THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 5, 1996 TAG: 9609050018
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 58 lines
If money, sweat and theme were the measure, young Mark Warner might be making an even match out of his long-shot campaign against the state's venerable senior senator, John Warner.
Their performances at Virginia's traditional fall campaign kickoff, the Labor Day parade in Buena Vista, showed how each Warner is attacking the race.
The three-term incumbent rode in stately ease on the back of a power-red convertible, tipping his Stetson to the crowd and later pointing to such achievements as a local flood wall as proof of his performance.
Meanwhile, 41-year-old Mark Warner jogged the two-mile route, darting from side to side to press the flesh and flick peppermints to the crowd. The performance highlighted his relative youth and helped focus his slogan: ``This campaign is not about where we've been - it's about where we're going.''
So far Mark Warner has spent close to $3 million of his personal fortune trumpeting that theme. But he's still eating the incumbent Warner's dust in polls.
Can this change? The odds against it are enormous. Nonetheless, Mark Warner will do the commonwealth a service if he focuses attention on the specific threads of a senatorial voting record that is less known to most Virginians than the broad measure of the man.
Essentially unopposed in his re-election campaign six years ago, the senior Warner has had to do little accounting for specific votes. But the electorate should hear him explain some of the votes that Mark Warner's researchers have unearthed: on student loans, Medicare, the environment, and campaign finance, among others.
Some fleshing out of the senator's views regarding Bob Dole's proposed 15 percent tax cut would help too. Would he be a reliable vote for President Dole, or not? Thus far his response is too bare bones to tell.
But Mark Warner will have to do more than hustle and spend to convince Virginians that Newt Gingrich and John Warner are ideological twins. Voters usually see past such artificial comparisons.
John Warner wins the round when he notes that, not long ago, he was being accused by his Republican primary opponent of being too liberal. Now, he's attacked as too conservative. The truth, says the senator, is that he's somewhere in the middle.
That's certainly how most Virginians see it. Mark Warner has two months left during which to try to convince them otherwise. The cellular-phone magnate has the money to make the case. The question is whether he has the goods.
Along the way, he'll also have some explaining of his own to do. Despite his relaxed demeanor, John Warner lobbed a few missiles his competitor's way on Monday. He called on Mark Warner to account for the degree to which political connections and the ``government giveaway'' of federal licenses accounted for his wealth. Fair enough.
Voters only get a chance to choose who occupies a U.S. Senate seat once every six years. They can't afford to take a pass. Virginians can thank Mark Warner for giving us stiff scrutiny of the incumbent's record. But thanks and votes are two different things. Mark Warner has earned the first. He has miles to go to convince a majority of Virginians that he merits the other. by CNB