DATE: Sunday, November 2, 1997              TAG: 9711020119

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A10  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST 

                                            LENGTH:   50 lines

BEYER'S ADVISERS SUGGESTED PLANK ON CAR TAX, BUT HE REJECTED IT

Campaign consultants told Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. last year that he should introduce a plan to kill the personal property tax, which Virginia cities and counties levy on the value of cars and trucks. But Beyer rejected the idea as irresponsible and gimmicky.

Now, polls taken in the week before Tuesday's election indicate that Beyer, the Democratic candidate for governor, is falling fast in what had been a tight race. The chief reason: a wave of sentiment whipped up by James S. Gilmore III, the Republican candidate, to kill the car tax.

Last fall, Beyer's two Washington consultants seized on the car tax as a hot issue after conducting pre-campaign polls and focus groups. ``It wasn't like finding a needle in a haystack. It was the haystack,'' said Beyer's pollster, Geoff Garin.

In March, Beyer's ad man, Mike Donilon, sent the campaign a strategy memo that began: ``It is imperative for us to call for the elimination of the personal property tax.''

Beyer's staff spent hundreds of hours preparing and debating various plans, but he rejected them all.

``I said, `Don, this is a silver bullet. This is how you can be governor - or you could lose the race over this issue,' '' Donilon recalled. ``He said, `I can't, as a matter of conviction.' ''

Beyer said he resisted a massive tax cut because ``we have to have a nobler vision.''

``At the end of four years, what have you done?'' Beyer asked. ``If you take every available penny and dedicate it to personal property tax relief, you strip your ability to be a leader for the 21st century.''

But Gilmore didn't hesitate. Last winter, when his advisers gathered in his dining room to present a fat white paper of tax-cut options, Gilmore immediately pointed to the car tax.

``He looked at it for 30 seconds and said, `That one!' '' recalled Dick Leggitt, Gilmore's ad man.

Soon Gilmore was telling crowds: ``When I'm governor of Virginia, we're going to eliminate the personal property tax on cars and trucks.''

With voters buzzing about Gilmore's plan to slash an unpopular tax that costs families hundreds of dollars a year, Beyer compromised and put forward a more modest cut.

Many Democratic officials say that once Beyer rejected a car-tax cut, he should have stuck with that stand and not played into Gilmore's hands by later proposing a less generous tax cut. KEYWORDS: ELECTION VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL RACE VIRGINIA

PLATFORMS TAXES CANDIDATES

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