THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 17, 1996 TAG: 9610170015
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A19 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Commonwealth conversation
One of a series of interviews with Virginia's political leaders
conducted by Pilot editorial writer Margaret Edds. Randy Forbes is the
newly elected chair of the state GOP and state delegate from
Chesapeake.
SOURCE: [Margaret Edds]
LENGTH: 125 lines
What have been the major trends in Virginia politics in this decade?
I think clearly we have moved to more of a parity between the Democrat and Republican parties. That has been the most significant thing in Virginia politics.
Have Republicans moved as far as you thought they would?
I don't know that you'll ever have a dominance again between Republicans and Democrats. I think that's good. I think dominance creates arrogance and I think that would be true whether it's Democrats or Republicans. And I think arrogance is probably the thing that people dislike most about politics. What I think we'll see is a constant movement between the parties.
Does that mean we'll have constant friction in the legislature?
I think we're going to have constant friction in society period. Society's like that today. We've got a lot of divergence, a lot of diversity in our society. Even if you look at things like the workplace, years ago, someone could go and get a job with the government or a large corporation and they could say, ``I know I'm going to be here for 25 years.'' We don't see that today.
We also are going to see that in government, because society itself is kind of in a state of flux.
Whenever you're talking about change having a realistic chance of occurring, there's friction. The status quo never yields gently to change. . . where the status quo continues, or do we want to have change?
Has the kind of friction we've had been healthy?
Politics is just a reflection of the kind of change we see in society as a whole. Businessmen will tell you that people today are more difficult to deal with than they were 15 years ago. They want the K-mart prices, but they want Mercedes quality. I think those same demands are being placed on government.
What I see us needing to do in politics and perhaps in society as a whole, we've got to be able to air our differences, fight for those differences, but do so with the type of civility which is not just a facade but which is a real caring for other people, whether they're against us or for us.
How do you do that if the other side doesn't subscribe to the same rules?
I don't think that's a Republican-Democrat situation. I really, to the extent I know my heart, believe I can go in and debate an issue and if someone on the other side of the aisle needs me personally for something, I would be there to try to help them. That's not lip service. I have done it. There are people on the other side that would do the same thing.
But I feel there are a lot of individuals who have grown up with the mentality, ``If you're not with me, you're against me. It's a zero sum game where I have to try to destroy you.'' We've seen that take place. How do you deal with it? Really two ways. I think, one, that's where your character traits, if you're a religious person which I am, your faith, has to come into play. And I think you have to say, there are greater goals here than you winning or losing.
But it is hard. I hear people saying sometimes how harsh the Republican Congress is and how mean they're being treated and it was never like that before. They just never saw it. It's perhaps the same thing we had with segregation. Not being a minority, you never saw what they were seeing and how they were being treated. What we have today, I think is many of the Democrats are seeing how we were treated.
I witnessed it when I came up here, as far as the treatment of individuals. I wasn't naive, but I didn't expect quite the hostility that I got. It was almost like they had to make sure that they treated you badly in many instances to maintain their position as king of the hill. That wasn't true with people who weren't in leadership positions. I'm not whining about this. I'm just describing it as it happened, because there are many of us who are determined not to let that happen again if we get a majority.
When I first came to the legislature and we had freshman orientation, you were basically told as Republicans you were going to sit in the back of the bus. . . . The clerk, Joe Holloman, was a nice, elegant man, but Joe looked at everybody in the meeting, and he said, ``We dance with those that brung us.'' I remember many of us coming back and being disillusioned with the process.
In a situation like that, you can always say, ``We're going to get even some day,'' or you can say, ``I want to change the process.'' Well, I want to change the process.
Are you saying you wouldn't use the system to political advantage if Republicans controlled the legislature?
You use the system to accomplish the things you believe in. That's what the system's there for.
During the 1990s, did the Republicans have an opportunity to advance more than they have?
Yes. I think so. I think probably we could have maybe gone further in the last election. I would have taken a little bit different tact probably. I think some of the budget cuts that were proposed didn't have enough lead time to educate people. And there were probably too many issues that were tackled at one time. Our recommendation was not to do that. My recommendation a year or so before was that we take the tack of abolishing parole, and then in the next session that we come down strong on education - and not necessarily the funding.
What is your agenda as chairman of the Republican Party?
I want the Republican Party to be something different than a party has ever been in Virginia before. I want people to look at the Republican Party and say the party is not just there for elections, but there all throughout the year.
How does the advancement of Republicans in Virginia compare with that in other Southern states?
Virginia's a state that nobody's going to totally predict and say, oh yeah, that's a state that's in the bag. I feel very comfortable that Virginia will go Republican in this presidential race. I don't think we're going to have any big changes in our congressional delegation.
The excitement the Democrats had in the 1990s was in holding their own. As I travel around Virginia, I don't see a lot of people who love to get out and say, ``I'm a Democrat.'' MEMO: These interviews by Margaret Edds were conducted for a book about
Southern politics in the 1990s. The Virginia chapter is being written by
Dr. Thomas Morris, president of Emory & Henry College, and Ms. Edds. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Randy Forbes
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW by CNB