THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 12, 1996 TAG: 9604120619
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
Molly Ivins, who has watched politics for many years, had a simple observation for a packed house Thursday night at Old Dominion University:
``Good mothers make good politicians.''
For one thing, she said, ``They know what to do when there's two kids and one cookie'' - let them divide it. For another, when the kids are fighting in the back seat of the car, it doesn't matter who hit whom first. Mothers know how to say, in a strong motherly voice: ``You will stop!''
All political questions, she said, are variations on these themes.
Ivins, the unabashed Texas liberal and syndicated columnist, delighted an overflow crowd of more than 500 at ODU's Mills Godwin Auditorium.
Ivins spared few in her husky, droll analysis of the current political scene. Even though she admires many in public life, she said, ``I rarely defend politicians because it's much more fun to roast them.''
Although it's perfectly apparent that Bob Dole and Bill Clinton will be the only show to watch this fall, she said, ``I don't think the surprises are over this year. Anything can happen, and it usually does - from the ridiculous to the tragic.'' What would happen, for instance, if Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan ``got married?''
``Between now and the first Tuesday in November,'' she advised, ``many things will happen that will surprise and appall us.''
Ivins, who writes for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, said the only reason she is able to survive as a liberal in Texas is that ``I write with a Texas accent.''
She waxed serious at times, quoting from the Declaration of Independence. She deplored the trendy habit of attacking those who govern, and added, ``We are dangerously close to the point where we have lost sight of the fact that the government is us.''
But, as the deaths of fathers and mothers and children at the Oklahoma City federal building showed, ``It turned out to be us, didn't it?''
Her speech, the last of the university's l995-96 President's Lecture Series, took on most of the recent crop of candidates. But she saved her sharpest barbs for questions from the audience.
What did she have to say to attacks by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh? Being attacked by him, she said, is ``somewhat akin to being gummed by a Newt: It doesn't particularly hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on you.''
Much of the audience watched on hallway TV monitors and a nearby overflow area. As Louis Henry, director of the school's academic honors program, said at the start, ``Welcome to one of the main reasons we're trying to raise money for a new convocation center.'' by CNB