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

DATE: FRIDAY, October 15, 1993                   TAG: 9310150246
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TERRY PUSHES JOBS THEME

Mary Sue Terry stepped up her attacks on George Allen on Thursday, warning that a Republican victory would cost the state jobs because businesses will be scared to move to a state controlled by "Pat Robertson and the radical right."

Terry - who tried to brand Allen as a tool of the religious right during their televised debate this week - continued pushing that theme during a series of stops in Roanoke.

This time, the Democratic candidate for governor cast her message in a context she hopes will hit closest to home in slow-growth Western Virginia:

Jobs.

"Businesses look for a commitment to public education that is strong and unwavering," Terry told the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce.

She charged that Allen's willingness to allow localities to experiment with vouchers for private schools would undermine the public schools. "That proposal could devastate the public schools in Virginia," she said.

And she warned that in an Allen administration, conservative Christian activists - or "Pat Robertson and his friends on the radical right," as Terry puts it - would be emboldened to meddle in school curriculum.

"If Virginia becomes known as a state that yields to the right wing, it will cost us jobs and the ability to attract new businesses," Terry said. "Virginia can't afford the radical right policies of George Allen and his supporters."

In Richmond, an Allen spokesman accused Terry of practicing "the politics of fear and division."

"Mary Sue Terry is getting more desperate by the day," said Jay Timmons.

While linking Allen to the religious right has been Terry's campaign theme for the week, she also worked another theme during her Roanoke stop: playing up her regional connections in a part of the state that increasingly feels left out.

When Allen spoke to the chamber two weeks ago, he delivered his standard economic development speech, with just one regional reference - his support for four-laning U.S. 58 across Virginia's southern border.

By contrast, Terry, who grew up in Patrick County, reminisced about visiting the Mill Mountain Zoo as a child. And she peppered her remarks with references to issues of special interest in Western Virginia:

She blasted Allen, as she frequently does, for taking no interest in the funding disparity between affluent suburban schools and poorer rural and inner-city schools. She pledged to "aggressively seek to resolve the issue of disparity" by providing $100 million to decrease teacher-pupil ratios in poor schools.

Allen has said he'd deal with funding disparity by eliminating unfunded state mandates, which he says would free local dollars.

Terry endorsed the proposed Interstate 73, which would run between Detroit and Charleston, S.C., and pledged to push for a route through Southwest Virginia that would not simply route I-73 along the current Interstate 77, as North Carolina and West Virginia prefer.

"An interstate is like a new artery to the heart" that would open up a new corridor through Southwest Virginia for economic development, she said. Allen, asked about I-73 recently, simply said the issue needs more study.

Terry also promised to increase funding to promote tourism in Virginia and pledged to "reorient our tourism effort" so that the state promotes more attractions in Western Virginia.

Later, Terry sought to connect with Western Virginia voters in another way. Terry acknowledges that her support for a five-day waiting period for buying handguns has cost her support in many rural areas.

So Thursday a group of hunters - many of them prominent Democratic activists - staged a news conference by the Roanoke River, where they endorsed her candidacy.

Terry used the occasion to stake out a position that Del. Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke, said had special appeal to hunters: She vowed to push legislation to transfer revenue from the state's boat tax from the general fund to the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. That would increase game funding without raising taxes, she said.

Keywords:
POLITICS