DATE: Monday, October 20, 1997              TAG: 9710200050

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   69 lines

DOLE STUMPS FOR GILMORE, HELPING WOULD-BE GOVERNOR RAISE $30,000 A VIRGINIA WIN THIS YEAR WOULD HELP THE GOP IN '98, HE SAYS.

Former presidential candidate Bob Dole said Sunday that he vowed after leaving politics never to fly again on a rainy day.

But Dole arrived by plane despite a drenching, windy coastal storm to help Republican Jim Gilmore raise $30,000 at a reception and luncheon and speak at a rally at the College of William and Mary.

Virginia's race for governor between Gilmore and Democrat Don Beyer is nationally significant because only one other state, New Jersey, is electing a governor this fall, Dole said.

``Keep this in mind: What happens in Virginia is going to be used in the 1998 campaigns,'' Dole told about 160 people attending the $50-a-plate luncheon.

``We want to pick up seats in Congress in 1998,'' Dole said. ``It's going to be much easier if we carry Virginia and New Jersey in gubernatorial races this coming November.''

Dole said people are looking for candidates with integrity like Gilmore - despite polls that showed 62 percent of the people said they didn't trust President Clinton but voted for him anyway.

``That didn't say a lot for me, but it was sort of a shocker,'' Dole said.

He also told the crowd: ``Don't give up on the tax issue.''

Dole criticized Beyer for saying he would support legislation allowing local jurisdictions to raise taxes for regional transportation or education projects.

``The last thing we need in Virginia, I think, is somebody else who can raise your taxes,'' Dole said.

Beyer spokeswoman Page Boinest said Gilmore has had a lot of company on the campaign trail, including Dole and Sen. John Warner, R-Va.

``He needs to understand he would need to be governor on his own and not have someone give him a hand with that,'' she said.

Clinton, as the speaker at a Beyer fund-raiser on Oct. 4, raised about $600,000 for the Democrat's gubernatorial campaign.

Gilmore said he would build his administration on the gains achieved by Republican Gov. George Allen, such as parole abolition and a freeze on college tuition.

``All of it can disappear in one instant, 16 days from now,'' he said.

Before the luncheon, Gilmore and Dole posed for pictures with about 50 people who paid $250 to attend a private reception. Gilmore said the reception and luncheon raised $30,000 for his campaign, including donations.

About 250 people, mostly students, attended the William and Mary rally, where Gilmore and Dole praised the role of young Republicans in getting out the vote.

Beyer, meantime, sought to link Gilmore to more than $1 million given by tobacco giant Philip Morris during the past year to three national GOP fund-raising committees.

During the same period, the three committees gave $1.08 million to Gilmore's campaign, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

A Gilmore aide said there was no connection between the tobacco money, about a third of which was contributed before the 1996 presidential and congressional elections and probably was spent on those campaigns, and the funds Gilmore received from the committees. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

GARY C. KNAPP

Former presidential candidate Bob Dole, right, appears with

gubernatorial hopeful Jim Gilmore at a luncheon and rally Sunday in

Williamsburg. KEYWORDS: ELECTION CANDIDATE CAMPAIGN FINANCING

GUBERNATORIAL RACE VIRGINIA

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