convincing in portraying Mark Warner as ``somebody trying to buy a Senate seat,'' although the latter, with a reported net worth exceeding $100 million, has the wherewithal to try. The charge, at least, is premature.
For one thing, as the Democratic camp points out, John Warner's incumbency is worth its weight in gold. Mark Warner can easily run through a few million before beginning to offset the senator's advantage in name recognition and experience. On the stump, moreover, the Democrat may yet develop a flesh-and-blood candidacy to go along with the contrivance unreeling on television or, alternately, to substitute therefor.
Insofar as his candidacy gains in personal substance, he will be faulted less for flinging his money around. How that's to be done, of course, is a challenging question; his initial image as an earnest, high-tech futurist lacks something in definition. Ultimately, nothing defines a candidate more clearly than his stand on issues, although taking stands and sticking to them is not always in vogue. Much remains to be seen about Mark Warner; welcome the day when more is known about his politics than his wealth. MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB