Wilder Endorses Webb, Promises More Turnout

RICHMOND, Va. - Mayor L. Douglas Wilder on Wednesday endorsed Democrat Jim Webb and his challenge of Republican U.S. Sen. George Allen.

Wilder, Virginia governor from 1990 to 1994, promised to help Webb with voter turnout in the weeks leading to the Nov. 7 election. He said Webb could beat Allen if he gets a large voter turnout in the Hampton Roads and Richmond areas.

"Those are the battlegrounds," Wilder said. "A lot will depend on the turnout in those areas.... Those voters need to be energized."

Webb said he's sought Wilder's counsel during the campaign.

"There is no living American who understands the demographics of Virginia like Douglas Wilder," he said.

Wilder, who remains the nation's first and only elected black governor, said he's angry at the way President Bush has handled the Iraq war. And he says one big reason Webb is so close in the race is because of national voter anger toward Republicans in Washington.

"I think the Iraq war has been wrong from the beginning," Wilder said. "We've been in this terrible quagmire for four years. The American people have been sold a bill of goods."

Wilder said he called Allen this morning and told the senator he was endorsing Webb because he didn't want to see two more years of complete Republican control in Washington.

Wilder remains an influential figure among Virginia's minority voters. In 2004, he was elected mayor with 80 percent of the vote in the majority black capital city.

Richmond resident Denise Elder said she thought Allen's "macaca" comment, an obscure racial slur directed toward a Webb volunteer of Indian descent at a campaign rally in August, will have more of an impact on minority voters than Wilder's endorsement.

"With the name-calling, people were already ready to vote," against Allen, she said.

Though a Democrat, Wilder has an unpredictable, often conservative streak that means Democrats can never take his backing for granted.

In 1997, Wilder withheld his endorsement for Democrat Donald Beyer, who lost that year's governor's race to Republican Jim Gilmore.

Wilder endorsed both of Allen's Democratic opponents in Allen's two previous statewide races - Sen. Charles Robb in 2000 and Mary Sue Terry in the 1993 governor's race.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)