Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 11, 1994 TAG: 9407110019
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Call it the Victory Stadium test; and of the four U.S. Senate candidates, only Oliver North passed.
North was the only candidate to have a presence - in this case, the candidate himself, along with an army of supporters passing out literature - at the Music for Americans concert in Roanoke on the Fourth of July.
Why does this matter?
There's a trend here:
In the 1992 congressional race, Republican Bob Goodlatte furiously worked the crowd at the event, shaking hands and passing out balloons. His Democratic opponent was nowhere to be seen. It was the first sign that the Democrats intended to wage a campaign based heavily on television advertising, while giving short shrift to person-to-person campaigning.
Goodlatte went on to win by a landslide.
In last year's governor's race, Republicans once again staged a big show of support at Victory Stadium; the Democrats didn't. After George Allen won, his energetic, grass-roots campaign was credited for making much of the difference - and Democrats were faulted for failing to put together a strong field organization on behalf of Mary Sue Terry.
This year's Senate campaigns may be young, but so far, North's organization appears to be mirroring Allen's - with a heavy emphasis on making sure supporters are out knocking on doors, delivering literature - while Charles Robb's looks more like Terry's: Nonexistent.
Robb spokesman Bert Rohrer vows that will change. "I'm very well aware of the criticisms leveled in the governor's race last year, and this campaign has made it very clear we're going to be very aggressive in that area," he says.
But he doesn't know why Robb supporters weren't working the crowd at Victory Stadium. Wilder hits state's back roads again
Independent Douglas Wilder says he intends to spend August reprising his famous 1985 station-wagon tour of back-roads Virginia - although this time he may use a different mode of transport.
A van.
In his 1985 campaign for lieutenant governor, long-shot Wilder ignored experts who told him he needed to spend time in the state's media centers and instead spent two months traveling the state's rural areas.
"The Tour," as it has become known in the folklore of Virginia politics, turned out to be a stunning success, with the state's news media focusing on how well-received Wilder was in predominantly white areas of the state, such as Southwest Virginia.
Wilder says he's not sure what part of the state he'll start in this time, but the basic idea will be the same. "I'll be going into country stores, going into malls and supermarkets," he says. "I think that's one of the reasons the Democrats lost the election in 1993" - they didn't spend enough time seeking out voters one-on-one. The independents count their pennies
Marshall Coleman is finding out how difficult it is to raise money as an independent, but he's trying to be good-natured about it.
"Harry Byrd [longtime U.S. senator from Virginia] said 90 percent of the efforts in politics don't amount to anything; but the trouble is, you don't know what 10 percent does amount to something," Coleman says. "I'm convinced I know what that 90 percent is. It's the big staff that doesn't amount to anything."
So Coleman is trying to make a virtue of necessity and relying largely on volunteers - or doing things himself.
Last week, he was calling some reporters personally to set up news conferences - a practice unusual even for candidates running for local office. His advance man was his youngest son, 20-year-old Billy. Call Coleman's headquarters in Northern Virginia, and his other son, 24-year-old Sean, is likely to answer.
Coleman says he won't need a big staff because he'll be directing his efforts two ways: campaigning "person-to-person, and communicating through the media."
Put another way, he's going to be milking every opportunity he can find to get free publicity. Last week, he was holding lots of news conferences.
Wilder, too, will be pinching his pennies. Wilder is mindful that his 1985 back-roads tour of Virginia was a cheap way to generate favorable ink and airtime.
But Wilder may wind up doing better on the fund-raising front than first thought. Last week an impressive list of Richmond business leaders banded to organize a fund-raiser for him. Among some of the more surprising names on the list: Hays Watkins, the retired chairman of CSX Corp.; Thomas Capps, chairman of Virginia Power's parent company; and Stuart Siegel, chairman of S&K Famous Brands. - DWAYNE YANCEY
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB