Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994 TAG: 9403030056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Jimmy Harvey's defeat in Roanoke's Democratic primary for City Council this week did more than end the political career of a three-term incumbent who personified the interests of Roanoke's tax-conscious, blue-collar neighborhoods.
It also sets up a rare one-on-one contest in the May 3 election between the union-backed Democrat Linda Wyatt and Republican businessman John Voit, a pairing that offers voters a stark cultural and political choice not often found in municipal races.
Already, Republicans are accusing Wyatt of being "captive" to left-wing special-interest groups, while Democrats are trying to portray Voit as a businessman out of touch with the concerns of ordinary voters.
"I think you'll see a real sharp divide," Voit predicted Wednesday. "I think you'll see a more ideological campaign than you typically see. This really gives people in Roanoke a chance to vote on where the city is going. It's not very often we get to make that kind of decision."
Five candidates - three Democrats and two Republicans - will scramble for the three four-year terms available in May, and the political lay of the land there is not yet clear.
But the fireworks in the Wyatt-Voit showdown for the two years remaining on former Councilman Beverly Fitzpatrick Jr.'s term began Tuesday night, not long after the polls closed in the Democratic primary and the returns showed that Wyatt had upset Harvey by 106 votes.
Their primary fight had highlighted, perhaps even widened, long-standing fissures in the Roanoke Democratic Party.
On the one side was the party establishment, which backed Harvey. On the other was the Progressive Democratic Coalition, an upstart band of unions, teachers, gays, Gainsboro neighborhood activists and other self-styled "progressives," which accused Harvey of losing touch with his political roots.
Harvey laid part of his defeat to Tuesday's drizzle and slush. He said the bad weather depressed turnout among his likely supporters in the more affluent sections of Southwest Roanoke - voters who may not have been so closely aligned with the Democratic Party that they'd brave the elements to cast a primary ballot.
"I think that really hurt me," Harvey said. "Probably, Linda's vote was maxed out by what she had, while I was apprehensive if turnout fell below 5,000, which it did."
But Harvey also blasted the way the liberal coalition had targeted him for defeat.
"Apparently there are two different Democratic parties in Roanoke," Harvey said. "There are some folks within the Democratic Party that are very mean-spirited, and I'm not used to dealing with people like that. I heard [radio station] WTOY on Sunday and heard some of the so-called preachers blaming council and all of us for all kinds of stuff. . . . I'm looking forward to not being called a crook and a criminal anymore."
Harvey also accused Wyatt, a second-grade teacher at Westside Elementary School, of being so beholden to "radicals" that she'd lose to Voit in May.
"I think the Republicans are going to gain a seat on City Council," Harvey said.
"I think Linda coordinated a very nice campaign. She acted like a lady throughout. But she's surrounded by some people that I'm glad I don't have to deal with anymore, like Gary Waldo [a Roanoke Education Association staff member], and some of those people are radical people . . .
"I don't think the factions that are backing her are in the mainstream of Roanoke or in the mainstream of the Democratic Party."
Of course, that's not the way the returns were read on the other side of the Democratic divide.
Wyatt, who awaited the returns with supporters at a union hall in Southeast Roanoke, said her victory "says what I've known all along - the PDC is the core, heart and soul of the Democratic Party - it always has been."
Meanwhile, those so-called "radicals" were crowing about their newly flexed political muscle.
"We're a machine," Waldo declared, partly in jest, as election officials tallied the results Tuesday night on a chalkboard in the basement of the Municipal Building. He predicted that the liberal coalition will now be emboldened to field other candidates, certainly for City Council in 1996, perhaps even for mayor and the state legislature.
Sam Garrison, the Roanoke lawyer and gay activist who is a key organizer of the liberal coalition, said Wyatt's victory climaxes "an ongoing power struggle" in the Roanoke Democratic Party between a centrist old guard and his group of insurgents.
But that's the problem, Republicans warn.
In an interview, Voit said Wyatt's victory may lead to a realignment in Roanoke politics, in which the conservative, working-class voters who long backed Harvey drift out of the Democratic orbit and into the Republican one.
Voit said he'd be talking about other issues - such as the need for Roanoke to cooperate on economic development with other Western Virginia localities - but indicated that the source of Wyatt's support may become a flash point in the campaign.
"She does seem somewhat captive by certain groups that are to the left of center in Roanoke politics," Voit said. "I don't think it's healthy to be that captive to groups like that."
He predicted his race would become a choice between "people who have a broader interest as opposed to certain interest groups with a limited agenda."
Garrison said he wasn't surprised that Republicans already were making noises about targeting not just Wyatt, but her supporters as well. "I'm sure the Republicans will try to get by by labeling her and her supporters in some unfavorable way."
Al Wilson, the city Democratic Party chairman who had come to symbolize the party establishment for many in the liberal coalition, also rushed to Wyatt's defense.
The Republicans, he said, "are going to run on economic development and say the Republican Party is the party of the business interests." But he suggested Democrats can rightly stake their own claim to the economic issue - "we've got the biggest Wal-Mart in the universe being built next to Valley View Mall" - and others.
As for Wyatt, she wasn't in a mood Wednesday to respond to either Harvey or Voit. "When I got into this race, I said I would not speak ill of any candidate or former candidate. My mother taught me it was important to be a gracious winner."
Staff writer Jan Vertefeuille contributed information to this story.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB