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uie same way to essentially me same letter content year after year. As long as “liberal” is repeated often enough, it works like a charm. The conservatives can’t help themselves, of course. They’ve been conditioned.
So it was earlier this month when Sen. John Warner sent out a mass-massing designed to pull in early cash for his expected 1984 re-election bid.
In truth, the letter was a bit ham-handed and not quite as slick as some of the genre. For example, it started with “Dear Friend” rather than the computerized comraderie of “Dear Bill” or “Dear Joe,” a touch which the state of the art now makes possible.
But in most other respects the Warner pitch was right out of the ring-wing manual for bringing in the bucks. It was designed to scare the wits out of the true believers.
“It’s no secret,” wrote Warner, “that these same (liberal) special interests (ding!) are working to elect a liberal (ding!) U.S. Senator from Virginia next year.”
And who are those who threaten this liberal terror?
“There’s no shortage of potential candidates,” continued Warner. “Gov. Robb, congressmen Rick Boucher and Norman Sisisky, lobbyist William Thomas and state Sen. L. Douglas Wilder (ding!ding!ding!) have all been mentioned as possible Democratic candidates. Whoever is selected, he will be far more liberal (ding!) than the great majority of Virginians.”
It is an interesting list. Robb and Sisisky have said repeatedly that they are not candidates. Boucher must have been mildly surprised to see his name included. If Wilder harbors senatorial ambitions, he is keeping remarkably quiet about it.
Indeed, Thomas is probably the only live candidate among them, and it is arguable that he is even more conservative than Warner. Ironically, since computers are non-partisan and really sort of dumb, Thomas was one of the recipients of Warner’s letter.
In a spritely response, Thomas asked Warner who, in heaven’s name, these liberal special interest groups might be who are so feverishly pushing his candidacy.
Warner closed his appeal with a handwritten post-script. “I expect a strong challenge in ’84,” he added. “Your support now will help prepare me for a strong race.”
His cry of alarm will have the desired effect, of course. The letter will ding the bell, the faithful will i yet again figuratively salavate, and the checks will be in the mail.
And the Democrats will continue their search - now a mite desperate - for a candidate to match the threat, if not necessarily the philosophy, described in the Warner letter.
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