Abortion and Taxes in Virginia
BARNES, FRED
Abortion and Taxes in Virginia The Ghost of Lee Atwater Haunts the Governor's Race By Fred Barnes In the 1989 governor's race in Virginia, media consultant Robert Goodman produced a powerful...
...However, the ads are reactive ("My opponent's not being honest with you on the very personal matter of abortion"), show Gilmore rather than a baby, and don't come close to putting him on offense...
...The issue lingered, however, and without the ad, Coleman was vulnerable to Wilder's criticism on abortion...
...Even if it were constitutional, he wouldn't support spousal notification...
...in the others, prosecutors were free to seek tougher sentences...
...Sounds like Clinton, who has raised clever political positioning to a high art...
...After Gilmore denounced Beyer for giving regional authorities the power to tax, the Post published a story under this headline: "Beyer's Position on Regional Taxes Has N.Va...
...In July, though, he proposed his own cut in the personal-property tax...
...Indecisive and poll-driven...
...The similarities with [President] Clinton are scary," says a Gilmore adviser...
...No one's going to ban abortions...
...Had the roles been reversed—with Gilmore, the Republican, botching an explosive attack on Beyer, the Democrat— would the Post have waited so long to report the matter...
...Allen, by the way, is set to stump full-time for Gilmore in the last two weeks of the campaign...
...What were you thinking, Jim, when you did those 35 plea agreements with child sex moles-ters...
...Potentially more damaging to Gilmore was the Post's coverage of Beyer's accusation, in an October 6 debate, that Gilmore had approved 35 plea agreements with child molesters when he was a prosecutor in suburban Richmond...
...Beyer also insisted he played a large role in revoking parole in Virginia...
...Gilmore, looking puzzled, responded in general terms about plea bargaining...
...He told an interviewer he favored parental consent, not merely notification, for a minor to have an abortion...
...When Gilmore proposed to phase out the car tax, Beyer initially called it irresponsible...
...Later, a television reporter asked if he favors a law requiring a woman to notify her husband before having an abortion...
...The episode got major media play for two days...
...I asked Gilmore whether he wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade...
...Beyer isn't as adept at it...
...Unless Roe were reversed, Gilmore wouldn't be able to change Virginia law to restrict abortion to the first 8 to 12 weeks...
...The next day, he went further in a debate with Beyer...
...If Wilder fails to endorse Beyer, that is bound to suppress the black vote, says Sabato, the expert on Virginia voting patterns...
...This many-sided package roughly matches what polling data indicate is the view of most voters...
...It's an obvious question, since Roe requires abortion to be legal at least until viability (22 to 26 weeks...
...True, Ollie North lost to Democratic senator Charles Robb in 1994, but the state GOP was badly split...
...The economy is strong, the incumbent GOP governor (Allen) is enormously popular, and most voters say the state is moving in the right direction...
...In TV ads, he lauds Gilmore for "honesty, integrity, character"—and for proposing to kill the personal-property tax...
...Should it be banned...
...He has a demographic advantage because he's a mainstream conservative in a conservative state," says Gilmore pollster John McLaughlin...
...And like Coleman, Gilmore is desperate to change the subject...
...Twice, Gilmore has created flaps by commenting on abortion-related issues...
...That, in turn, has kept abortion in the forefront of the campaign...
...Were he on record backing an outright ban on abortion, this wouldn't have come up...
...He wouldn't say...
...They abandoned Coleman in 1989 and Ollie North in 1994, and Beyer needs most of them to defeat Gilmore...
...In a television spot, he says the Supreme Court "has spoken...
...If Gilmore is successful in reviving the tax issue—the centerpiece of his candidaFred Barnes is executive editor o/The Weekly Standard...
...Gilmore says abortion should be legal in the first 8 to 12 weeks, but he's hazy about the status of abortion after that...
...So he wants Roe tossed out, right...
...The next day, Beyer backtracked, conceding there were only 9 such cases...
...The Washington Post, the dominant paper in Northern Virginia, deserves special mention on abortion...
...Beyer's TV spots concentrate on zinging Gilmore as a pro-life extremist, and Platt says abortion alone could swing the election to Beyer...
...And, in defiance of the Atwater rule, Gilmore is airing two TV ads to assuage their fears on abortion...
...Still, there's the abortion issue...
...It doesn't...
...Gilmore's strategists agree the 60,000 women are pivotal...
...while on a trip to Japan and told of Beyer's claim...
...The fundamentals favor Gilmore," says Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, whose specialty is Virginia politics...
