University of Virginia Library

Our Candidate For Governor

Election Day is drawing nigh, and now is
the time for all good newspapers to come to
the aid of their candidate, telling their readers
all about the fine attributes of one of the
candidates and denigrating the record of the
opposition. All of which is fine, except that it
leaves us up the creek without a candidate.

On the one hand there is William Battle,
the winner of the Democratic primary. A
Charlottesville attorney, Mr. Battle has run a
campaign which doesn't seem to know which
direction it's going in. His slogan is "Not Left
or Right. Forward!" but he hasn't said too
much about forward into where. Mr. Battle is
the representative of a badly divided party,
split between the vestiges of the
right-of-middle Godwinites and the insurgent
liberal-black-labor coalition who supported
Henry Howell in the primary.

He has decided that he must retain the
support of both groups to win. To do this, he
apparently figured that the best way to
campaign would be to say nothing except to
lambaste the Republican candidate, hoping
that he wouldn't alienate anyone. And,
despite the position papers his supporters
point to, Mr. Battle hasn't said or promised
anything really; moreover, he has no record in
office which would indicate how he will
perform in the governor's mansion, though his
service as Ambassador to Australia
undoubtedly taught him the rudiments of
entertaining guests of state. Mr. Battle would
like us to believe that he is going to push for
progress in Virginia, but he would also like for
the old Byrd men and Godwinites to believe
that they have nothing to worry about if he's
elected. There seems to be a basic
contradiction somewhere.

Then we have Linwood Holton, the
Republican candidate. Like Mr. Battle, Mr.
Holton has proposed little of substance in the
campaign, except to point out the obvious
fact that the state needs a change. Whether
the Republican party is a change for the
better, he has yet to demonstrate. Mr. Holton
is closely aligned with the present national
Republican administration. It is an
administration that owes its victory to
conservative businessmen, to those who would
slow or stop the progress of integration, to
white middle class Americans. His policies are
designed to serve the interests of those groups.

Linwood Holton, whether or not you
happen to believe in the "Southern strategy,"
is attempting to forge a coalition along those
same lines. It is far more significant that
100-odd wealthy Richmond businessmen
bolted the Democratic Party than the fact
that some labor and black groups did. The
businessmen embraced the Holton-Nixon
philosophy; the AFL and the Crusade for
Voters recoiled from Mr. Battle's policies.

So we aren't going to endorse anyone.
Henry Howell gave promise that a new era
may be dawning in Virginia politics with his
Old New Left campaign for the Democratic
nomination; he ran afoul of the low voter
registration totals and his bid to change the
structure of the power groups in Virginia
failed. We are left with two men who cater
largely to the same elites that have always run
the state.

There are those who point to last fall's
alienation in the Presidential campaign and
the results of the ensuing Humphrey defeat.
In view of the probable effect of an influx of
Republicans, they urge support for Mr. Battle.
But their analogy equates the national
Democratic party with the party in Virginia
and therefore breaks down. There are others
who say that two-party competition will best
be served by a Republican victory, but that
seems like an awfully high price to pay.

We will leave you with the best campaign
promise we've heard so far, that of Mrs.
Linwood Holton. She said that if the
Republicans are elected, there will be a
winning football team at the University. Like
most of her husband's promises, this one
didn't mention the means of achievement. But
at least it's something. Maybe it will help you
make a choice.