THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 8, 1996 TAG: 9610080396
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Decision 96
SOURCE: Staff Writer Robert Little
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 76 lines
Just hours removed from a sizzling labor debate in Washington, John Warner left the main pavilion at the Virginia State Fair last week and stumbled onto the press.
``Senator, what's that bill holding things up in Congress? Will you be able to adjourn?'' was the question.
Warner's feet stopped dead. His eyebrows dropped almost to his nose and he searched the sky for the right response. After a moment, he turned and made eye contact.
``You know,'' Warner said, with a pointed finger for effect, ``I can't find the right sausage around here. I was at a parade in Newport News and they had this white veal sausage and boy it was good. That's what I need.''
With the U.S. Senate finished for the year, Virginia's Republican senator is plotting his four-week pitch for re-election. And at an early campaign-trail appearance last week he seemed more worried about bad food than a bad showing at the polls.
Warner's nonchalance is owed partially to the built-in advantage of any three-term incumbent - 18 years of hand-shaking and letter-writing, and an unavoidable celebrity status. There's also that 20-point lead in the polls.
But over the next four weeks, voters will be subject to one of the sharpest differences in the Senate race with the same last names: Opponent Mark Warner campaigns like he's pleading for work. John Warner campaigns like he's already on vacation.
At a home for the aging in Petersburg last week, Mark Warner met just about all 50 people individually and asked each one to get 10 more to the polls. John Warner hardly mentioned the election during two hours of campaigning.
Where Mark Warner turns perfectly good shirts into sweat rags sprinting after every hand in sight, John Warner glides. The hands come to him.
At the fair, John Warner plied the corridors of everyday Virginia using the campaign almost as a front. His true motivations rested on the grills and fryers, or chomping hay in the livestock barns, ready to arm him for another story about his farming days.
When asked about Mark Warner's criticism of his budget votes, John Warner responded like this:
``He says he'll cut a couple of things that wouldn't pay for three weeks of the debt, and then he takes - hey, do you know what kind of pigs those were? Poland Chinas. Used to raise them - he takes two or three out of thousands of votes I cast and criticizes. He won't say what he would do.''
As he plowed through the festival-goers toward a blazing ``SAUSAGE'' sign last week, chattering about Ted Kennedy and that mess on Capitol Hill, ignoring the aides imploring him to walk the other way, people shouted his name from every direction.
A young woman whose mother worked on Capitol Hill. Old sailors who served while he was secretary of the Navy. Police officers, truck drivers, peanut farmers. Even a few people asking about Liz.
The style is noticeably different from his opponent's - almost like a reunion more than a campaign. He talks the issues only when asked, and just long enough to be polite.
But becoming one with the masses can only go so far for one of the most powerful men in Virginia politics, towing all the staffers and guards that position demands.
As a woman wiped his spectacles with Worley's Best Jewelry and Glass Cleaner, for instance, the senator reached a decision.
``All right, let me get two of those,'' he said. ``I'll put one in my office.''
Then he just walked away, leaving a young aide fumbling for a twenty to close the sale.
After a few steps, Warner stopped and wondered aloud. (Rarely, it seems, does he wonder to himself.)
``You know what, I really want to find those hand-carved salad forks,'' he said. ``I bought some of those hand-carved wooden salad forks here one year and they were just perfect.''
The Henrico County police officer following for protection leaned into his shirt-pocket microphone.
``Anybody seen hand-carved salad forks here?'' he broadcast quietly. ``Let me know. We need salad forks.''
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