Warner's High Hopes Meet Low Rating in N.H.

Former Va. Governor Introduces Himself in Key State for Presidential Aspirants

MANCHESTER, N.H., Feb. 11 -- A lot has changed for Mark R. Warner since he left behind the Virginia governorship and his 80 percent approval ratings to begin mulling a presidential campaign.

But perhaps nothing more than this: At just 3 percent in a recent poll asking Democrats nationwide to rate their presidential preference, Warner has become an unknown overnight.

Which is why, on a frigid Friday in February, Warner found himself in a Radisson Hotel, eating stuffed chicken and introducing himself to a ballroom full of strangers 500 miles from home.

"Good evening, everyone," Warner told the Democratic audience after it had watched a video of his achievements on a jumbo screen. "I'm Mark Warner, and despite what you saw in that video . . . I'm unemployed."

It got a laugh, as it has since he began using the line last month, after he left office. But Warner's purpose in New Hampshire is serious. In less than two years, this tiny state's voters will pick from a handful of Democrats the person they hope will retake 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

If Warner decides to be in that pack -- and he swears that he hasn't made up his mind -- voters in New Hampshire and in Iowa, where the first presidential caucus is held, must come to know the one-term governor almost as intimately as Virginians have during the past four years.

That won't be easy.

He's likely to be competing with such superstars as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who was preferred by more than 10 times as many Democratic voters in a CNN poll, and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who received more than 59 million votes in the 2004 presidential election.

The people in New Hampshire are not easy to impress. There's a seen-it-all-before attitude in the New England state, where many residents have lost track of the presidential aspirants who have sat in their kitchens for coffee.

"He's got to get to know people, right?" said Joseph Duffin, a New Hampshire computer consultant who went to high school with Warner in Connecticut. "I don't think too many people know who Mark Warner is up in New Hampshire yet."

With a winter storm nearing, Warner's trip to Manchester was an in-and-out event. But he did find time to stop at Stonyfield Farm, a Londonderry yogurt factory that has become one of the many can't-miss stops on the New Hampshire presidential circuit.

Like those who came before him, Warner tasted the latest new flavor (French vanilla), greeted the factory workers (about a dozen) and parried with the national press corps, including a CNN crew led by the network's senior national correspondent, John King.