Moderate victories
Castelli, Jim
Election '85 MODERATE VICTORIES NEW FACES IN VIRGINIA THE democratic sweep of three top state-wide races in Virginia offered quite a plateful for political pundits to digest: It derailed the...
...And it leaves the forty-five-year-old Robb right where he wants to be — in the national spotlight...
...Unlike Jesse Jackson, who ran for president as a black candidate, Wilder, fifty-four, ran as a qualified candidate who happened to be black...
...But his victory almost took a back seat to that of his running mates...
...It leaves the Democrats with Wilder and Terry poised to succeed Baliles, and with all three plus Robb ready to take on Senator Paul Trible in 1988...
...he won 53 percent of the vote in suburban Fairfax County...
...Wilder — who once unsuccessfully tried to remove Carry Me Back to Old Virginny as the state song because of its reference to "Darkies" — ran as the candidate of all the people, making a two-month, 3,000-mile trip to every county in the state to introduce himself to voters...
...Robb is more popular in the state than Ronald Reagan, but under state law he could not succeed himself...
...Until now, stories abut Robb's national ambitions seemed a little far-fetched...
...He also had excellent qualifications — he had been named outstanding attorney general in the country by his peers and picked as most effective state official in a Norfolk newspaper survey...
...he carried seven of the state's ten congressional districts, including the almost all-white ninth district in the rural southwest...
...Commonweal: 662 As governor, he has been "fiscally conservative" but moderate on social issues...
...Philpott...
...But on social issues, she was pro-ERA and pro-choice, although she had voted for a bill that would restrict access to abortion for teenagers...
...Baliles accused Durette of trying to move the state backward — a reference to his support from ultraconservatives like former Governor Mills Godwin and former Senator Harry Byrd...
...the historic election of a black lieutenant governor and a woman attorney general showed that black and female Democrats can win state-wide elections if they appeal to a broad base...
...Until now...
...Terry had headed a 1982 task force for Robb that drafted a new drunk-driving law, and she used her reputation for being tough on drunk drivers as the cornerstone of her campaign...
...Despite Durette's strong backing from Reagan, Baliles won with a comfortable 55 percent of the vote...
...it put the Republican party on notice that it cannot be assured of winning elections merely by running cookie-cutter campaigns about "family values" and accusing Democrats of being big spenders...
...29 November 1985: 663...
...she was helped by the fact that O'Brien had claimed to have played for the Washington Redskins, but the Redskins had denied it...
...Terry was unharmed by O'Brien's implications that she wasn't qualified for office because she was single...
...The election leaves Virginia with a sense of being part of the "New South" and an administration with a mandate to continue successful past policies...
...Robb headed a similar Democratic sweep in 1981 that ended twelve straight years of Republican rule in the Old Dominion...
...and, finally, it presented a new Democratic hero — outgoing Governor Charles "Chuck" Robb, Lyndon Johnson's son-in-law...
...He won the support of a leading conservative, House Speaker A.L...
...One of his TV ads featured a hefty, slow-talking deputy sheriff pointing out that the State Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Wilder...
...JIM CASTELLI (Jim Castelli is a Washington-based free-lance writer specializing in religion and politics...
...Terry, like Baliles, carried all ten congressional districts...
...Election '85 MODERATE VICTORIES NEW FACES IN VIRGINIA THE democratic sweep of three top state-wide races in Virginia offered quite a plateful for political pundits to digest: It derailed the assumption that realignment in the South is inevitable...
...It took courage to run in Virginia with the slogan, "New Ideas for a New Dominion.'' Durette's charges that Baliles was a big spender simply didn't wash...
...Terry, thirty-eight, is generally regarded as a conservative...
...She proved herself a good campaigner — she drew laughs across the state saying that her home town of Crikes, Virginia, was so small the high school taught driver education and sex education in the same car...
...More importantly, the things that Baliles did want to spend money on — schools, roads, and economic development — were precisely the things that Virginians across the state wanted to spend money on...
...Wilder won 44 percent of the white vote...
...And State Delegate Mary Sue Terry proved the biggest votegetter of all, winning 61 percent of the vote in her race for attorney general against another conservative, Buster O'Brien...
...Douglas Wilder of Richmond, the grandson of a slave who in 1969 became the first black since Reconstruction to be elected to the state senate, became the first black elected to state-wide office in the South, winning 52 percent of the vote in his race for lieutenant governor against conservative John Chichester...
...Baliles, forty-five, virtually ran as the incumbent...
...His ads emphasized his experience — including the chairmanship of three top senate committees...
...He threw his support behind his attorney general, Gerald Baliles, an earnest, low-key moderate running against Republican moderate Wyatt Durette, whom he had defeated in the 1981 attorney general's race...
...he brought blacks, women, and liberals into state government while maintaining a steady hand and emphasizing popular issues like education...
Vol. 112 • November 1985 • No. 21
