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Robb also had married into political royalty -- and the fund-raising network that came with it. As a military social aide at the White House, he had met and, in 1967, married President Lyndon Johnson's daughter Lynda Bird. Media coverage was gushing and syrupy, befitting what Robb refers to now as "sort of a fairy-tale wedding."

And though critics decried Robb as having married his way into politics -- deriding him as "Chuckie Bird" -- LBJ inc. was a lot more help than hindrance. Former first lady Lady Bird Johnson stumped for her son-in-law, and LBJ cronies like then-Sens. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, Allen Bible, D-Nev., former Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, former Democratic Party Chairman Robert Strauss and Jack Valenti kicked in with cash.

But Robb wasn't just a favorite of Washington liberals -- he also enjoyed the assistance of more traditional Southern Democrats, like former Virginia Gov. William M. Tuck and former Rep. Watkins M. Abbitt. Much of Robb's success then and in years afterwards lay in his ability to appeal to both Northern Virginia limousine liberals and the more "Cm'ere, boy" Dixiecrat-ish types.

His GOP opponent for lieutenant governor taunted, "If my opponent were married to Lynda Jones or Lynda Smith, would he be here tonight?" But it didn't much seem to matter. Robb won handily, and was immediately ordained for bigger and better things.

"There's no doubt he'll run for governor and eight years from now he'll be a candidate for president. He's going all the way," the Democratic state Senate majority leader told the Washington Post in 1977.

Four years later, in 1981, Robb easily cruised into the governor's mansion where by most accounts he did well. "He was a good governor," the Post's Baker says. "He bought teacher salaries up, he brought Virginia more into the mid-Atlantic." According to the Almanac of American Politics, Robb was "given credit for much of Virginia's dynamic growth" during the early '80s."

The seeming inevitability of a President Robb was given more momentum during the early '80s, when he profiled as a conservative Democrat, co-founding the Democratic Leadership Council and staking out a pro-growth, pro-education, anti-tax middle ground.

"I'm not the kind of Democrat [Republicans] used to be able to beat," Robb says. "They used to be able to beat [former Lt. Gov.] Henry Howell and some of the others because they could classify them as the typical tax-and-spend, ultra-liberal, special interest Democrat. Well, I certainly was not in that category as the governor. I was fiscally responsible. Not only did we not have any general tax increases, we didn't do any increases in bonded indebtedness during the period that I was governor. I think the citizens of Virginia like the idea that a Democrat could be fiscally responsible ... that a Democrat can be supportive of a strong national defense, and all the matters that used to be seen as Republican issues."

In 1988, Robb declared his candidacy for an open Senate seat. The GOP couldn't even get a decent candidate to run against him; the party had to make do with an obscure Baptist preacher.

"I was always a bit of a problem in terms of [the GOP's] characterizing me the way they had been able to characterize the 'McGovern Democrats,' or the 'Howell Democrats,' or whatever," Robb says.

"So they expanded into other areas."

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