THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610250028
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Margaret Edds
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 79 lines
The measure of Bob Dole's plight, analysts are saying, is his prospects in Virginia. With nine days to go, the GOP presidential nominee's chances of carrying the Old Dominion are middling, at best.
How can this be, ask starry-eyed Democrats and glum Republicans as they tote up the number of years - 32 - since a Democrat for president scored in the Old Dominion.
The nearly universal reply is that only a Democratic rout could strip Virginia away from the GOP. If the horse race weren't over nationally, there wouldn't be one in Virginia.
Perhaps. But a landslide-in-waiting may not be the only reason Bill Clinton has a decent shot at becoming the first Democrat to carry Virginia since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In recent years, some subtle shifts in the Virginia electorate have conspired to make the state more of a toss-up than history suggests.
Consider this: A truly dyed-in-the-wool Republican state wouldn't shift to as flawed a candidate as Clinton just to mimic the rest of the nation. Pollsters can point to a dozen or so states - among them, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, the Dakotas and Utah - which even a Democratic sweep won't budge from the Republican column. A few years ago, those pollsters might have put Virginia in the same category. This year, they don't.
In recent interviews, a variety of political leaders in both parties acknowledged that the Virginia electorate has stabilized at a point that does not give either party a lock on success. The mixed outcomes of recent Virginia elections confirm that truth. In races for president, Senate and statewide offices, Republicans won eight contests and Democrats won four between 1975 and 1984. But between 1985 and 1994, the ratio reversed: Democrats won nine and Republicans won five.
``Virginia's a state that nobody's going to totally predict and say, `Oh yeah, that's a state that's in the bag,''' said GOP Chairman Randy Forbes of Chesapeake in summing up state politics.
Added Gov. George Allen: ``You have about a third of the people in Virginia that are yellow-dog Republicans, and a third that are yellow-dog Democrats and a third that will vote for a candidate based on his or her stand on the issues. I see independent voters being obviously the key, probably more so in Virginia than in other states.''
Independence is as traditional as conservatism in the Old Dominion. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Virginians regularly voted Democratic for state offices and Republican for federal ones. The state is one of a few in the nation to have elected an independent U.S. senator, Harry F. Byrd Jr., who served from 1965 to 1982.
In the 1970s, Virginia Republicans led their party in the South by winning three consecutive terms for governor. Then, while much of the rest of the South was catching up, Virginians switched back to the Democrats in three successive gubernatorial elections in the 1980s.
The 1990s have produced a hodgepodge of electoral results. Republican Allen won a landslide victory for governor in 1993. But a year later, Democrat Chuck Robb held on to his Senate seat, thanks largely to Republican John Warner's willingness to draft an independent candidate for the same job.
Republican gains in the legislature have been steady over recent decades. But given a chance to finally tilt the Assembly to the GOP, Virginians balked in 1995 and left Democrats in control.
This year, although Dole may yet carry Virginia, several additional trends work in Clinton's favor.
First, the economy generally is strong. The unemployment rate is only 4.5 percent, lower than the national average. That favors an incumbent.
Second, voters in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads - two areas where Democrats have to do well to win - may be more skeptical than usual of a GOP nominee because of the recent Republican push to dismantle government.
``We have a much higher portion of our population who either works for some level of government, including the military, or is related to someone who does,'' said Secretary of Administration Mike Thomas, Allen's former campaign manager.
If Clinton does well in those two regions, and wins strong support from women, he could carry Virginia based on the same demographics that propelled Doug Wilder to the governorhip in 1989.
A Clinton victory is still a long shot. But it may happen. And if it does, the results will say as much about the evolving nature of Virginia politics as about an uninspired performance by Bob Dole. MEMO: Ms. Edds is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB