THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 24, 1994 TAG: 9410220020
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Tony Snow
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
Here are five reasons not to vote for Oliver North this year:
(1) He whines and weeps too much - just like Bill Clinton.
(2) He lied to Congress and then lied to schoolchildren about lying to Congress.
(3) He, um, exaggerates - as with his claim that he and Ronald Reagan held 19 private sessions in the Oval Office.
(4) He has that awful voice (look who's talking).
(5) My friend Beth says he spits water through his teeth.
Like many residents of Virginia, I will go to the polls next month trembling with trepidation because the U.S. Senate race between Oliver North, Chuck Robb and Marshall Coleman could change the course of history. If North wins, Republicans almost surely will seize control of the Senate and use their power to eviscerate Bill Clinton.
Virginians loathe this kind of pressure. The battle has forced everyone to admit that the better angels of our natures seldom survive the back-alley business of politics. Sometimes, you must make unpleasant choices. Since Marshall Coleman has zero chance of election, voters will have to pick between North and Robb.
What delicious contrasts! Robb is a political Babbitt who has moved obediently and methodically up the ladder of success. But ask what he has done, and folks blink as if you had just asked the name of Dudley Do-Right's horse. Robb combines the wooden charm of an insurance salesman with the practiced vacuity of a debutante. Nice smile, but do the neurons and synapses still send sparks toward his brain?
North, in contrast, has slugged his way through life. Half Sergeant Bilko and half Sergeant York, he is all edges, like a whirling blade. When he talks, he screeches like a band saw slamming into a block of pine. As with Robb, nobody actually knows what he's done (he often seems fuzzy on the matter himself), but he has one great asset. He is unforgettable.
There are only two issues in this race. The foremost is character: Is there any way to distinguish between these guys on the basis of morals?
You decide: Robb got involved as governor with the sort of individuals who normally hang around the Clintons - high rollers, cocaine snorters, people who drive fast boats and lead even racier lives. He now says that if he'd known these characters had such awful habits, he wouldn't have accepted their hospitality on weekends when his wife wasn't home.
He also pleaded ignorance when the press reported that some of his aides received illegally recorded tapes of cellular-phone conversations conducted by Robb's nemesis, former Gov. Douglas Wilder.
But he won the ingenuity award when he described his nude back rub from beauty queen Tai Collins as the natural conclusion of the couple's having shared an innocent bottle of champagne in his hotel room.
Ollie North has his own well-known skeletons, including his conduct in the inscrutable Iran-Contra mess, and he responds to criticism with the grating ``How dare you'' defense: He reminds listeners that he won two Purple Hearts in Vietnam and insists that detractors have no right to question his patriotism.
He recently canceled a session with reporters at The Washington Post, for instance, complaining that the meeting ``would only serve as another opportunity for your staff to savage me personally and politically.''
Call ethics a draw, then.
That leaves the second issue, policies. Robb votes like Clinton without Hillary. He has supported the president faithfully from the start, and he recently agreed to share a dais with the chief executive, making him the only politician south of Manhattan to do so.
North, on the other hand, wants to annihilate the establishment. He cackles with joy as he talks of slashing taxes, cutting spending and forcing Washington to live by the rules (!).
This sort of thing inspires horse-country heiresses to pop open their purses and write checks to Chuck Robb. But it also excites America's more numerous and devoted lumpenproles. When Ollie speaks, they pump their fists and stuff loose change into envelopes, like collections at the altar of a new revolution.
The bottom line: I will support North, praying that he acquits himself honorably in office. Here are five reasons why:
(1) I prefer a man who lies to Congress over one who lies to his wife. (Not an original line but effective.)
(2) He will vote right most of the time.
(3) He won't change positions to appease anyone.
(4) He infuriates a lot of people I find annoying.
(5) And he gets a bum rap on the expectoration thing. Lauren Hutton has a gap between her teeth, and nobody complains about her. MEMO: Mr. Snow's column is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate, 5777
W. Century Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90045.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE CANDIDATES by CNB