Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 30, 1990 TAG: 9003300821
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-10 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
Running for president.
Wilder insisted he has no intention of seeking the White House himself in 1992 - at least not right now - but he freely dispensed advice to any Democrats who might.
Wilder's most provocative suggestion: Perhaps the Democrats shouldn't worry about trying to knock off President Bush but instead use the 1992 race as a way to revamp their liberal image and position the party for 1996.
"I think he [Bush] can be beaten," Wilder said, although he acknowledged the president's popularity is discouraging many challengers.
In any case, Wilder said, the Democrats should use 1992 to try out the new centrist message he has been peddling around the country lately.
That way, Wilder said, "even if you didn't win, you'd be a position to reshape the party, so much so, [that next time] you're not going to be viewed as the tax-and-spend or the special-interest party."
As the nation's first black elected governor, Wilder was bound to become a celebrity.
But the zeal with which he has pursued an overtly national agenda - and a startlingly conservative one, at that - has made him an overnight hit with the national media.
His invitation Thursday to share lunch with a round table of big-name Washington journalists was just the latest indication that his name has gone up in lights on the national marquee.
Among the dozen or so guests at the two-hour session: Columnists Robert Novak and Mark Shields, Paul Duke of Washington Week in Review and U.S. News & World-Report editor David Gergen, as well as correspondents from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, ABC-TV, Washington Monthly and the Dallas Morning News. Two Virginia reporters also were invited.
And while they quizzed the governor about everything from highway taxes to his having grown up black in Virginia, what the Washington reporters seemed most interested in were Wilder's national ambitions.
"I'm personally up to nothing," Wilder said with a laugh, repeating his now well-worn line that "I have my plate full in Virginia."
Despite recent political trips to Chicago, New Orleans and Washington, Wilder assured the group that the job of being governor "occupies more of my time than anything else."
But, Wilder said coyly, "I also think that's the only way I could ever be considered for anything further, and that is to establish a record."
However, he hastened to add, "It's too early for me, having been only some two or three months into an administration, to view myself as anything other than governor."
But how will he view himself come 1992?
"Every Virginia governor I know has fulfilled his term," Wilder answered. His won't run out until January 1994.
"You could run for vice president in 1992 and lose," Jack Nelson of the Los Angeles Times suggested.
"I've always run to win," Wilder replied, with a broad grin.
In truth, Wilder doesn't have to promote himself for a spot on a national ticket. The national news media are already doing that for him.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal recommended him for vice president. Baltimore Sun columnist Theo Lippman, in a column widely reprinted across the country, flat-out predicted Wilder will run for president, and compared his political position with Jimmy Carter's in the 1976 campaign for the Democratic nomination.
Then, the Democrats trembled before George Wallace's candidacy and embraced the untried Carter as a "safe" Southerner who could beat Wallace and still deliver the Dixie vote. Now, Lippman wrote, Wilder is seen as a "safe" black who could beat Jesse Jackson and still hold the black vote the Democrats depend on.
Following Lippman's lead, House Majority Whip Bill Gray of Pennsylvania and the Boston Globe also have touted Wilder for president.
And The Hotline, an influential political newsletter for Washington insiders, has added Wilder to its list of 1992 prospects that it reports on daily.
Wilder's staff has stoked the fire by cleverly volunteering rumors that Wilder strategist Paul Goldman is busy drafting a "green paper" outlining how Wilder can win the Democratic nomination for president - but then denying that Goldman is doing any such thing.
Wilder's performance Thursday is likely to generate a new spate of stories in the national media. On issue after issue, he challenged his party's liberal orthodoxy.
Asked what the U.S. should do with the anticipated "peace dividend" derived from a likely reduction in defense needs, Wilder quickly suggested it be used to reduce the federal deficit - generally the Republicans' answer.
Plus, Wilder asked, "Why can't we reduce spending? I happen to believe you'll never reduce [the deficit] until you reduce spending."
And he turned a question on his anti-drug policy into a long answer about how kids needed to be taught "morality."
Afterward, the journalists swarmed around Wilder, pumping him for details on his dinner Monday night in California with former President Ronald Reagan. The talk turned to Nicaragua and Mikhail Gorbachev.
"He's the best politician [the Democrats] have got right now," one of the correspondents said of Wilder. "All these guys are edging close to doing pieces on what's he's doing."
by CNB