Campaign

Campaign

Continued from page 1 each other what on earth has happened to the gubernatorial campaign of Jerry Baliles. Here it is September and no major issues have emerged to catch the public’s eye which weren’t there when the candidates started sparring more than a year ago. Democrats are somewhat frustrated by Republican Wyatt Durrette’s constant use of popcorn-type issues which boast very little pizzazz, but which keep popping out of his box of debating points.

Durrette, by the way, skipped the Labor Day doings downstate to campaign in Northern Virginia.

Baliles, Democratic lieutenant governor candidate L. Douglas Wilder and attorney general candidate Mary Sue Terry were on hand in Buena Vista and Covington, as were GOP lieutenant governor candidate John Chichester and attorney general hopeful W. S. “Buster” O’Brien.

Because none of them said anything to stir the crowds, the crowds remained unstirred.

But as we said, all this was just the opening gun, and matters could heat up considerably in the seven weeks remaining before Election Day. If they are to do so, however, a number of things will have to happen.

Baliles will have to accept the fact that Gov. Chuck Rbbb, as popular as he is, can’t pull the election off for him. Baliles must recognize that he, not Robb, may be governor for the next four years and that the people want to hear his solutions to the problems of the last years of the decade of the ’80s, and not to those of the first years. Talk about the future has been more theoretical than practical.

Durrette faces much the same problem. Gov. Mills E. Godwin may be able to help, but he can’t elect Durrette. Also the GOP candidate, as well as his running mates, must abandon the comfortable notion that it is impossible to be too conservative in Virginia. Most Virginia voters are looking for the most responsible, not the most reactionary, solutions to their problems. This is true even in modem Virginia when the reactionary solutions are masked in winks and code words.