Gov. Wilder of Virginia to Seek Robb Senate Seat
Gov. L. Douglas Wilder said Thursday that he plans to run next year for the U.S. Senate seat held by his fellow Democrat and bitter political rival, Charles S. Robb.
“We have to have a different representative in the Senate from Virginia,” Wilder said in an interview with the cable network Black Entertainment Television.
Wilder made history in 1989 by becoming the nation’s first elected black governor. He ran for President in 1992.
Wilder’s term as governor ends this year, and Virginia’s constitution prohibits him from seeking a second term. Robb, a former Virginia governor, is up for reelection next year and has said that he intends to run.
The Republican field is likely to include former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the former White House aide who was at the center of the Iran-Contra affair.
“This will be the No. 1 race in the country in 1994,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist. “It will be down and dirty, wild, one to remember.”
Wilder and Robb’s rivalry turned nastier last year after it was diclosed that Robb aides came into possession of a tape of an illegally recorded Wilder telephone call.
In all, five Robb aides and associates entered plea agreements in the case, but a grand jury declined to indict the senator.
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