Date published: 6/4/2003

Drive a stake through the heart of poisonous politics

JUST AS IN "Casablanca" everyone comes to Rick's, almost everyone hereabouts sometimes walks the streets of Fredericksburg. On those streets, one is liable to bump into virtually anyone, and do so, despite differences of opinion, without blood in the eye. Maybe the rock-bottom definition of community is the disinclination to mentally assassinate others on sight. Beneath that is no community at all, which makes those who would upset this compact a threat to all.

The campaign to unseat state Sen. John Chichester, R-Stafford, by the boosters of his primary opponent, Mike Rothfeld, has been one long, shrill vilification of a serious public man who--agree or not with his politics--carries an earned reputation for devoted service and good character. The Chichester way is not one of venom. When in 1985 his handlers urged him to "go negative" in his race for lieutenant governor against Democrat Douglas Wilder, who had vulnerabilities, Mr. Chichester kept his punches up, losing with 48 percent of the vote. Yet forgiving anytime soon the orchestrated slurs of the current campaign would require that Mr. Chichester's name be preceded not by "Sen." but by "St." His supporters are roused for a warpath that stretches beyond Election Day.

The strategy of the Rothfeld forces is not new to anyone familiar with the smashface school of American politics. It involves combing the hundreds of votes cast by a veteran legislator, carefully selecting the most unflatteringly ones (or those that can be "spun" to seem so), and presenting these as the essence of the incumbent. Mike Rothfeld has placed the voting record of John Chichester in front of a funhouse mirror, pointed to the distortions in the glass, and called them reality. Not so.

Date published: 6/4/2003