THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 20, 1994 TAG: 9410200430
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE AND WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
One day after promising to scrap the most negative television ad of his campaign, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Oliver L. North got teary-eyed, hugged a former hostage and surfaced atop a new poll of state voters.
A kinder, gentler Virginia Senate race?
Think again.
North appeared in Virginia Beach on Wednesday with former hostage David Jacobsen, who thanked the Iran-Contra figure for winning his freedom, saving his life and being just an all-around great guy.
Sen. Charles S. Robb's campaign promptly offered up the wife of former captive Jerry Levin, who called North's arms-for-hostages deals ``bogus'' and asked: ``How much are people willing to swallow from this man?''
The battle of the ex-hostages erupted just as a poll was released showing North with a 4-point lead over Robb with less than three weeks until the Nov. 8 election.
Conducted Oct. 15 through 17 by Maryland-based Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research Inc., the poll of 828 registered voters showed 37 percent favoring North, 33 percent backing Robb and 16 percent for independent J. Marshall Coleman.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent, meaning that the race between North and Robb technically is a dead heat. But pollster Brad Coker said the probability is strong that North is ahead, and that North remains the only candidate with any sign of momentum.
Lately North has tried to use that momentum to lift himself into the political comfort zone, where candidates can practice the happier, friendlier side of campaigning.
Tuesday, for instance, he yanked his campaign's most negative TV commercial yet - one reminding voters of Robb's alleged involvement with drugs and a beauty queen.
On Wednesday at the Republican's noon news conference, North hugged Jacobsen on stage and seemed choked with emotion.
Jacobsen was a hostage in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1985 and 1986, the same time North was helping to arrange secret weapons trades with Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages. Jacobsen said he would likely be dead or still in captivity if not for North.
``There is not one day that goes by that I do not thank Oliver North and President Reagan for what they did to secure my freedom and the freedom of the other hostages,'' Jacobsen said.
Jacobsen is also the subject of North's latest TV advertisement, a more emotional piece he said will replace the sex-and-drugs ad.
Campaign aides pitched Jacobsen as a reminder to the public of why people liked North in 1987 - before the ``liberal media and Washington insiders'' started trying to make them forget, according to spokesman Mark Merritt.
Robb framed the endorsement as ``an attempt to take a single example to distort the big picture.''
``And the big picture has very little to do with saving lives,'' Robb said. ``Nobody is quarreling with anything he may have done that really tried to save lives. What we're quarreling with is everything else he did.''
North was convicted in 1989 of three felonies connected to his Iran-Contra role, though all were later overturned on appeal. He also has been tied to potential profits from Iran-Contra arms sales, a link North disputes.
Levin's wife, Sis, said North's arms-for-hostages deal encouraged captors to take more hostages. Former hostage Terry Anderson has made the same claim.
Robb, despite an ever-intensifying effort to improve his standing through TV advertising, has remained stagnant in polls - at 33 percent of the vote - since early September. The only area of the state in which he has a comfortable lead is Northern Virginia.
Coleman's support has increased by only 1 percentage point during the same period.
North has improved his support from 28 percent to 37 percent since early September.
``The current trend seems to favor North,'' wrote Coker, president of Mason-Dixon. ``Robb's support has been stuck. . . . North, despite high negatives, has been able to steadily increase his support.'' MEMO: Staff writer David M. Poole contributed to this story.
ILLUSTRATION: ABOUT THE ISSUES
CANDIDATES' APPEARANCES WEDNESDAY
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KEYWORDS: CANDIDATES POLL U.S. SENATE RACE CAMPAIGN by CNB