THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408280069
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEC KLEIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 146 lines
For J. Marshall Coleman, once the golden boy of Virginia politics, it's been an unheralded summer of small crowds as he shoe-leathers around the state.
By late August, it's become so quiet that Coleman finds himself the overlooked fourth man of this year's high-profile U.S. Senate race:
Republican nominee Oliver L. North . . .
Democratic incumbent Sen. Charles S. Robb . . .
Independent L. Douglas Wilder . . .
And Coleman.
``Who?'' North jested recently.
Signs have yet to emerge that the 52-year-old McLean lawyer can recapture the political lightning of his early career, when he represented the best and brightest as Virginia's first GOP attorney general in the 20th century.
His standings in the polls have dropped, political pundits are increasingly pessimistic, his campaign fund-raising and organization are minimal. Yet, this seems to be exactly where Coleman wants to be.
``One thing I've found out in politics,'' he said, ``people get written out of races who win.''
It is almost as if Coleman is running an anti-campaign, avoiding high-profile slugfests, trundling his independent way, leaving the bloodletting to others. While North and Robb are pressing full-court for out-of-state funds, Coleman seems content to collect his chips at a modest pace, waiting to unleash an all-or-nothing media blitz in the final days.
``When I won all those elections, I guess I had the impression it was owing to my virtuosity. When I lost, I realized it was a question of timing,'' Coleman recalled from an upstairs, back table at the Third Street Diner in Richmond. ``I realized I was the same guy who was the rising star and the great statesman-to-be that I am now. I wasn't any different inside or outside. It's the vagaries of politics.''
Reports of his demise may be greatly exaggerated, if only because Coleman has the backing of U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, the state's enormously popular senior Republican.
``The judgment on Coleman's candidacy has to be decided during the fall bombardment (with) North's multimillions of advertising directed toward Robb and Robb's counter-battery fire of his multimillions against North,'' Warner pronounced from his Capitol Hill office.
``In the din of that shot and shell, Virginians may wish to say, `Hey, wait a minute, we've had enough of this, is there not someone out here who's not carrying all this political baggage that can lead us?' ''
If indeed that is Coleman's strategy, it is not only risky, it goes against his political instincts.
He still knows how to run an aggressive campaign, the kind that catapulted him at age 35 to the state attorney general's office in 1977. But this time, he's kept himself in check.
He still has the keen wit and boyish haircut that helped win him a seat in the House of Delegates two years out of law school, then later in the state Senate. But the hair is graying, and the sharp tongue seems harnessed.
This is a different Coleman. In campaigns past, he would plunge into crowds of adoring Republicans; this year, he is the party's scourge for bolting it. Years ago, he would travel by plane; now, his son escorts him in a blue sedan. He is an X factor in a wildly unpredictable race who may find his strength in an uncertain electorate.
``Coleman is a real interesting alternative, and he has an opportunity . . 44-year-old Democrat from Vienna.
Unlike Wilder and North, Coleman isn't the subject of biographies. Like North, he was a Marine in Vietnam, though uncelebrated. Unlike Robb, Coleman didn't marry into a famous lineage. Nor was he born into money.
Now he is a wealthy man for whom life could be so unhampered without another campaign. But he keeps coming back to the political arena, perhaps drawn to the challenge of high office because he came so tantalizingly close to attaining it.
The governor's mansion eluded his grasp twice, in 1981 against Robb and by less than 1 percent in 1989 against Wilder, the closest margin in state history.
``Two-tenths of a point,'' he said. ``That's why I'm back. It ruined my whole day.''
The margin of Coleman's loss was about 6,000 votes, the equivalent of a baseball player hitting just under the magical .400 mark. ``Obviously I regret it and think about it, I wouldn't kid you like it didn't bother me,'' he said. ``It did. But I don't relive it every day.''
Others, however, do. His opponents have tagged him as a perennial candidate, a political chameleon who has flip-flopped on the abortion issue and re-created himself each election, from Mountain Valley Republican to centrist, from arch-conservative to moderate. He hasn't won statewide office in 17 years, and his critics say he can't pull it off now.
``The difference between Ollie North and Marshall Coleman is that Ollie North has support and Marshall doesn't,'' said North spokesman Mark Merritt.
It is a charge that brings an impassioned reply from Coleman:
``If people in life go out and (try to) get something done, and it doesn't work the first time, or the second time, if they quit, we'd still be in caves.
``If that's the worst they can say about me, I'll accept it. I will give my opponents the votes of everybody out there who never lost a fight, lost a bet, lost a business deal, lost a case, if I can just have the votes of everybody that's had a setback. Then I get 95 percent of the vote. . . .
``Is virtue dependent on whether you get 49.9, or 51.1? I mean, I will take that as a rap, and let them take their raps. I'll match my record against theirs. I mean, all I hear people say is, `Why is Oliver North qualified to be in the United States Senate?' What is his experience level? What is his success? What has he accomplished? Fired from a job he had, thrice convicted.''
North's albatross is his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. Robb's is his marital indiscretions and public feud with Wilder. ``Voters know a lot they don't like about the two nominees,'' Coleman said. ``They also need information about me and what I want to do.''
He has staked out a position as a moderate who's tough on crime and strong on defense. But the crux of his campaign is: Coleman's not Chuck Robb or Ollie North.
``What's going to happen when the campaign finally comes to an end,'' Coleman said, ``is that people are going to want to replace the senator, but they are not going to want to replace the devil they know with the devil they don't know. I think that's where I come in.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Staff file
Graphic
Photos
COLEMAN'S POLITICAL ODYSSEY
1972
Elected unopposed to the House of Delegates in a special election
to fill a vacancy.
1973
Re-elected unopposed to the House of Delegates
1975
Elected to the state Senate, defeating Frank Nolen
1977
Elected state attorney general, defeating Edward Lane
1981
Lost governor's race to Charles S. Robb
1985
Lost Republican nomination for lieutenant governor to John
Chichester
1989
Lost governor's race to L. Douglas Wilder
1994
Independent candidate for the U.S. Senate
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE VIRGINIA CANDIDATES
CAMPAIGNING by CNB