University of Virginia Library

Election '72

Scott Runs On Simple Idea

left-winged

As George McGovern is
finding out, a challenger's role
is never an easy one. In the
case of Congressman William
Scott's challenge to Senator
Spong the task is doubly
difficult. It is difficult because
no one can deny that Spong is
a decent and honorable man.

His campaign photograph
showing the Senator, his family
and family cat posed in front
of the Jefferson Memorial
aptly summarizes the image
that the incumbent has been
highly successful in projecting
to the voters of Virginia.

As a Senator, Spong has
been attentive to his duties,
quiet and effective. Indeed he
seems to be just the sort of
man that Virginians have
traditionally sought to have
represent their interests in
Washington.

What is forgotten, and what
Senator Spong obviously
wishes we would all continue
to forget, is that his primary
victory over Senator Willis
Robertson in 1966 was the
beginning of the Virginia
Democratic Party's disastrous
"opening to the left" that
climaxed with the incredible
pro-McGovern convention
delegation of this summer.

The defeat of Willis
Robertson by an unknown
liberal from Norfolk was
trumpeted in the national press
as the beginning of the end for
Virginia's historic pattern of
moderate-conservatism. In fact,
it was only the end of
moderation in the Democratic
Party.

Since 1966, Spong has
prudently declined to follow
his supporters' open swing to
the left. As befits a man
already in office, he has
softened his once avowed
liberalism and tried to blend
with the political mainstream
that he knows is essential to his
re-election. And were Spong
not a man of fixed ideology
and unquestioned principle,
that ability to blend would
probably insure his re-election.

Unfortunately for him –
and for the Virginians he is
supposed to represent – there
are times when the liberal
block needs Spong's vote, and
it is then that the Senator's
ideology and "conscience"
align him with positions that
seem very much at odds with
those of the people who
elected him.

Congressman Scott's
campaign then must initially be
based upon a simple idea. He
must highlight the Spong
record and point out the times
that the majority of the
Virginia Congressional
delegation in order to support
the Virginia Senator has split
with his colleague Harry Byrd
Jr. and with the majority of
the Virginia Congressional
delegation in order to support
the programs of McGovern,
Kennedy and the leaders of the
liberal block.

It could be hard to do.
Spong has avoided an
altogether liberal record by
refusing to chase the more
ephemeral
butterflies. It was only when
the vote really mattered that
he lined up with his friends in
supporting Big Labor and Big
Government without much
concern for how the people
back home might have wished
him to vote.

William Scott is a man
whose political loyalties and
goals for the nation are
probably congruent with those
of an overwhelming majority
of Virginia voters, both
Republicans and Democrats.
Scott's task will be to bring his
voting record and that of
Senator Spong before the
people, and then hope that
Thomas Jefferson knew what
he was talking about when he
praised the wisdom of an
informed electorate.

Spong's task must obviously
be to obscure the record. He
rightly trumpets the fact that
he "Works for You" in order
to avoid the question "But
who does he vote for?"