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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner has crossover appeal -- he can talk NASCAR without getting laughed out of town. Can he help Democrats win the White House?
Jun 13, 2005 | As you drive south from Washington on Interstate 95, the high-tech corridors of northern Virginia give way to green grass and rolling hills and something that begins to look like the South. Pickups start to outnumber Volvos and VWs, and Starbucks gives way to the "scattered & smothered" comfort of Waffle House.
It's a long way from Washington to Richmond -- and even farther to the rural counties of southern Virginia -- but Mark Warner has covered the ground. The Democrat, a 50-year-old multimillionaire venture capitalist from Indiana by way of Connecticut, got himself elected governor of Virginia in 2001 in large part by reaching out to rural voters who were supposed to be in the Republicans' pocket. Warner sponsored a NASCAR team, used a bluegrass song as his campaign theme, and appealed directly to gun-loving hunters and sportsmen -- and it worked. John Kerry, he is not.
"People in rural America may speak a little slower, but they can spot a phony a mile away," Warner says. "You see other candidates who say, 'Let's just do the optics.' But unless you feel as comfortable hanging out at a country fair or having a beer and eatin' some barbecue as you do at your high-end, high-tech reception, people are going to see through that."
Winning elections is about more than beer and barbecue, of course: Warner says that Democrats have to engage voters in a conversation about the future, particularly the future of rural areas, small towns and midsize cities where the global economy hasn't delivered on its promise. Most of all, he says, Democrats have to give voters hope.
Can Warner give Democrats hope? In a column earlier this month, Newsweek's Howard Fineman ticked off Warner's selling points: He's a governor, not a Washington politician; he's got money and the ability to raise more; he's got a base of supporters in the high-tech world; he's a Southerner, or at least he is one now; he's got crossover appeal because of his centrist views; and he's got time because Virginia terms out its governors after just four years.
Warner is establishing a federal political action committee and has hired a former Al Gore aide to advise him on national politics. He could use the PAC for a run at the U.S. Senate or for a presidential campaign in 2008, but Warner is coy when it comes to his future plans. "You know," he says, "I want to be part of this debate."
Warner sat down with Salon recently for an hour-long interview inside Virginia's 192-year-old governor's mansion.
There's been a lot of talk about the Democrats' need to "rebrand" themselves as a political party. Do you buy into it?
If the Democratic Party continues to think that the way back to national prominence is to somehow focus on 16 states, and then -- if everything breaks right -- get a 17th state that gets you to 270 electoral votes, well, the party is doomed to be a regional party at best. I mean, it's lunacy.
It's New York, California and "pray for Ohio."
Right. Or if the Democratic Party thinks it's only about, "If we can just improve our turnout efforts a little bit more..." Wrong. It doesn't mean that you can't do a better job at turnout. It doesn't mean that we can ignore any part of the Democratic family. But the Democratic Party in this country is no longer the majority party, and a lot of people still act as if we were.
Somehow, we're still the party of the status quo. My starting premise is that I really think we need to change the framing of the political debate, from right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal, to future vs. past. The Democratic Party at its best has always been when it has been about the future.
How do you frame a construction of the Democrats as a party of the future? How do you articulate that to voters?
Part of the way you articulate it is -- Democrats have to be a party that recognizes that, in a global economy, the way America is going to maintain its position in the world is by having the best educated workforce. Democrats should be the party that says America has got to lead the world not only with our military might but with our moral might as well. Democrats ought to be the party that represents innovation, investment in research...
With Democrats, whether it was Roosevelt or Kennedy or Clinton, there was always an aspirational, future-oriented appeal that has been missing. I think Democrats have been recently about protecting against the excesses of where the Republicans are headed. And my feeling is that, right now, there is this moment in time, and part of the moment in time is going to require change by some of us in the Democratic Party.
When you think you're the majority party, you have the luxury of requiring almost a strict orthodoxy: "If you're a Democratic candidate, unless you check every box the right way every time, we're not going to be with you." I think there's a growing recognition that that's the path to success maybe not even in 15 states, let alone 50 states.
