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By JOHN GOOLRICK
Rappahannock Non Contributing Writer
Just six weeks after his inauguration as governor, the pundits are already taking L. Douglas Wilder to task for an alleged conservative, hands-off approach supposedly designed to fiuther his national political aspirations.
Typical of the species were a recent Washington Post article with a headline proclaiming, “Wilder Proceeding with Caution,” and a column by political commentator Mark Rozell saying “by not using his stature and force of personality to mold events, Wilder begins to look like a hostage to the political environment shaped by others.”
Please understand, such observations are made only a few weeks into a four-year term at a time the state has faced its greatest fiscal crisis of modern days and, short of imposing substantial new taxes on an electorate fed up with taxation, there is simply no money to adequately fund many existing programs much less add new programs.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, I think the reports of Doug Wilder’s lapse into a political twilight zone are greatly exaggerated.
Let’s look, for instance, at the rap sheet.
Gov. Wilder, the pundits say, chose not to get involved in the VMI brouhaha as did his predecessor Gerald L. Baliles. He stayed away from the controversy over Fairfax County downzoning. He took no stand on bills designed to restrict smoking in public places. He kept p low profile on parental notification although he previously said he favored it.
Unlike Gov. Baliles, he unveiled no ambitious legislative agenda in the opening weeks of his administration.
And then the most heinous offense of all in the eyes of some observers. As Governor, Wilder is acting more like a Republican than the moderate-liberal Democrat he was during all those years in the State Senate and as lieutenant-governor. Republicans are actually praising him for taking steps to tighten the states’s $26 billion bien
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