Presidential Candidates: A Ghetto Kid Who Remembers His Roots

His candidacy, Douglas Wilder says, with unaccustomed modesty, is the "longest of long shots." Democratic Party leaders, in unaccustomed consensus, whisper, At least Wilder's got that right. Granted, the Virginian wrote history in bold script two years ago by becoming the nation's first black elected Governor. Certainly he set a record for brass when he quickly seduced the Great Mentioner -- that Ozlike creature manipulated by pundits and political junkies that pronounces instant presidential prospects -- and challenged Jesse Jackson's primacy as the country's leading African-American politician. But Wilder for President?

He has no nationwide organization, no cadre of experienced advisers and scant prospects for raising a large campaign chest. He is emphasizing a message of fiscal austerity that puts him to the right of many Democratic primary voters. A party strategist who knows Wilder well describes his guiding philosophy as "none, zip, zero." Wilder's insistence on playing the governorship by his own quirky rules has also caused his Virginia poll numbers to sink. Says Brad Coker, president of Mason-Dixon Opinion Research: "If he ran for re-election today, he could not win."

Wilder has seen this movie before. From the time he emerged from the genteel poverty of Richmond's Church Hill section, through a career as a flamboyant criminal lawyer and real estate investor that made him rich, during 22 contentious years in politics, Wilder, 60, has dealt repeatedly with rejection. Defying the Establishment, whether white or black, is his vocation. "I don't need the anointers," he says. "I don't need the appointers. Nor do I need the laying on of hands."

A crucial biographical fact appears only between the lines of his resume. Almost alone among prominent black politicians of his vintage, Wilder has not made race his crusade. Neither the church nor the civil rights movement served as Wilder's launching pad. A sense of personal entitlement served him instead, a belief that "as long as the Constitution was written for others, it was written for me." Often his color represented an impediment to be surmounted or a weapon to be used. He learned to do either well.

Thirty years ago, when so many of Virginia's whites enlisted in a "massive resistance" movement to oppose desegregation, Wilder maneuvered deftly among pro-integration factions. He served occasionally with a moderate group, switched to a more militant black organization, then back again, flirted with yet a third outfit composed mostly of white business leaders. He made friends in all three groups. In 1969 Wilder ran for the state senate in a special election. Against two white candidates, Wilder captured 18% of the white vote -- enough to make him the state's sole black senator. But the new legislator, liberal by the standards of time and place, was a lonely figure. Jay Shropshire, then a legislative aide and now Wilder's chief of staff, recalls, "He was frozen out for the most part, ignored, bypassed." So Wilder became a leader of the "palace revolt," in which remnants of segregationist Harry Byrd's machine were ousted.