...In statewide races, there's a "big time" GOP tilt, maybe six to eight percentage points, argues Susan Platt, Beyer's campaign manager, who's eager to lowball his chances...
...And, to the Post's credit, it explored this theme extensively in its page-one profile of Beyer, noting his friends "acknowledge that at times he can appear indecisive and too reliant on polls...
...To win statewide, a Democratic candidate normally must get 55 percent in the D.C...
...Now, Sen...
...This follows from another Atwater rule: Whenever taxes are the dominant issue, it helps the Republican candidate...
...Targeted are 60,000 women in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, mostly moderate Republicans and independents...
...The Post's story on the debate the next day led with Beyer's charge that Gilmore's "initial support" for notification "amounted to an anachronistic insult to the state's women...
...Republican George Allen was elected governor in 1993 in a landslide...
...The ad would have put Coleman on offense on the abortion issue, but it never ran...
...Its reporters have been obsessed with the issue...
...Like Clinton, Beyer has adjusted his positions rightward to appeal to a conservative electorate...
...Republicans doubt it, and so do I. Despite the blunder, Beyer, 47, a Volvo dealer and lieutenant governor since 1989, is an artful campaigner...
...Bob Dole won the state over Bill Clinton last year...
...Like Coleman, he is basically pro-life, but his opposition to abortion is hedged...
...cy is the abolition of Virginia's loathed personal-property tax on cars and trucks—he's all but certain to win...
...For one thing, he lacks Clinton's warm ties with black voters...
...Thus, two weeks before Election Day, he is in what his aides call "the parry and thrust mode," attempting to dodge Democrat Don Beyer's criticism on abortion and to push the tax issue forward instead...
...Backers...
...Wilder won...
...Like Coleman, he is under sharp attack for favoring a ban on abortion, at least after the initial two or three months of pregnancy...
...It clashed with his iron rule that whenever abortion is a major topic of discussion in a campaign, it hurts the GOP candidate...
...He also opposes taxpayer-funded abortion and says, "I'll make sure parents are involved whenever a minor child needs to face the terrible decision that abortion involves...
...Four hours later, he issued a statement saying spousal notification was unconstitutional and thus he wouldn't consider it...
...So, logically, it should minimize criticism of Gilmore on abortion...
...John Warner, who refused to back North, is vigorously supporting Gilmore...
...Allen, who had campaigned on this issue in 1993, was awakened at 3 a.m...
...According to Atwater, the less said about abortion, the better...
...On other issues, too, the Post has leaned in Beyer's favor...
...Lee Atwater, then Republican national chairman, intervened and kept the ad off the air...
...Former governor Wilder, the state's most prominent black politician, has been standoffish toward Beyer and suggested Gilmore would be acceptable as governor...
...Abortion and Taxes in Virginia The Ghost of Lee Atwater Haunts the Governor's Race By Fred Barnes In the 1989 governor's race in Virginia, media consultant Robert Goodman produced a powerful anti-abortion TV ad for Republican Marshall Coleman...
...Child molesters let back on the street, Beyer said, "molest more children, they destroy more families...
...He quickly released a statement disputing Beyer...
...Gilmore may win anyway...
...But in the same ad he adds, "I won't support late-term abortion...
...By hedging his position, Gilmore has caused himself more problems than he's solved...
...If he had simply backed a ban on abortion except to save the life of the mother, as Ronald Reagan did, he could have avoided relentless probing of his position by the press...
...Jim Gilmore, this year's Republican candidate for governor, is in a similar situation...
...The Post didn't get around to reporting Beyer's egregious mistake until October 11 and then buried the story inside the local section...
...He's not always so reticent...
...It showed a baby taking his first steps, as an announcer criticized Democrat Douglas Wilder for backing legalized abortion, even in extreme cases like gender selection...
...And it would make a Gilmore victory all the more likely—that is, absent further complications for Gilmore on abortion...
...As it was, he spent several days explaining that consent has always been his position, though in his TV spots he advocates "parental involvement...
...suburbs, but Beyer has been running only even with or slightly behind Gilmore in the region...
...Gilmore said the idea deserved "serious consideration...
...Naturally, Gilmore accuses Beyer of flip-flops...
...Rather, it has whetted the appetite of the Beyer campaign...
...It's designed to satisfy pro-lifers without provoking pro-choice voters...
...When Gilmore momentarily considered spousal notification, it got front-page treatment...
...Gilmore, 48, who resigned as attorney general last June to run, takes the fine-tuned position favored by Republicans who are queasy on the issue...
Vol. 3 • October 1997 • No. 7
