ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 25, 1996 TAG: 9611250003
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: ALEX MARSHALL LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
NINETEEN YEARS AGO, HENRY HOWELL left Virginia politics after three unsuccessful tries for governor. Today, he remains the man who transformed state politics with a fiery populism, and who, some say, may have accomplished more than if he'd won.
At age 76, his walk has slowed and his thin frame no longer fills his dark suit. But the eyes and smile still have sass and humor, and the voice carries a hint of the razor-sharp twang that stirred and alarmed thousands.
Henry Howell.
To relative newcomers to the state, the name might not ring a bell. But to others, memories will return of the man who exhorted them to ``keep the big boys honest,'' who transformed state politics in a way that the mere telling of his resume does not immediately relate.
Three times, Howell ran for governor, in 1969, '73 and '77. Three times, he lost. He served as lieutenant governor from 1971 to '73. Tuesday will mark 19 years since Howell's last race.
Howell was something virtually unknown before or since in this state: a populist. He was Virginia's Huey Long, its Mario Cuomo with a dash of Ross Perot thrown in. A liberal Pat Buchanan willing to hand the peasants pitchforks so they could storm Richmond.
To some, he was a demagogue who whipped up anti-establishment sentiment to build his own power base. But to his supporters, he was always David against Goliath, fighting the banks, the power companies and party leaders for the benefit of the little guy.
Started as Byrd foe
Howell was one of the few state leaders to emerge from the Tidewater area. His father was a lumber salesman. The apartment and street he grew up on were demolished in redevelopment.
He got his start in politics in 1949, when he, characteristically, helped Francis Pickens Miller campaign for governor against the Byrd organization that controlled state politics. Miller lost. Howell persevered.
After managing Miller's unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in 1952 against Sen. Harry Byrd, Howell in 1953 ran for the House of Delegates. He lost. He won a seat in 1959, only to lose it in 1961. He came back to win it in '63, and then won a state Senate seat in '65.
In 1969, Howell made his first run for governor.
That Democratic primary against William Battle showed the party and the state what they were dealing with. In a few short weeks, he made the election a referendum on Howell, as he would in every other race where his name appeared on a ballot.
In 1971, Howell abandoned the party to run as an independent for lieutenant governor. He handily won a three-way race against the Republican and Democratic nominees to fill the unfinished term of J. Sargeant Reynolds. The win set him up for a run for governor in 1973.
``That was the high point,'' Howell said recently.
Reform won in court
Now an elder statesman, Howell recalls his many battles in detail but without rancor. He speaks only well of even his fiercest opponents.
Struggling with diabetes and having had bouts with cancer and heart disease, his energy is not what it was, he acknowledges. But he still comes in every weekday to his fourth-floor law office at Howell Daugherty Brown & Lawrence in downtown Norfolk.
His neat and orderly office holds only a few reminders of the past. Campaign buttons in a frame. A picture of himself in an old country store. A black-and-white photo of him standing with Jimmy Carter on a front porch during Carter's first presidential campaign, both grinning.
The test of time shows that Howell was on the right side of history when it counted. He won his first legislative seat by running against ``Massive Resistance'' to school integration, as well as opposing the poll tax. He worked for the election of blacks to the General Assembly in the 1960s.
But some of the issues out of which he made hay have a sepia-tone quality to them now, their importance diminishing with time. He campaigned against the state sales tax on food and prescription drugs. For a decade, his favorite whipping boy was Virginia Electric and Power Co., then called Vepco. Howell said the initials stood for Very Expensive Power Company.
He was one of the few openly pro-union statewide candidates. He opposed Virginia's sacrosanct right-to-work law.
``I believe, in principle, in collective bargaining,'' Howell said in 1977. ``No question about that. All you have to do is to be a water boy one summer for 15 cents an hour, 10 hours a day, six days a week.''
His most concrete accomplishments, though, were won in the courts, not at the ballot box or in the General Assembly. His lawsuits against the state led the courts to scrap the system of legislative apportionment under the Byrd organization that had shortchanged urban areas. Other suits led the courts to throw out the poll tax and end the state's withholding of federal aid to the cities.
But perhaps his biggest contribution, say even his opponents, was inspiring people to take part in politics for the first time.
``Henry certainly represented some voices in Virginia that have not been heard before,'' said former Norfolk Mayor Vincent J. Thomas, who was a longtime political opponent of Howell's. ``I can't see a lot of negative effects long-range that Henry had on Virginia.''
For `ordinary folks'
Howell's political apex was the 1973 campaign. He ran against former Gov. Mills Godwin, who had switched parties and come out of retirement, many say for the express purpose of beating Howell. For the first time since Reconstruction, the Democratic Party ran no candidate for governor. Howell, running as an Independent, came within 15,000 votes of winning.
The late Jim Henderson summed up the 1973 campaign in The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot a few days before the election:
``He rumbled from one remote country store to another in a loudspeaker-equipped camper blaring hillbilly music. He staged rallies with the trappings of revival tent meetings - live music, cardboard buckets for campaign offerings, and the candidate himself calling on the faithful to `witness' for his cause with their votes.''
The legendary campaign spawned Virginia's version of ``Primary Colors,'' the current novel based on the Clinton campaign in 1992. Called ``The Shad Treatment,'' it was a fictionalized version of the 1973 campaign, and is, many say, one of the most insightful looks ever at Virginia politics.
``Henry Howell is different from any politician I've ever known,'' said Garrett Epps, the book's author and a reporter for the now-defunct Richmond Mercury. ``There certainly has never been a phenomena like him in Virginia politics. I don't know of any other politicians there who have attempted to talk to urban black voters and rural, lower-middle-class white voters at the same time, and succeeded.''
Epps, now a professor of law at the University of Oregon in Eugene, speaks with a near-reverence for Howell's style and its effect on Virginia politics.
``Virginia historically had the lowest voter participation rate in the country, well below Mississippi,'' Epps said. ``That had a real impact when Virginia tried to shift into the modern era. Henry was the person to reach beyond the traditional Virginia political system, to ordinary folks.''
Stung other WASPs
Certainly part of Howell's appeal - or the contrary, for many - was his personal style. His pointed rhetoric was the opposite of the courtly debating in muffled Virginia accents that seemed the rule then.
Larry Sabato, 44, a political analyst from the University of Virginia, has known Howell since Sabato's days at Norfolk Catholic High School. Sabato, a student, invited Howell to speak at the school. Howell accepted, and Sabato said he wound up learning about politics on the porch of Howell'shome.
``Colgate Darden had a great phrase about Henry Howell,'' said Sabato, referring to Virginia's governor from 1942 to 1946. ```He was a stick of dynamite in the placid pond of Virginia politics.' Back then, Virginia needed shaking up. He was colorful in a politically drab state. In the end, this defeated him, but it made him endlessly fascinating.''
Epps said Howell introduced Virginia to a media-savvy method of politics. Howell consciously used television to amplify his enormous personal appeal into something that could mobilize a state.
``People thought of Henry as a very folksy, sprung-from-the-soil kind of guy, but he was very much a creature of the modern age,'' Epps said. ``You could compare him to a more outwardly successful politician, Sen. Jesse Helms. Helms seems like a throwback but is a product of television and has a lot in common with Ronald Reagan or Rush Limbaugh.''
Howell's style, combined with his liberalism, kept him outside the good graces of his own party, as well as many other established institutions. Despite his status as a local leader, Howell never had a friend on the editorial pages of The Virginian-Pilot or The Ledger-Star, which consistently frowned on his campaigns for higher office.
He was probably the only gubernatorial candidate from Norfolk not invited to join the city's top clubs.
``I didn't go to them to ask what I should do,'' Howell said of his general exclusion by the powers that be. ``I was a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant - a WASP - and I was stinging them.''
But Howell still always won big in Tidewater. He got 55 percent of the vote in South Hampton Roads in 1977, 62 percent in '73 and even more in his primary campaigns.
``It's made up of a lot of citizens who weren't tied into the banks and the power companies,'' Howell said of the region. ``There were a significant number of people who weren't born in Norfolk. They were more open-minded, and ready to listen, than someone from Richmond, Danville or Lynchburg.''
Even his opponents speak with awe of his political skills.
``I guess I have a grudging admiration for Henry,'' said Thomas, the former Norfolk mayor. ``I certainly admire his ability and alacrity as a politician. He gave the powers-that-be a fit all the time. He was a master at coming out with some sensational charge against the opposition, and before they could get together with an answer, he would hit 'em with another charge. You have to admire his tenacity, without admiring all his policy positions.''
Party trailblazer?
In 1977, Howell ran again for governor in what some called ``a wild card'' campaign. His primary opponent was Andrew Miller - the son of Francis Miller, whose campaigns Howell assisted in 1949 and 1952. Miller outspent Howell almost 3-1, but Howell, against expectations, won by a slim margin. The general campaign against John Dalton was judged neck-and-neck but, on Election Day, Howell lost, garnering a respectable 43 percent of the vote.
It was Howell's final campaign. Over the next few years, mere hints that he was returning to politics would prompt front-page stories.
After Dalton's election came three Democratic governors: Charles Robb, Gerald Baliles and Douglas Wilder. Although criticized as having hurt the party during his active years, some say Howell paved the way for these moderate Democratic leaders.
``Henry in his way is the architect of most things that happened in Virginia politics from 1977 to 1994,'' Epps said. ``The rise of two-party politics, and the era of Democratic ascendancy, was an outcome of the fact that Henry made ordinary people want to vote, want to take part in politics, and consider politics something relevant to their lives.''
LENGTH: Long : 197 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: BILL TIERNAN/Landmark News Service. Some say Henryby CNBHowell, now 76, was a demagogue, interested only in power. To his
supporters, he was David vs. Goliath, fighting for the little guy. KEYWORDS: PROFILE