THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610240480
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: DECISION '96
SOURCE: BY DWAYNE YANCEY, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
LENGTH: 169 lines
Mark Warner hunched forward on the edge of his seat, his hands punctuating the air to make his points so enthusiastically that before long he'd unintentionally rolled his chair into the middle of the room.
By now, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate was so close to the debate panelist he was talking to, so intent on making his case, that they were practically face-to-face.
``That's OK,'' Henry Sullivan finally joked, as he watched Warner's body language become more familiar. ``You can touch me.''
Warner flashed a toothy smile, patted Sullivan's arm, then went right back to pressing his case about what America must do to cope with the technological changes transforming the economy.
Only when he was done did Mark Warner wheel his chair back to where he - and it - belonged.
A few moments later, though, there he went again, straining toward his interviewer, his chair following along, this time as he explained the management lessons the federal government could learn from Microsoft.
Maybe one of the truisms of American politics is wrong: Maybe debates are not the best way for citizens to size up a candidate.
Three weeks ago, Mark Warner and the three-term Republican incumbent, John Warner, met for a televised debate in Williamsburg, where they spent an hour taking questions from a panel of ordinary Virginians - including one group beamed in by satellite from Roanoke.
After the debate was over, the six Roanoke panelists complained that the candidates weren't shooting straight with them, offering canned responses that often had little to do with the questions that were asked. ``Bull,'' one voter called it. ``I'd fail both of them,'' another said.
To see if the citizens really could get the answers they were looking for, The Roanoke Times sought interview time with both Warners, on the understanding the newspaper would turn over the session to the debate panelists. John Warner's campaign says it's still mulling the idea; Mark Warner's campaign immediately accepted - and one night last week the Democrat met in an anything-goes session with three of the original six panelists.
The promised hour-long meeting stretched into 90 minutes, and the results so impressed the panelists that one of them suggested such meetings become a regular part of political campaigns.
``Instead of a debate, I'd like to see a video of a conversation with three people like us,'' said Craig Fifer, a Virginia Tech student from Roanoke.
For one thing, these voters were able to look the candidate straight in the eye and get him to answer the questions they wanted - on everything from how he'd decide whether to back certain projects (he'd look first at a cost-benefit analysis) to where he stands on defense spending (he wants to build more aircraft carriers and submarines).
But most of all, the voters said they came away with a better sense of who Mark Warner is and where he's coming from. ``I was impressed,'' said Bruce Prillaman, an industrial purchasing agent from Roanoke County, who quickly added: ``I think if John Warner had been here, he would have done exceptionally well and impressed us in a different way.''
Yet Prillaman, for once, could identify with the problem that candidates sometime have in conveying a sense of their own humanity. ``It's extremely difficult to get across in a news article,'' he said. ``You had to be there.''
To Virginians who must watch Mark Warner's campaign through the filter of the news media, the 41-year-old Alexandria telecommunications tycoon often comes across as a bloodless technocrat, what with his talk about how America needs to re-tool its economy, its educational system, its government to meet the needs of the information age.
Mark Warner himself lamented, toward the end of the evening, that his message is so complex, he often finds it difficult to get across to voters.
It's one thing to say the federal government should be smaller. It's another to say Washington should be modeled after Microsoft, the computer giant, rather than General Motors.
It's one thing to say that government can't do it all. It's another to suggest that the most creative solutions to society's problems are likely to come from non-profit organizations, and that government should figure out how to tap that energy.
``It is hard to convey this,'' Warner said. ``Most reporters, their eyes glaze over. `There goes Warner into his rap again.' And because I can't address this in 50 words - maybe that's what a political figure is, someone who can take complex issues and reduce them to 50 words or less.''
That's not how he appeared to these voters who saw him up close and personal - very up close in the case of Sullivan, a Roanoke educational consultant.
``I learned the intensity of his vision,'' Sullivan said. ``His passion.''
``You could not avoid it,'' Prillaman agreed.
