Mark Warner Weighs His Options

But Virginia Republicans predict a bruising Senate campaign if Warner is in it.

"Mark Warner has got a record. He's got a legacy, and it's not all good," said GOP strategist Chris LaCivita, an adviser to Davis. "We will leave no stone unturned. Not one."

Rebecca Fisher, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, said, "Warner has never been challenged before. He hasn't faced ads on his record. He walked into the governor's mansion and he walked out."

GOP strategists say Warner, a wealthy venture capitalist and co-founder of Nextel, got off relatively easily in his past two campaigns for statewide office.

In 1996, when Warner lost to John Warner, GOP strategists say John Warner was too timid in attacking him because he never viewed him as a serious threat. The senator won that race by 5 percentage points, in part because Mark Warner showed surprising strength for a Democrat in traditionally conservative, rural parts of the state.

After that narrow loss, Mark Warner set his sights on becoming governor in 2001. He spent months cultivating support in rural Virginia, going so far as sponsoring a NASCAR vehicle, as he set out to prove that Democrats could still win in the South.

Warner was able to define himself as a conservative Democrat in part because the eventual GOP candidate, former attorney general Mark L. Earley, was bogged down in a divisive fight for the nomination.

In October 2001, after a lull in the campaign because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Earley tried to chip away at Warner by accusing him of wanting to raise taxes. Republicans say Warner responded by pledging that he wouldn't. GOP leaders say Warner broke that pledge as governor, which they plan to exploit if he runs for Senate.

"This race will be about what is in the best interest of the public, and I think the public wants us to control spending and control taxes and keep our word," Gilmore said in an interview.

But Democrats say Warner accumulated a formidable record as governor, which Warner said will serve as a guide for bringing "bipartisan reform" if he runs for the Senate.

Warner noted Friday that he inherited a $3 billion budget deficit from Gilmore, who was governor from 1998 to 2002, and used it as an opportunity to trim the size of state government. In 2004, he won a hard-fought battle for a $1.5 billion tax increase after he persuaded 17 House Republicans to go along with his plan.

In 2005, Governing magazine named Virginia the best-managed state in the nation.