DATE: Friday, November 14, 1997             TAG: 9711130011

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: BY BILL TRASK 

                                            LENGTH:   61 lines

WERE THE CANDIDATES REALLY LIARS?

If it's any consolation to Virginia, the annals of political campaigning in the United States contain the records of at least one election that was dirtier than the one just completed in the Old Dominion.

The year was 1884, and New York Gov. Grover Cleveland was running for president against Maine Sen. James G. Blain. This was the year that voters attending torchlight parades would have heard these charming expressions of political preference: ``Ma, ma, where's my pa?'' by the Republicans, or ``Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine,'' by the Democrats.

It may well be that there was even less discussion of real issues across the nation in 1884 than there was in Virginia in 1997. The GOP exploited an acknowledgment by Cleveland that he had fathered a child out of wedlock in Buffalo, while the Democrats tried to capitalize on a financial scandal involving Blaine that had rocked the Republican Party, causing reform-minded delegates to storm out of the party's convention vowing to vote for ``any honest Democrat.''

Despite the scandal-mongering of the Democrats, Blaine seemed to be heading for the White House until a clergyman speaking on behalf of the GOP uttered one of those vividly unpolitic statements that pop up every now and then in political campaigns. The Rev. Samuel D. Burchard, a Presbyterian divine, called the Democrats the party of ``rum, Romanism and rebellion.'' Democrats didn't seem to be greatly offended by the reference to their drinking habits or even to the accusation that the party had been less than loyal to the Union in the Civil War, but the religious slur energized enough Catholics to help Cleveland to squeak into office for his first term.

The dirt that was flung and the issues that were ignored in 1884 make that election discernibly drearier than the one with which we Virginians were assailed the past several seemingly interminable weeks. At least we actually had an issue, as sorry as it was, but the politicians seemed determined to bury reasonable discussion of anything under a welter of accusations that opponents were either lying or misrepresenting things.

The promise to eliminate the personal-property tax on significant valuations of cars and trucks resonated appealingly in the ears of vehicle owners, especially when the promise was reduced to a neat little slogan. ``Cut the car tax'' wasn't really the only issue candidates tried to float, but it seemed to be the only one voters responded to.

If the ``car tax'' question had been aired thoroughly enough that significant numbers of voters understood all the ramifications of the promise on state revenue and voters could have made an intelligent decision, it would have been one thing.

Unfortunately, the ``car tax'' was floated on spot television commercials and campaign posters with little explanation of how education in Virginia is to be improved and thousands of new teachers hired for the state's classrooms as revenue is reduced.

None of the candidates who ran for state office in Virginia this year can be proud of their performance. The charges of lies, misrepresentation and distortion were appalling. Can it really be that everyone who won and everyone who lost is a liar? MEMO: Bill Trask, a Portsmouth resident, is a retired editorial page

editor. He was a reporter for The Virginian-Pilot from 1963-78.

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