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By GEORGE BOWLES
The philosopher George Santayana made an observation early in this century which present-day Virginia Democrats might do well to take to heart. Said that peripatetic sage, “Those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Judging from events at the Democratic State Central Committee meeting a fortnight ago and the general temper of the campaign for the party’s nomination for governor, it would appear that a crash course in the Democrats’ recent history would be in order if the melancholy result of which Santayana warned is to be avoided.
The candidates vying for the gubernatorial nod are Lt. Gov. Richard Davis of Portsmouth and Attorney General Gerald Battles of Richmond. Both are well qualified philosophically and professionally for the high office they seek. Both men are moderates well within the rather foggily defined “mainstream of Virginia political thought.” Neither is so far to the left that he could be accurately or fairly tagged with the fatal liberal label or so far to the right that he could be called a remnant of Virginia’s segregationist past.
There are, to be sure, differences between them, but that is not the subject of this piece.
That subject is the ominous parallel which Virginia Democrats should be able to discern between the way their gubernatorial campaign is shaping up and the disastrous Democratic presidential effort of last year.
Just as it was with the party’s presidential candidates during the early months of 1984, strategists for the gubernatorial candidates are now at each others’ throats in a way which could make reconciliation extremely difficult once the nominating process is over.
The nominee will be formally chosen at the party’s state convention in the Richmond Coliseum on June 7-8. The issue may very well be all but settled, however, at the party caucuses (formerly called mass meetings) which will be held in each city and county on March 30 and April 1. At these caucuses delegates will be elected who may be committed to vote for one of the two hopefuls on the first ballot, or elected as uncommitted. Since there are only two candidates, there will likely be only one ballot, so the election of favorable slates at the caucuses is vital for both camps.
And both camps are going after the delegates as though the outcome in June will not just determine who wins the Democratic nomination for governor, but the governorship itself.
The charges and countercharges have been every bit as biting and acrimonious as those hurled by last year’s presidential hopefuls. Because Davis received the AFL-CIO endorsement, the Battles camp charged that Davis was, in effect, in the pocket of labor, although Battles had sought the labor endorsement himself. When a Battles aide alleged Davis had purchased the endorsement with a pledge to support public employee collective bargaining, the enusing explosion from Davis almost
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