Mark Warner Weighs His Options
Will Va. Politician Run for Senate or Another Go as Governor?

By Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 9, 2007

RICHMOND -- When former Virginia governor Mark R. Warner abruptly aborted his exploratory campaign for president a year ago, he vowed he had "a lot more campaigns" in him and would one day reemerge onto the political stage.

Sometime this week, Warner (D) could begin the next phase of his political career by announcing whether he plans to run for the U.S. Senate next year or try in 2009 to get back his old job as governor, as Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) prepares to leave office.

For Warner, the decision comes down to whether he wants to try to return to Richmond as one of the most popular governors in Virginia's recent history or run again for a federal office in which he would have a nationwide platform to talk about fiscal responsibility, ending the war in Iraq and reshaping the nation's energy policy.

Warner, 52, still says being Virginia governor is "the best job in America" but sounded at times Friday as if he had made up his mind to declare for the Senate.

"I know what still needs to be done at the state level, but there is also an enormous need at the national level to get things fixed," Warner told reporters after a speech at the University of Virginia, where incumbent Sen. John W. Warner (R) announced Aug. 31 he was retiring. "Whoever the next president is, if you continue to have a Congress caught in gridlock, then the ability to have the kind of transformative change around restoring America's stature in the world, energy, a national competitiveness plan, is going to disappear."

Warner said Friday he would make a decision within a week.

Democrats say Warner, who left the governor's mansion with a record high approval rating, is virtually unbeatable in a statewide contest.

"Even if you brought back Ronald Reagan, he couldn't beat Warner," said veteran Democratic strategist Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, who was a key adviser to Warner during his 2001 bid for governor.

But Warner's election is not a certainty. Another Northern Virginian, U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R), or Warner's predecessor, former governor James S. Gilmore III, could seek the GOP nomination for Senate. Neither is expected to announce his plans until after the Nov. 6 state legislative elections.

The Senate race will have a ripple effect on who runs for governor, Congress and local offices.

If Warner enters the Senate race, Virginia would once again host one of the most competitive Senate races in the country -- in a year in which Democrats will be attempting to keep their majority in the Senate and win back the White House. Both parties will pour millions of dollars into the campaign.

If Warner were to win, he would join first-term Sen. James Webb, giving Virginia two Democratic senators for the first time since 1970.

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.

Democrats believe Warner also has a solid electoral strategy for winning a Senate race because he remains popular both in Democratic-leaning Northern Virginia as well as traditionally conservative southern and southwestern Virginia.

In 2001, he became the first Democratic candidate for governor in a generation to win a majority of the vote in rural Virginia, Saunders said.

"He has kept all his contacts down here," said Saunders, who is based in Roanoke.

But if he runs for Senate, Warner will be competing in a presidential election year. Republicans say Warner will then be linked with his party's presidential nominee, possibly Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), whom GOP strategists view as too polarizing to win Virginia.

"When he ran for governor, he avoided all ties to the Clintons. This time, he could be right on the ballot with them," said former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore (R), who lost to Kaine in 2005.

Warner said Friday he's not worried about potentially being on the same ballot as Clinton.

"I think our country is looking for change. I think our Democratic candidate, whoever he or she may be, is going to present that agenda for change," Warner said.

Even so, Warner would face a far different campaign in 2008 than he would if he ran for governor in 2009.

In Virginia, for example, tens of thousands of members of the military vote in presidential elections but not statewide contests, political strategists say. Many of these voters have sided with the GOP in recent presidential elections, and they are not prone to split their tickets.

Warner could be tripped up over divisive social issues, such as gay rights, that have been problems for Democrats in the South since the 1960s.

"Look around the country: Whole Senate races have been run on guns, gays and abortion," said Larry J. Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia. "That would be a nightmare for Warner. They are really unpleasant issues for politicians like Warner, who are natural centrists and who want to talk about nuts and bolts government and not social battles."

During his talk Friday, Warner waded into the contentious issue of illegal immigration in response to a student's question.

Warner said he wants to secure the borders but also would be sympathetic to allowing those already in the country illegally to stay.

"The notion we are going to be sweeping through with mass deportations in communities -- I just don't think it's realistic," said Warner, who later added, "I hate some of the feelings that our country is looking and feeling as if it's becoming anti-immigrant."

Jennifer Duffy, managing editor of the Cook Political Report, said Warner's big advantage in a Senate race is that he would be able to define himself during the spring while Gilmore and Davis could be battling for the nomination.

"One of the things Mark Warner doesn't have to do is spend a lot of money to tell people who he is," Duffy said. "He will be getting a free ride until Republicans work out their nomination, and then it will be one of the top races in the country."