Warner's Triumphant Legacy No Easy Feat

"The governor's staff is not serving him well when a seat belt bill becomes a primary piece of legislation," Del. Kenneth R. Melvin (Portsmouth), an opponent of the bill, had said.

Where Warner couldn't achieve big goals, he focused on smaller ones. He succeeded that year in passing almost all of his 37-point program to modernize state agencies, but the measures were viewed by many as humdrum and garnered little attention.

That fall, he gave a somber speech to Virginians -- the only time he went on live television during his term -- to describe the cuts he was implementing to deal with the budget crisis. "For those who are quick to criticize this situation solely for political gain, I have a simple challenge," he said. "If there is a better way, show us."

He got high marks from the public for his response to the shootings at the Appalachian School of Law, floods in the southwest community of Hurley and the Washington area sniper attacks.

Internal Democratic polls reassured Warner that his reputation beyond Richmond was good, with close to 70 percent saying they approved of the job he was doing.

But after two sessions and with the clock on his one term ticking, people already began questioning what -- if anything -- Warner's legacy would be.

The Tax Fight

By the summer of 2003, Warner had endured 18 months of criticism and defeat at the hands of Republicans, who held a near-veto-proof majority in the House. The Richmond Times-Dispatch declared him "bloodied and hobbled." A Democratic senator suggested during a conference call that someone buy a two-by-four and nail it to his spine for some backbone.

Instead of retreating, though, Warner went on the offensive, proposing an audacious plan to confront the state's budget imbalance with a $1 billion tax increase.

To get elected, Warner had looked into the camera and said: "Let me set the record straight: I will not raise taxes." But he concluded that the scope of the state's budget mess -- the shortfall had ballooned to $6 billion -- justified breaking the pledge.

For months, he hosted town-hall meetings across the state, becoming Virginia's PowerPoint governor. He compiled binders listing moderate Republicans he thought he could sway, then wined and dined them. Once, he sent a private helicopter to pick up the Senate's leading Republican and whisk him to a dinner at a Williamsburg resort.

Perhaps fittingly, Warner, who made millions in the early days of the cellular telephone industry, was glued to his cell phone, calling key Republican lawmakers to plot strategy five and six times each day and often late into the night.

Those late-night sessions continue even now. Last month, on the day before his final budget speech, Warner invited his finance chief and two of his key allies in the tax fight -- Sen. John H. Chichester (R-Northumberland) and Sen. William C. Wampler Jr. (R-Bristol) -- to the governor's mansion, where the four drank Wild Irish Rose and Schlitz Malt Liquor and ate from a box of Slim Jims until late into the night.