By LAWRENCE EMERSON

By LAWRENCE EMERSON

Rappahannock News Special Writer

From the podium of Richmond’s John Marshall Hotel ballroom Tuesday night, L. Douglas Wilder recalled that he once waited tables in the venerable hotel.

That hotel, perhaps symbolic of Virginia’s old power structure, is a place Mr. Wilder and other blacks frequented only as hired help 20 years ago. How different the scene was Tuesday night, when Mr. Wilder, the grandson of a slave, delivered his acceptance speech as Virginia’s lieutenant governor-elect.

Just before Mr. Wilder stepped to the podium, Mary Sue Terry finished her Election Night speech as the state’s next attorney general. The Democrats are respectively the first black and the first woman elected to statewide office in Virginia — a state known for conservative politics, controlled by white mra,

Tuesday’s state elections will be ' columnists’ fodder and analysts’ challenge well into the new year, for the Democratic sweep — with gubernatorial candidate Gerald L. Baliles also winning — truly deserves national attention.

On the surface, the results prove credible candidates, regardless of race or sex, can win in Virginia. Although many believed that, nobody could say so unequivocally before Tuesday. Certainly former Del. Edythe Harrison’s (D-Norfolk) pathetic run (21 percent of the vote) at U.S. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) last November was not a good indicator.

But, this time, the situations were different. There were no incumbents. The black and female candidates brought deep Virginia roots, government experience and political savvy to their campaigns.

They truly are “moderates.” And, that’s why the Democratic sweep in Virginia could send a strong signal to fellow party members and to the electorate nationwide. If the Democratic Party is to compete nationally with Republicans, it must align itself more closely with the electorate. That apparently has happened in Virginia.

Mr. Wilder supports the death penalty, laws barring union shops and a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget. He realized the need to reach out to white voters without alienating his own political base, including the predominately black Richmond district he has represented for 15 years in the Virginia Senate, where he has earned powerful committee chairmanships.

Similarly, Miss Terry espoused tough law-and-order measures and brought to her campaign a legislative record of cracking down on drunken drivers. Her political power base was built in rural, conservative southwest Virginia.

Both, Mr. Wilder and Miss Terry legitimately could claim to be mainstream Virginians.

But, Miss Terry insisted Tuesday night: “It’s not the two of us but the Virginia voters who have made history today.”

It’s true voters were quite willing to seriously consider two candidates who were untraditional by Virginia standards. But, it also may be true that their race and sex inspired more enthusiasm than their rather lackluster Republican opponents.

Indeed, voter turnout was meager — about 50 percent of the more than 2.6 million registered to vote! Polls near the campaign’s end indicated significant numbers of undecided voters, whom trailing Republicans hoped to sway by Elec