Kenney: Party Like It’s 1994
In June 1994, four candidates for the U.S. Senate seat sat down on Larry King Live to talk about the future of the Virginia and the nation.
Oliver North — the Republican nominee — and sitting US Senator Chuck Robb had their differences. Yet within their own camps came rivalries as well. From the center was the challenge of Marshall Coleman, who just five years earlier had narrowly missed election as governor to the other gentleman at the table — one former Governor Doug Wilder whose “pay as you go” stability meshed well with his civil rights background.
Here’s how the New York Times caged the candidates as they appeared on Larry King Live:
Mr. Robb, the Democratic nominee, repeatedly cited his ties to the White House and his ability to work closely with President Clinton. Oliver L. North, the Republican nominee who is best known for his involvement in the Iran-contra affair while working in the Reagan White House, declared that he was the only one of the four who had not spent his “entire life running for office.”
Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat who entered the race as an independent, accused Mr. Robb of being too close to Mr. Clinton and supporting economic policies that hurt the Virginia economy. Another independent candidate, J. Marshall Coleman, a Republican who is a former state Attorney General, went after Mr. North. Mr. Coleman repeatedly said that he could work closely with the state’s senior Senator, John W. Warner, a Republican who has refused to endorse Mr. North and is backing Mr. Coleman.
I’d love to be able to show you a picture of their debate on CNN, but not only has CNN taken down the video to be memory holed into oblivion, Shutterstock will allow me to show you this image for the low cost of $199. Or I could roll the dice on what “editorial use” actually means for those of us who don’t quite want to test the line between journalism and commentary. Either way — $199 for a 25-year old image is a crime and a half. Anathema sit.
Fast forward to the present day.
With Amanda Chase (I-Chesterfield) flirting with the logistics of a Patriot Party — which to quote Cervantes, “those aren’t giants but windmills!” — and Democrats none too happy about their nomination contest effectively being bought by Terry McAuliffe?
Allow me to introduce you to the possibility that we might very well see four nominees in the general election for Virginia governor in a throwback to 1994.
(1) Amanda Chase decides to make good on her threats to run as an independent. Assume for a moment that Kirk Cox, Pete Snyder, Glenn Youngkin, Emmett Hanger or Sergio de la Pena manage to emerge as the victor in the yet-to-be-determined Republican nomination contest. Will they have to fend off a Patriot Party?
(2) … or if Terry McAuliffe manages to tick off his progressive base. Which Terry is easily doing as he buys up the bits and pieces of the old Democratic Byrd Machine. Perhaps self-declared socialist Lee Carter (?-???????? ) decides to Make Virginia Soviet Again?
(3) … or if Terry McAuliffe becomes so plastic and fake that Virginia Democrats can’t stomach him anymore. In which case, a center-left blue dog looks at the disarray on the right and feels that now is the time to set the ship right before Republicans take the House in 2021 and the Senate in 2023?
Imagine a scenario where Republicans square off against the Dixiecrats, the progressive liberals, and the democratic socialists all in one shot?
I don’t know about you, but I love those odds.
During the 1994 debate, North refused to wear a suit jacket so as to distinguish himself from the “professional politicians” lined up to the left.
Yet it was Chuck Robb, the incumbent, who not only endured most of the slings and arrows of the contest but ultimately won the contest after Marshall Coleman managed to secure 11% of the vote.
Of course, it was as a young man that I had to watch Chuck Robb sneer into a microphone “how sweet it is!” before I knew that I never wanted to be like those people. Don’t ever talk to me about civility in politics ever again, I thought, and it wasn’t until George Allen’s muted response about victory being sweet that some modicum of justice was bestowed upon Robb’s momentary hubris.
But the stakes really were that high in 1994. Clinton was in office, the Republican Revolution of ‘94 was on in a big way, and Virginia bucked the national trend due to that most pernicious of ghosts: INFIGHTING.
Either way, McAuliffe stands as the winged and wounded incumbent. Or at the very least, defending Northam’s missteps and malpractice. Given the times, all eyes are upon Virginia to see what a post-Trump era conservative will look and sound like. Yes, there are demographic shifts that make Virginia feel more like New Jersey, but the same issues are at play: education, transportation, and economy.
For Republicans, the added bonuses are fully funding our police and reopening the economy; two things conservatives are very good at doing. What we will have to discover in the process is that such policies are best done in the light of day — not by tiki torch.
Until that demon is exorcized, we are going to have a very difficult time explaining to the Marshall Coleman wing of the party — a wing that has comfortably voted Democratic in the last three elections — that Republicans are back in the business of governing again.
Yet a scenario such as 1994 may very well be in the cards if Republicans open their hands too much. After all, the Democrats represent a far broader coalition ranging from moderates to liberals, to progressives to actual socialists. BLM and Antifa violence have only made these divisions worse, and with Northam fumbling the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, the return to normalcy and common decency in Virginia runs through the Republican Party.
If Republicans are wise enough not to repeat the mistakes of the past, that is.
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.
