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By JOHN GOOLRICK
The question is whether the independent challenges of two aspirants to U.S. Senate to nominees of the i Republican and Democratic Party will cause long term damage to the state party structure.
While parties may be declining and Virginia has always historically had a large body of voters who call themselves independents, I don’t believe the four-way race will cause that much damage.
That may not be the conventional wisdom since some well-known pundits are saying the fact the state’s senior senator, a Republican is backing an independent against the nominee of his own party will cause a wide rift in GOP ranks. And the same pundits claim that the independent challenge for a former Democratic governor to an incumbent Democratic senator who is also a former governor will cause warfare within that party.
No doubt between now and November there will be what amounts to civil war within each of the major parties as many Republicans choose up sides between Oliver North, the party nominee, and Marshall Coleman, a former attorney general, and Democrats choose between Senator Charles S. Robb and former Governor L. Douglas Wilder who has chosen to run as an independent.
But my thought is that the Virginia senatorial race, which has attracted nationwide attention, is one
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