NBC 29: Mark Warner will announce on Thursday that he’s running for…something. Assuming it’s not dogcatcher, it seems a bit goofy to figure there’s any chance that he’d be announcing his candidacy for governor before Gov. Kaine gets halfway through his term.
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Should be a god party at Warner’s farm this Saturday. I’ll let you know how it went, unless you are going.
Ummm, obviously, I meant a ‘good’ party.
But I wanna go to a “god” party. I hear Shiva can really dance. Nobody can beat Odin on the Beer bong… nobody.
Mark – looking forward to seeing you there :)
It seems we keep running into each other at parties. What’s up with that Vivian? ;)
Wotan at Valhalla – that should be fun. While I don’t believe Virginians are in a hurry to have a governor and both senators from the Democratic Party, I also don’t see a GOP challenger, no matter who it is, that’s gonna get more than 47-48% against M. Warner. All things being equal, the only realistic chance for the GOP is to ramp up in-state turnout in response to a Hillary for Pres. nomination and hope like hell few voters split the ticket.
Judge Smails,
While I agree that if Hillary Clinton were to get the nomination she would generally be a drag on the down-ticket races around the country, I don’t see Mark Warner getting hurt by that. He knows better than to have to do with her. Mark Warner is one of those rare guys in politics who makes his own weather. He created a whole new definition in Virginia of what it is to be a Democrat. By and large, voters in VA have figured out the Warner Democrats in Virginia are a whole different breed from the national Dems.
If Hillary gets the nomination, I will be among those splitting the ticket. Mickey Mouse for President and Mark Warner for Senate.
I agree, Jack, but I’ll most likely continue to grasp at straws. One thing though: Sure M. Warner’s real popular and, like you said, can make it rain, but so was George Allen just a few months ago. Now I’m not saying M. Warner is even capable of bollixing an election the way Allen did, but, ya know, if he’d have been killed by a sniper half-way to Moscow then Napoleon would probably be regarded as the greatest military genius of all time.
Your Honor,
The whole Allen collapse has been subjected to massive revisionist history, mostly by national pundits who know nothing about Virginia politics and weren’t really paying any attention to the race until ‘macacca.’ Allen didn’t lose because of that and he never really looked invincible to anyone paying attention.
As early as 2005 Allen was already consistently polling at between 49-51% approval in SUSA’s 50 state polls of Senators’ popularity. Any incumbent sitting at around 50% is in serious trouble heading into an election. Massive negatives and dangerously low positives, coupled with a lack of major legislative accomplishments to point to meant that Allen was a hair’s breadth from death before the campaign even started.
People liked to call George Allen an invulnerable political institution before that election but it just was not true and was never borne out by his poll numbers. This is not just hindsight – I have a blog entry about it from long before the macacca stuff.
http://rule-303.blogspot.com/2006/08/in-which-i-make-prediction-for-va.html
Mark Warner, however, left office with an approval rating in the high 70’s and continues to have extremely high favorables. He’s polling today against Tom Davis at something like 57-33% I may have that exact figure wrong but Warner is definitely in the high 50’s and Davis is in the low thirties. This is consistent with Warner’s strength all along, whereas Allen was never anywhere near so popular. Allen polled at 50% on a really good day sometimes but never had anywhere near the support that Mark Warner does.
Not to say that beating Warner is completely impossible. Just so unlikely as to not really merit Tom Davis handing his House seat to the Democrats and flushing probably $10M down the toilet. Best bet for the VA GOP would be finding an elder statesman type who does not currently hold office who can unite the party and maybe use the election to help rebuild it. Maybe a former Bush Sr. cabinet official or something. Virgil Goode would be a good pick, too, in the sense that his seat would remain a safe GOP district without him and he is such a rock-solid conservative that he could be the guy to really pull the party together.
Um, we both like parties? :)
Umm, Vivian – it means we don’t see each other enough no matter where it is. I want to talk to you, but we never have enough time when we are at events.
Are you coming to the State Meetings? I am bringing our Sheriff candidate with me, and Lisa is coming as well.