Miller, though wary that he might be going too far to the left, occasionally attacked Farley for "slandering our fair youth." It was not the sort of campaign one would expect a new trend toward legalization of pot to emerge from.
BUT VIRGINIA and America have changed in the last year or two. Too many white kids are smoking pot: too many kids of the old clite and the new suburbanites (who could decide whether the Byrds could last just one more election).
To the unperceptive ears of the parents, Miller and Farley both vowed a crackdown on "pushers." But to those who were listening, they never mentioned a crackdown for possession.
Under questioning both took stands which would have been considered truly amazing a year ago. Farley, the Byrd man, said, "I will enforce the law as long as it is on the books." But he indicated by winking and a smile that he could see a change in the books of Virginia laws.
Miller, a 36-year-old Princetonian with a patrician and liberal background going back to the Revolutionary War, hedged on his crackdown-on-pushers stance even more. Although reluctant to push a pro-pot platform, Miller did say that the possession part of the law-for pot-was unenforceable. He said that he favors devoting a good deal of money to the non-criminal type of home rehabilitation for people addicted to the harder stuff.
"And." Miller conceded one night in early August, from the divided medical opinion I hear on whether pot is harmful or merely like liquor, I could see doing an in-depth study and changing the drug law if the report shows that it isn't harmful." That is going pretty far for a "liberal" who advocates shooting looters if the situation warrants it.
Battle beat Howell in the August run-off 52 per cent to 48, and Miller walloped Farley 64 per cent to 36.
Howell did not win, but he came close; and Miller, who might have sounded like the typical law and order candidate, had also exposed Virginians to left-leaning statements on the pot issue. All in all the politics of Virginia showed some pretty radical trends.
The trends would not be significant in the silk-stocking district of Manhattan. But Virginia had marched out of the dark ages of the Byrd machine. And everyone was surprised at how far the match got before it was halted.
In an age, when political analysts are looking at Minncapolis, Los Angeles, and New York City and philosophically accepting the new swing toward conservative politics, Virginia is an exception. It might be the exception that proves the rule. But it could be the wave of some not too distant future.