Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 27, 1994 TAG: 9403270035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Long
Maybe Virgil Goode ought to take the hint and give up. On eating his lunch, that is.
It's already midafternoon and the lanky Franklin County state senator has plopped himself onto the sofa by the door, trying to find time enough to gulp down a Hardee's chicken sandwich.
But as soon as Goode takes one bite, the rickety old screen door to his law office creaks open again, and there's another constituent who has come by to wish him well in his U.S. Senate campaign.
"Here's a little something," says optician Jim Wray, furtively handing Goode a crisp, new $100 bill. "Ain't much."
"It's a lot," Goode says, jumping up to pump Wray's hand.
"Those folks up in the northern counties, they don't know what an honest man is like," Wray says. "That's their problem."
No sooner has Goode sat back down than he's up again, this time to greet a couple from Ferrum. The wife has cancer, and Goode recently helped her straighten out some problems with her insurance coverage.
"You're like a godsend to us," the woman says.
"We're getting a lot of signatures for you from Ferrum, Virginia," her husband assures him.
Goode thanks the pair profusely and lingers by the door, inquiring about their health, before resuming his lunch.
A couple of bites later, though, L.H. Hammer saunters in, waving his Goode-for-Senate petition already filled with names.
"I'm a full-time recruiter," the convenience store owner exclaims. "Everybody wants to sign."
Why? he's asked.
"Good gosh," Hammer says, astonished anyone would ask such a stupid question in Franklin County. "Look at who's running." Then he nods respectfully toward Goode. "People say all politicians are a little dirty. Well, he may have a little dust on him, but you could hose him off and he'd be clean. The others are rotten to the bone."
And on and on it goes throughout the afternoon, a steady stream of visitors coming to get petitions - not just for themselves, but for cousins, aunts, uncles and old acquaintances in far-flung corners of the state.
"It's bedlam!" exclaims Nancy Mitchell, a retired government worker who's come in to volunteer for Goode's infant campaign. "Everybody here loves Virgil."
Or so it seems.
When Goode abruptly entered the U.S. Senate race last week, challenging incumbent Charles Robb for the Democratic nomination, some of his own party's leaders scoffed at whether he'd be able to collect the 14,865 signatures necessary to get his name on the June primary ballot.
After all, he only has until April 15 to do it, and the law requires that at least 200 signatures be collected in each of Virginia's 11 congressional districts.
Under normal circumstances, that requires a pretty major organizational effort. Could a late-starting rural legislator - one without ready support from special-interest groups such as labor unions - really pull it off?
Goode himself calls it a "long shot."
But he also says he's going to run a "grass-roots campaign," and, on his home turf in Franklin County, those roots run mighty deep.
Goode's late father was a legendary commonwealth's attorney for 24 years. And the son, first elected more than two decades ago at the tender age of 26, has become a political legend as a legislator who knows how to look out for the folks back home.
In return, they look out for him.
So, when news got around last week that Franklin County's favorite son was about to jump into the Senate race, volunteers instinctively rushed to Goode's law office - an old brick storefront on Main Street that's so dilapidated the place appears vacant, save for the paint-chipped sign on the screen door.
They found plenty to do.
"I got here 9 o'clock Wednesday morning and the phone was ringing when I walked in," says Jo Shively, a retired teacher. "Nancy Mitchell and I took over 100 calls that first day. I've been manning the phones for three days since then and we've taken more than 500 calls."
Quite an achievement, especially considering that Goode's law office boasts only a single phone line - and a rotary-dial phone at that.
"That's all going to change," the candidate's wife, Lucy, proudly announces to the volunteers scurrying about. "We're going to get another phone line."
It's hard to tell whether the flood of phone calls is due to Goode's hometown popularity or statewide disenchantment with Robb - or both.
"Some say they're Republicans," Shively says. "Some say they've never been involved in politics before. Some quote [Goode's announcement day] line about `a breath of fresh air.' They say, `What can I do?' and, `Send me a petition.'"
Goode's law office - with its wood stove, its exposed wooden beams in the ceiling, and its clutter of law books and campaign memorabilia from years past stacked on every conceivable inch of floor space - exudes a certain backwoods charm. There's even a chair fashioned out of cattle horns.
In the past week, though, it has gradually taken on the air of a modern statewide campaign.
Someone has rustled up a fax machine - Goode's first. Posters and bumper stickers from Goode's General Assembly campaigns have been recycled and pasted on the front door. The "Goode for Senate" slogan works just as well in this race, thank you.
A half-dozen volunteers crowd around a desk, stuffing envelopes, studying maps and handling the parade of people asking for petitions.
Or already returning them.
Remember L.H. Hammer, the convenience-store owner with the petition full of names?
"He's already brought four in," Goode says.
And now he's asking for more blank forms.
For now, this frantic push to get on the ballot is Goode's campaign.
He's got no schedule to speak of. Sometimes, if you call when the volunteers are busy, the candidate himself might answer the phone.
Issues? "I'm going to do more on the issues later," Goode says in his laconic way, "but I'd emphasize some of the things I've emphasized in the General Assembly. A balanced budget, a line-item veto . . ."
Is Goode perhaps too conservative for a Democratic electorate?
He pauses. "I tell you what. I'd give 'em straight talk."
There's plenty of that in Goode's office already.
Wray, the optician, clutches a sheaf of petitions in his hand and vows to send some to a few opticians he knows in Northern Virginia.
"They won't know me from anybody up there," Goode drawls.
"But they will," Wray declares, seizing Goode's hand again and giving it a good shake before he leaves. "This is the most excited I've ever been about any kind of damn election."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB