LABOR THROWS BONES; EDWARDS GETS BIGGER ONE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 6, 1992                   TAG: 9202060284
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
LABOR THROWS BONES; EDWARDS GETS BIGGER ONE
Both John Edwards and John Fishwick pocketed labor endorsements Wednesday in their race for Congress - although Edwards got the biggest one.
As expected, the AFL-CIO, the state's largest labor organization, backed Edwards, a Roanoke lawyer who's one of three Democrats seeking the party's nomination to replace retiring Rep. Jim Olin.
Edwards has close ties to state AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Jim Leaman, who's from Roanoke. And Augusta County labor leader Harry Dull, who headed the committee that interviewed all three candidates, is an Edwards supporter.
Still, the endorsement was a public-relations setback for Fishwick, who has targeted labor with a tough-on-trade economic message and proclaimed himself the candidate of working people.
The AFL-CIO's backing can be crucial in winning a Democratic nomination, but doesn't automatically translate into victory, even in blue-collar localities. The last big nomination fight in Virginia was 1985, between Gerald Baliles and Dick Davis for governor. Labor went all-out for Davis, but Baliles still won Roanoke - and eventually the nomination.
Meanwhile, Fishwick could console himself with a separate endorsement from Paper Workers Local 675 in Covington.
The union, based at the Westvaco mill, can be a powerful political force in the Alleghany Highlands. Just ask Republican state Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, whose popularity among Westvaco workers helped him upset a Democratic incumbent in 1989 and turn back another Democrat in 1991.
So far, Fishwick and Vinton insurance executive Steve Musselwhite seem to have gotten off the fastest start in the Alleghany Highlands, at least when it comes to big-name endorsements. Besides the union, Fishwick has the support of Bath County Del. Creigh Deeds. But Musselwhite has roped in two key party activists, Charlie Holbert of Covington and R.C. "Bob" Woods of Alleghany County.
But the four localities in the Alleghany Highlands together account for only 22 of the 314 convention delegates that will be selected in mid-April.
The main battlegrounds will be Roanoke - where both Fishwick and Edwards must fight each other for their hometown's 67 delegates - and also Lynchburg, where 37 delegates are at stake and there's no hometown favorite to claim them.
Keywords:
POLITICS

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB