{"id":3040,"date":"2004-11-17T13:12:56","date_gmt":"2004-11-17T18:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3040.html"},"modified":"2004-11-17T13:12:56","modified_gmt":"2004-11-17T18:12:56","slug":"someone-else-to-keep-an-eye-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/someone-else-to-keep-an-eye-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Someone else to keep an eye on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I mentioned<\/a> North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley (D) as a possible ’08 presidential candidate that you might want to watch in the next couple of years. Today, I’d like to highlight another southern, moderate, Dem governor: Virginia’s Mark Warner.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib profiled Warner today<\/a> in a largely flattering piece that highlights why he might be a serious player in the future.<\/p>\n

[Democrats] may want to remember that there is a particular kind of leader who in the past has succeeded in shepherding them out of the political wilderness: a moderate Southern governor who knows how to win in those red states, who is able to win over Republicans and who can speak to the middle on social issues.<\/p>\n

In this hour of their gloom, the good news for Democrats is that they have precisely such a figure within their ranks. He is Mark Warner, the governor of Virginia. In the party’s search for fresh faces to guide it now, his may well be the most appealing.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, Mr. Warner was comfortably elected the Democratic governor of Virginia, a state that has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1964. Like nearly every governor, he has struggled with a deep budget crisis. In his case, he has had to do so in an essentially conservative state alongside a state legislature solidly in Republican hands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Everything about the guy screams “moderate.” Warner effectively restructured the state’s tax structure, but cut government spending dramatically first. Warner’s pro-choice but pro-gun and pro-death penalty, and tends to ignore the culture war altogether, preferring what he calls “kitchen table” issues.<\/p>\n

I lived in Virginia when Warner was running in 2001 and I was surprised at just how good a candidate he was.
\n
\nRepublicans had been dominating Virginia politics and Warner was taking on a popular, conservative attorney general who enjoyed the strong backing of the religious right (which means something in Virginia — home to characters like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson). The election was just two months after 9\/11, when Bush’s approval rating was still around 90%, but Warner nevertheless won fairly easily.<\/p>\n

Though there haven’t been too many surveys on his popularity, Warner did very well in a Virginia Commonwealth University poll last year, scoring a 60% approval rating in a pretty “Red” state. Indeed, Dems made gains in the Virginia state legislature in 2003 for the first time in years, thanks in part to Warner’s successes.<\/p>\n

Best of all, his leadership on tax reform in the state made him the cover boy for the current issue of Governing<\/a>, a non-partisan magazine, which features Warner as one of 2004’s “public officials of the year.” He’s also the current chairman of the National Governors Association, which might make for a helpful springboard four years from now.<\/p>\n

What was the key to Warner’s success? He hired Dave “Mudcat” Saunders<\/a>, embraced NASCAR, used a bluegrass song as his campaign theme song, and focused on rural voters. It worked — and a lot of people have noticed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“He clearly did something that Democrats have had trouble doing, that is, relating to rural voters,” said Joe Trippi, who managed Howard Dean’s primary campaign for president. “Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton — the standard names — would do a lot worse than study Mark Warner.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

“The Democratic Party needs to do now what we did during the period between 1989 and 1992,” said Al From, the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council. “It needs to redefine itself by challenging a lot of the old orthodoxies. Mark Warner’s biggest contribution to our party can be redefining our brand and what it stands for.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trippi and From don’t agree on much, but both seem to think Warner warrants some attention.<\/p>\n

Like I said last week with Earley, this is just another name to keep in mind. Warner hasn’t given any indications about his future plans, but if he pursues a presidential campaign, he deserves a serious look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I mentioned North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley (D) as a possible ’08 presidential candidate that you might want to watch in the next couple of years. Today, I’d like to highlight another southern, moderate, Dem governor: Virginia’s Mark Warner. The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib profiled Warner today in a largely flattering piece […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}