DATE: Wednesday, November 5, 1997           TAG: 9711050796

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A3E  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL

                                            LENGTH:   61 lines

MEAN-TEMPERED CAMPAIGNS HAVE A VIRGINIA PRECEDENT, MORE'S THE PITY

Sunday, a group of veteran newsmen and their wives, lunching in Richmond, analyzed the upcoming election, and most agreed with polls that showed Republican James S. Gilmore III leading Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr. in the race for governor.

One wife remarked that she had never before witnessed such a mean-tempered campaign. That, too, drew well-nigh unanimous consent.

Except for one malcontent, who remarked that the group had covered politics during the 40 or so years that Harry Flood Byrd's conservative Democratic Organization dominated the state.

The Organization was so powerful, so all-pervasive, it could quell the occasional liberal candidate as quietly as if it were stepping on a roach.

If nothing else, the conservative henchmen could make life miserable for the maverick by chloriforming with neat dispatch in closed-door committees the bills that he introduced in the Virginia General Assembly.

And then reintroduce them as their own.

And in many courthouses throughout Virginia, politicians connived to harass and bully and terrorize any black who had the temerity to try to register and vote.

It is a centuries-long and shameful chapter in the annals of states throughout the South.

After Congress assured blacks of their uncontested right to vote, the white politicians back home began to court their support with the assiduity that they once used to rebuff them.

And now Virginia has a truly competitive two-party system.

For the onlooker, it seems at times to be a mixed blessing.

During one of the Beyer-Gilmore debates, the charges of lying flew so thickly one expected to hear somebody yell, finally, ``Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!''

In a single lengthy exchange, Gilmore called ``Lie!'' four times.

At the Sunday brunch, another wife noted that what is remarkable today is the extent to which the animus has surfaced like political impetigo in television and radio spots and in brochures mailed during local campaigns.

The candidates go at each other through personal attacks that often have no bearing whatever on the issues.

The charges sometimes are so repellent or petty in themselves that, even though they go unanswered, they tend to arouse resentment among some voters who aren't familiar with either the attacker or the target.

A sense of fairness makes one wish, even while reading or hearing the charge, to learn the other side. It is difficult to throw mud from a bucket without smearing oneself.

And then, there is scarcely a person alive who at one time or another hasn't made some mistake which, if disclosed during a political campaign, would prove embarrassing.

The savagery affecting campaigns at the local and state campaigns may stem from the current bitter partisanship at the national level.

It is an infection that is spread largely through television and radio commercials throughout the entire body politic.

Often lost to view is calm, considered attention to the major issues that determine the course of our lives.

We just must learn to get a handle on these most recent attempts to smother reason. KEYWORDS: ELECTION VIRGINIA RESULTS ANALYSIS

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