Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993 TAG: 9308290090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The FOP barred reporters from the proceedings, so aides to Democrat Mary Sue Terry and Republican George Allen recorded the event and then played the results back for the media. Sort of.
Shut off in an empty hotel conference room, the dueling campaign staffs faced each other across a circle of chairs and played snippets of tape in between bouts of shouting as each side tried to defend and promote its candidate.
It was a rare scene, with both sides torn between a desire to win the tough-on-crime endorsement of the cops and a hankering to be heard by the public. The predicament led earlier in the day to a tense confrontation between the Democratic and GOP attorney general candidates as they re-enacted highlights of their debate, also conducted in private, for a television camera in the hallway.
Republican James Gilmore accused Democrat William Dolan of mishandling the 1989 corruption prosecution of former Norfolk Judge Joseph Campbell.
"Jim is not a front-line prosecutor, Jim is a front-line politician," Dolan retorted, his opponent smiling incredulously by his side. "He's never seen a case like Campbell and never will. . . . Nor would a court ask him to handle a case of that complexity and that importance."
"He doesn't know anything about the cases I've handled," said Gilmore, commonwealth's attorney for Henrico County. "It's an insult to every prosecutor in this state to say something like that."
The gubernatorial candidates left such personal confrontations to their staffs, who were more than up to the task.
Terry spoke to the FOP about trust and credibility, claiming as she has in other appearances that her opponent promises more than he can deliver.
Allen countered that Terry had little impact on important problems during seven years as attorney general; he exhorted the 40 to 50 law enforcement officers present to vote for change.
"It was promises, promises vs. straight talk," Terry campaign consultant Tom King gloated afterwards during the tape-playing session.
"Promises, promises vs. nothing, is more like it," shot back Allen spokesman Ken Stroupe.
"One side was promises, promises; we agree on that," King said.
"It was status quo vs. the new Virginia, is more like it," said another Allen aide, Jay Timmons.
And so it went.
The two sides focused on four major disagreements from the debate:
Allen blasted Terry for accepting $175,000 in campaign contributions from lawyers to whom she gave state contracts while serving as attorney general, as reported in May in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Terry replied that the article did not say that. Afterwards, Allen's staff handed out the article, which said Terry had gotten the money from "state-paid lawyers." Terry's handlers argued that most of those lawyers were paid by other state agencies, and that only $8,000 of the contributions came from lawyers who had gotten contracts directly from Terry.
Terry claimed that Allen, while in the House of Delegates in 1988, voted against a bill making it possible to sentence someone to life without parole for certain serious felonies. GOP workers read from records that Allen in fact voted for the bill. Terry's campaign countered that Allen supported a watered-down version and passed up a chance to vote for stricter legislation.
Terry charged that Allen's proposal to reform parole would let a rapist get out of prison after only eight years, while her plan would keep him locked away for at least 14 years. Allen's staff later pointed out that Terry was comparing the maximum sentence in her plan to the minimum in Allen's. Terry's team then argued that the federal law on which Allen modeled his plan usually results in the minimum sentence.
After the debate, Terry criticized Allen for pandering to the police by promising them a pay raise. His staff denied it. What the tape showed was that Allen said: "We're not compensating folks . . . for being really our warriors, our domestic warriors on the front line in America. I want to make sure we take care of you all with retirement benefits and adequate compensation."
The Terry-Allen debate took less than 90 minutes; the tape-playing/spin session took more than two hours.
The only letdown in the tension-filled day was that the candidates for lieutenant governor never went at each other. Republican Mike Farris skipped the debate and held a news conference to call for all such encounters to be open to the public. He offered to have a joint news conference with Democratic incumbent Donald Beyer afterwards.
Beyer declined.
The FOP voted after the proceedings on which candidates to endorse, and will announce its choices next week.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB