THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408270047
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REALPOLITIK
Occasional dispatches on the offbeat side of Virginia's 1994 U.S. Senate
race.
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
ONE OBSERVER CALLED it the ``seminal meeting of the pluck Chuck'' (or supply your own expletive) society.
The top secret meeting took place at 11 p.m. Tuesday, in a windowless office in the WVEC-TV television studios.
Independent Senate candidates Doug Wilder and Marshall Coleman - still smarting from television snubs by the frenetic Ollie North and somnambulant Chuck Robb earlier that evening - secluded themselves in a small room.
Aides, press and others were left to eavesdrop by the door.
``Shoot, I wish I'd left a tape recorder running in there,'' groaned Mike Gooding, whose office was where the duo had barricaded themselves.
The political rivals emerged about 20 minutes later, smiling but tight-lipped about their conversation.
``Nothing really,'' was all Coleman would say about the confab.
``This and that,'' said Wilder grinning broadly.
The summit marked the end of a chaotic attempt to get all four candidates to debate on a show with Channel 13's Terry Zahn and Mike Gooding.
Robb begged off on Tuesday, citing senatorial duties.
North, ambushed by Gooding during a campaign stop in Richmond earlier that day, claimed he had no knowledge of the debate and declined to take part by satellite.
Left with an interview rather than a debate, producers in the control room of the Prime Time Virginia show were fretting over the colorful logo that proclaimed the segment to be a ``Senate Debate.''
``I thought it said `Senate Campaign' '' moaned one producer when it flashed on one of the monitors.
The show was scheduled to go on the air live at 10. Not only were two of the candidates absent, but 15 minutes before air time, only Coleman was comfortably seated at the table, sipping water from a foam cup.
No sign of Wilder.
``Where is he?'' a panicked WVEC aide yelled, running through the control room.
Former Congressman Bill Whitehurst, who was relaxing in the room a full hour before he was to go on air with an analysis of the Cuban refugee crisis, looked bemused.
``Doug is always late,'' Whitehurst said. ``The only other politician who is that bad is John Warner. It drives me batty, but it's not my show. If it were Warner and Wilder on this show, it wouldn't happen for hours.''
At 9:57, with just three minutes to spare, Wilder sauntered in.
For the next 45 minutes, Coleman and Wilder engaged in an on-air love fest.
The talk was liberally sprinkled with phrases like ``I agree with the Governor'' and ``I agree with Marshall.''
The two didn't even look distressed during a commercial break when a cameraman urged Coleman to ``scoot a little closer to Governor Wilder'' at the table.
When the cameras turned off, the two emerged and headed straight down the hall to a vacant office.
The airwaves were full of Wilder on Tuesday as he bounced around Norfolk hitting radio stations.
First there was a spot on Pat Murphy's WTAR-790 call-in show. Then he spent an hour with WSVY-1350's Cheryl Wilkerson (who greeted Wilder warmly by saying ``You look good Doug. What are you taking, bee pollen or something?'').
Later Wilder did drive time with Perry Stone on WNIS-850. It was there the usually circumspect governor let loose with a shocking slip of the tongue when he inadvertently said a Bill Cosby and Quincy Jones fund-raiser would be held in late November.
``Late November, Jeesus Christ, I mean late September,'' Wilder blurted over the airwaves.
Perhaps the unflappable Wilder was thrown off-balance by the Rush Limbaugh ``Dittohead'' T-shirt he was given when he and two aides arrived at the station.
Later, the station's resident liberal, Jack Howard, spied the shirts in Wilder's hands.
``What in the world are they thinking of, giving Rush Limbaugh shirts to good Democrats?'' he asked, grabbing the shirts away and exchanging them for 96X rock shirts.
Before he left the studios of WNIS and its sister rock station, 96X-FM, Wilder taped about 10 promos for the stations saying things like: ``Hi I'm Doug Wilder and you're listening to the big one. WNIS-850'' and ``Hi I'm Doug Wilder and I encourage you to vote in November. Rock the vote.''
Hey, as WNIS personnel pointed out - it's free advertising and the equal time regulations don't apply. by CNB