Most of the time, Warner sat cross-legged, hands folded, as he answered their questions. But when the subject turned to technology, he became ``very animated,'' Prillaman observed. ``If I were sitting in a business setting, and he was interviewing for a job, I'd be very likely to hire him, because of his vision. I don't agree with everything he says, but I think he's dead on about the change thing.''
The other voters also evaluated Warner in job-interview terms. ``A leader, not a manager,'' Sullivan said.
``Obviously, the guy's got a lot of confidence,'' Prillaman said. ``But I don't think the man has a hidden agenda.''
The three voters peppered Warner with many questions he's fielded already, and, some of the time, he fell back on his stock answers:
Prillaman: ``There's John Warner, with all the political power in the world. We're going to give all that away?''
Warner: ``I think you can make up in passion and energy what you lack in seniority. What you'll get in Mark Warner is someone who'll go up there and fight for defense, but what you'll also get is someone who'll fight for the next century's industries that are just now on the horizon.''
However, Warner's observations about technology - and how he'd use the Senate seat as a ``bully pulpit'' to talk about how to make it work for ordinary Americans - also produced what these voters considered a useful insight into what kind of senator this Warner would be.
``Are you going to be the voice in the wilderness?'' Prillaman asked him. ``Even if you're elected, you're one vote up there. You're going to run into (senior senators) and they're going to say, `Somebody take care of this kid.' ''
Warner nodded an understanding of the question, then offered the surprising name of a potential ally - Newt Gingrich, the Republican Speaker of the House.
``Gingrich does some of this, but sometimes his approach is a little cock-eyed,'' Warner said, before going on to name Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Nebraska, as another techno-expert and to suggest that, in coming years, Washington would see the arrival of more senators with a similar agenda.
However, the invocation of Gingrich's name seemed revealing to the voters who spent an hour with him. And what did it tell them? That Mark Warner is not an ideologue. ``It showed his commitment to governing by coalition,'' Sullivan said.
The voters also noticed something else they considered telling: Warner paused before he answered many questions.
``Those three seconds before he answered, no way he could have done that in a debate,'' Fifer said. He found it a refreshing sign that Warner was actually stopping to think about what he wanted to say.
Fifer was also impressed by something else Warner did in this meeting that he, and other candidates, are unlikely to do during a debate: admit when they don't know something.
Fifer: ``When you've got a bill that is wonderful, except for one sentence, how can we get away from that? We're passing a lot of bad legislation because it's tacked onto things that nobody can vote against.''
Warner: ``I'm not sure. That's a great question.''
There was even a tense moment, of sorts, when Sullivan asked Mark Warner what happens if he loses on Nov. 5.
The candidate's answer seemed to taken his questioners aback: ``I can honestly say I don't know that Mark Warner would ever run for anything again.''
``But why?'' Prillaman pressed him. ``If you believe, as you obviously do - you haven't taken on the easiest race in the world. Why give up? You didn't give up when you started in business. So don't give up now.''
``You also don't want to become an addict,'' Warner replied, adding that he'd seen too many people's lives ``destroyed'' by an all-consuming thirst for political office. ``You can also effect meaningful change without elected office.''
Sullivan seemed skeptical. ``Is there enough conviction in Mark Warner to do it despite the fact you won't be in office?''
Mark Warner paused, leaning back in his seat, his eyes transfixed on the ceiling, as if he were in some kind of pain.
``I like that,'' Fifer piped up. ``I like stopping and thinking.''
``I know the answer,'' Warner shot back. ``But I don't know if I want to see it in print.''
Then, in slowly enunciated, cautiously chosen words, he offered his account of why his bid for the Senate, and his willingness to invest more than $5 million of his own money, is proof enough of his conviction:
``Living in Alexandria . . . near Washington . . . a successful business person . . . understanding how politics works - if I wanted the power perks hoopla, there are a heckuva lot easier ways than spending 16 hours a day, in five different cities in one day, running against one of the most popular politicians in the commonwealth.''
The panelists considered that perhaps the most honest answer of all: ``What impressed me,'' Prillaman said, ``was he went up to this line he wanted to go cross and you could tell he wondered whether he should do it, and then said, `Aw, the hell with it.' ''
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW PUBLIC JOURNALISM U.S.
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