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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 15, 1994                   TAG: 9406160006
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CHARLES ROBB, DEMOCRAT

IN AN ORDINARY year, incumbent U.S. Sen. Charles Robb now would be as safe a bet for re-election as such things can be. He is the winner of Tuesday's Democratic primary, and will be running in November against a Republican who has split the GOP and is bogged down by even more character questions than Robb.

But this is not an ordinary year. The incumbent's primary victory is not sending him soaring into the general-election campaign against Oliver North, nominated a week and a half ago at the state GOP convention. This is mainly because:

Also on Tuesday, former Gov. Douglas Wilder - a once and, presumably, future Democrat - filed petitions to put his name on the general-election ballot as an independent candidate.

The day before the primary, two-time gubernatorial nominee and former Attorney General Marshall Coleman - a once and, presumably, future Republican - filed his petitions to get on the ballot as an independent.

In some respects, Robb has been an exemplary political figure. As a gubernatorial candidate and then governor, he was instrumental in moving the Virginia Democratic Party toward the center; he also played a role nationally in the emergence of the centrist New Democrats. As a U.S. senator, he has shown policy perceptiveness and, on occasion, political courage.

Yet Robb, who in a long letter at the primary campaign's inception acknowledged behavior "inappropriate for a married man," also is forcing voters to ponder the link between public performance and private morality. Questions linger, too, about whether and to what extent troubles with the latter led to missteps directly related to the powers and duties of office.

The senator can take satisfaction in winning renomination. He has earned the right - and, because he did so via a primary, has earned it more strongly than the other candidates - to be on the November ballot. He has neither forsaken the two-party system, as the independent candidates have, nor do his known sins descend to the level of North's evident disdain for democratic procedures and institutions.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the race, the chapter on it in Virginia history books will chronicle a very peculiar contest.

by CNB