THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9409230011
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: PERRY MORGAN
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Oliver North says he's prepared to work ``12-14 hours a day, six days a week to win'' election to the U.S. Senate. No doubt. He's acting out a script (doubling as a fund-raising letter) in which he stars in multiple white-hat roles. These characters are moved by an incentive sweeter than victory and one that enchants some of his followers. It's vengeance.
North invites potential contributors to ``picture the look on the faces of those left-wing senators who tormented me and other anti-communist witnesses during the Iran-Contra hearings as I walk onto the floor of the Senate to be sworn in as a U.S. senator. . . . It will be a nightmare for the liberals because they know that they cannot intimidate me and that I will not bend or break under their pressure.''
(Neither, it appears, will he accept Ronald Reagan's warning to keep his distance. The script charges Senate liberals and the media with trying to ``destroy me, Ronald Reagan and our conservative agenda.'')
North is unexcelled at playing the victim, the outsider, the selfless crusader. His gift for campaign melodrama is remarkable, and the millions he's raised are only one measure of it.
He would be a formidable campaigner even if his principal opponent, incumbent Sen. Charles Robb, were not scarred by scandal. Charm, poise and blarney, though, can hardly disguise the fact that North's no outsider but an insider savoring a triumphant return inside the Beltway. His big-name endorsers are charter members of the political club while those closest to his career work to keep their distance.
The latter include Gen. Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Desert Storm commander; and North's old boss at the National Security Council, Robert McFarlane.
North supporters include Bob Dole, Jack Kemp and Dan Quayle, all potential aspirants for the next GOP presidential nomination. Visiting Virginia, Dole, who once characterized North as a ``loose cannon'' who had overstepped his bounds in the Iran-Contra affair, made it clear he was looking for a party-line vote. North said he'd be dependable.
His fund-raising letter says so, too. One line in the letter plumps for ``reducing taxes including income taxes, inheritance taxes and the capital gains tax.'' The very next line comes out four-square for a balanced budget, and the next pledges abolition of ``many out-dated government programs and agencies.'' (None specified.)
This sort of talk is elevator music in the Senate. If North has nothing bolder to offer in the way of an agenda, those Democratic pinkos he pictures in his script might snore throughout his induction.
It's hard to picture a real Lochinvar being elected to the Senate, but if one arrives we will know pronto. He will be more interested in risking his own seat than in talking term limits, in refusing to hire all the huge staff that's budgeted, in being specific when promising cuts in spending, and in being blunt about the towering lack of trust between the electorate and Washington.
Come to think of it, the campaign's only risk-taker so far is Republican Sen. John Warner who has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't wish to serve in the Senate with North. Agree or disagree, no one can accuse Warner of heeding the insider rule of getting along by going along. He will pay a price for that - how much being the only question. MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. by CNB