Thus, attention is focusing increasingly on r isher as

Thus, attention is focusing increasingly on r isher as the party’s standard bearer. ", - '* *

Fisher, 69, served in the Congress ffrom 1975 until 1981. Earlier he had received his baptism of political fire as chairman of the Arlington County Board of Supervisors. With the advent of the Robb administration in 1982, he was appointed to his present post.

During his tenure in Congress, Fisher was tarred as a liberal by his GOP opponents and, on occasion, by the editorial writers of the Richmond newspapers. Actually, as his service in Richmond has show; he is a political moderate whose philosophy is far closer to that of Robb than to that of the party’s noisy left wing.

His tough-minded administration of the Human Resources secretariat, which handles the state’s welfare programs, has earned him the applause of many of his former conservative critics.

Fisher does not find the prospect of challenging the popular Warner daunting, but he recognizes the difficulties involved. Just as Fisher is far from the wild-eyed liberal painted by his conservative critics, Warner is by no means the right-wing ideologue often described by the Democrats. He will be a difficult political target.

In addition, Warner is reputed to have already built a campign warchest in the $1 million range, while Fisher’s fund-raising effort has yet to get off the ground.

This does not worry Fisher.

“If a lack of funds bothered me,’’ he said, “I would never have run for Congress in the first place. I believe the voters will respond to an intellectual, emotional and moral commitment as well as to a heavily financed campaign. I really don’t believe the voters regard the ability to raise money as the principal qualiciation for holding public office. Some Democrat has to make this leap of faith.”

Democratic party elders are careful to avoid a public commitment this early in the game to any of the possible candidats. Some—including Fisher—still harbor the hope that Robb will change his mind. (“I would support him in an instant,” Fisher told me.)

But unless this happens, a growing number of top party leaders are privately coming to the conclusion that Fisher might be their strongest candidate.

At least, in a year when Warner’s stock is flying high and other Democratic possiblities are reluctant dragons, they see Fisher as a highly plausible candidate who is willing to take the “leap of faith. ”