Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 4, 1993 TAG: 9311050310
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A sensible conclusion, this is. Mary Sue Terry obviously was hurt by her party affiliation with a president enjoying little popularity in this state. But, just maybe, things are more complicated.
Democrats' fate this week was nothing so bad as that of Canada's ruling party a few days earlier. There, the center-right Progressive Conservative Party went from majority status to near-extinction in a single blow. Wow.
On the other hand, Democrats in the United States - surveying the wreckage not only in Virginia but also in New Jersey and New York City and elsewhere - might wonder what would've happened if this had been a congressional-election year, and what will happen next year when it will be.
Even so, as a sign of presidential troubles, this week's elections also raise a couple of ironies.
A cautionary irony of history is that in late 1981 another president, Ronald Reagan, also was nearing the end of the first year of his presidency. The Virginia elections that year marked the beginning of the Democrats' 12-year monopoly on statewide office, a monopoly that only now is coming to an end.
An omen of presidential misfortune? Hardly. Reagan won easy re-election in '84. Local factors still heavily influence local politics; presidents are still elected to four-year, not one-year, terms.
Moreover, some aspects of the Allen victory had a decidedly Clinton-like air.
True, Virginia's next governor echoed Reagan, not Clinton, in his ability to secure the backing of the religious right while sufficiently distancing himself to retain the confidence of centrist voters and traditional Republicans.
True, too, Allen touted himself as a conservative (whatever that means at a time when the biggest national issues of the day - trade policy and health-care reform - defy ideological categorization). He pledged not to raise taxes.
But Allen did not campaign with as much disdain for government as Reagan did. He campaigned, rather, on an older kind of GOP message, one not dissimilar from the 1992 Clinton message: Government can be made to work better.
The criminal-justice system can be made to work better. Public education can be made to work better. Help for inner cities can be made to work better.
Allen's campaign, a la Clinton, prepared fat position papers on these issues and more. Terry, somewhat like George Bush, seemed to assume it was voters' responsibility to elect her, based on her resume. Allen talked more during the campaign about what he wanted to do.
Like Clinton, Allen didn't explain fully how he'd pay for some of these initiatives, but he picked ones (like abolishing parole) that connected with people's real concerns. Like Bush, Terry seemed to think that resting on her record and having the right position on an issue (like gun control) would win votes. Like Bush, she mistook early, high poll ratings for public commitment to her candidacy.
We don't want to carry this analogy too far. This newspaper's choice for governor was Terry, in spite of her campaign. And Allen's principles and priorities are very different in many respects from Clinton's.
Allen enjoys some advantages that Clinton lacks. Unlike the president, he inherits a government accustomed to sound fiscal management. Also unlike Clinton, he will enjoy the clout that accompanies landslide winners.
It is clear, nonetheless, that Virginians like other Americans want government to work, and are impatient when it doesn't.
Clinton, after a year, has yet to convince them he's up to the task. He has three more to do so. Allen is entering a different office; he cannot by law succeed himself. But his mandate, at bottom, is much the same as Clinton's: Make the durn thing work right.
by CNB