DATE: Tuesday, November 4, 1997             TAG: 9711040300

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEDYARD KING, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   67 lines

GOP TRUMPETS CAR-TAX PROMISE

For confident Republicans, today's election-day prize isn't just the governor's mansion anymore. It's GOP control of the Virginia legislature for the first time in 125 years.

``We're going to sweep the House of Delegates and elect new leadership,'' Republican gubernatorial nominee James S. Gilmore III proclaimed, brandishing a broom during a stop in Staunton Monday.

Fueled by polls showing him with a double-digit lead over Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr., Gilmore has concentrated on coattails during the last days of his campaign.

Once-improbable victories for lieutenant gubernatorial nominee John H. Hager and for the several House seats it will take for GOP control now seem tantalizingly within the party's grasp.

Gilmore and Hager toured the state Monday on a bus with Gov. George F. Allen and attorney general nominee Mark L. Earley of Chesapeake. The Republicans' message at rallies, metro stations and Kmart parking lots was as focused as the steady thud of a bass drum: Elect a Republican legislature and you can erase Virginia's hated tax on personal vehicles.

``I really do think this election is about breaking up the status quo,'' Hager said.

Hager called himself ``the 21st vote in the 21st century,'' a reference to the power Virginia's next lieutenant governor will wield in the Senate, which is split 20-20 between Republicans and Democrats. Hager, or Democratic opponent L.F. Payne, will serve as president of the Senate and cast votes to break ties.

``When it comes to that tie-breaking vote in the Senate on abolishing the car tax, L.F. Payne is going to vote `no,' and John Hager is going to vote `yes,' '' Hager told a crowd of about 125 supporters in Charlottesville.

Both Payne and Beyer have belittled as shortsighted and unaffordable Gilmore's five-year program to phase out the personal property tax on the first $20,000 of assessed value on all privately owned cars, trucks and motorcycles.

The sentiment by most Republicans riding the bus around Virginia Monday is that if Gilmore has coattails, they will benefit Hager first. House seats will be tougher to carry simply because local races are influenced by a number of factors beyond the popularity of a nominee, they said.

But Gilmore and Allen believe they can pick up key seats in northern Virginia and Hampton Roads because of the car tax issue, trumpeted in television ads and prominent road signs. The issue has given Republicans who support the plan ammunition and made Democrats who oppose it vulnerable targets.

``This is not some obscure issue that was on page three of a questionnaire from some oddball organization,'' Allen said. ``To ignore it, I think, (Democrats) do at their own peril.''

Kevin Whalen, 35, of Fairfax, is just the voter Republicans hope to reach.

Usually a swing voter, the investigator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development just paid $850 in personal property taxes on his new van. That makes him want to vote for Gilmore, which could benefit GOP House challenger Jeannemarie A. Devolites who's running in his district.

``It killed us,'' he said of the tax, as he walked away from Gilmore, Allen and other Republicans greeting commuters entering the Vienna Metro station. ``We couldn't buy much Halloween stuff for the kids.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS

GOP gubernatorial candidate James S. Gilmore III, center, campaigns

with attorney general candidate Mark Earley, left, and Gov. George

F. Allen Monday. KEYWORDS: ELECTION CANDIDATE GUBERNATORIAL RACE VIRGINIA

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