Bye Mark
The 2008 presidential race just got a whole lot better. Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner has just formally withdrawn -- long before 95 out of 100 Americans ever noticed we was running.
Warner bought himself center-stage at last spring's DailyKos convention, springing for a $75,000 top-of-the-Stratosphere party in which he delicately dipped hundreds of otherwise anonymous bloggers in all of the gooey chocolate of a mainstream presidential campaign.
I was among those decidedly not impressed by Warner's platitudinous stump speech -- a dreary exercise in politics-as-usual which was, ufortunately, met with excessive courtesy and seriousness by the assembled liberal bloggers.
Oh well, at least Warner himself got the message and has now pulled out before making a minor spectacle of himself. So what if he sponsored his own NASCAR car and knows how to talk about guns? That's really not enough to carry him across the line. He's given the usual disclaimer about wanting to spend more time with his family. Yawn. But Warner's decision most assuredly has a more political basis. My supposition is that the one question he has most been asking himself for the last few months, the one for which he just has no answer would be:
What's the point -- as the former centrist Democratic governor of a small southern state -- of running as the new Bill Clinton when the old Bill Clinton's wife is already in the running?
No answer. No campaign. Good riddance.
The good news is that Warner's exit opens some more space for a more authentic challenge to Hillary -- and one that would come from her economic left instead of her cultural right. If we're gonna have a smooth-talking southern Democrat in the race then at least let it be John Edwards. Here are some excellent arguments for Edwards moving in. I hope he does.
October 12th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
I’d support Edwards but really? “That’s really not enough to carry him across the line.”
What was, prey tell, enough to carry a Bush across said line? Stormtroopers at the recount stations, or Sandra Day O’ Connor?
October 12th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you all that I, too, have decided against a 2008 presidential bid.
October 13th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Did you get a bad shrimp at Warner’s Vegas bash? I really don’t know enough one way or another about him but I have to agree with Meyerson about Edwards. He was already formidable before and this only increases his attractiveness. But there are some rumblings fromk Al Gore that make me think he might run and then it will be his to lose. Forget Hillary!
October 13th, 2006 at 6:36 am
“I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you all that I, too, have decided against a 2008 presidential bid.”
Do you think Warner will now reconsider?
October 13th, 2006 at 8:18 am
When Mark got wind of my announcement, his staff called me asking if I’d reconsider if Mark could take an option on being my running mate. I told them I wouldn’t rule it out. Then Lyndon LaRouche’s staff called ….
October 13th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
As I understood it, Mark Warner was supposed to be the guy who could “talk evangelical” to Bible Belters. I believe he was designated to respond to the state of the union speech either in 2005 or 2006. Although some disagreed, I thought it was barely intelligible.
It is probably correct to say that Evan Bayh inherits the neoliberal sash. And it is also probably true that in a race with Hillary RC running up the middle that this means little. What I, a Hoosier native who left just as Evan was being groomed to run for Secretary of State (by political allies of ours, primarily), am not sure about is whether Evan is a lightweight or something more.
His mother Marvella was brilliant and erratic . His dad Birch was not the deepest root in the forest. but exuded country charm, and together they were certified left- liberals who knew how to win back in Indiana. I’m not sure where Evan got his conservatism except to say that maybe if Birch had come of age in the early 90s instead of the early 60s his politics might have been more conservative as well.
The landscape is beginning to look like Hillary RC. John Edwards, John Kerry, maybe Russ Feingold, maybe Al Gore, maybe Barack Obama, maybe Evan Bayh, maybe Joe Biden (just kidding, I hope)…am I missing someone? In all, this is probably a stronger group than the Dems have been able to put together since Mondale/Hart and others in 84. Let’s assume that is not a harbinger of an 84-like result.
October 13th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
My name is Kelner. I’m glad to see this site. Thanks.
October 13th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Hey, Kelner.
I forgot Wesley Clark in the list, and the maybe of Tom Vilsack.
How would a Bayh/Biden ticket sound?
October 13th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
Bayh/Biden? I hope you’re kidding. That’s definitely a stay-at-home ticket.
Wesley Clark? Maybe. John Edwards? Maybe. But Al Gore is the one who’s looking good these days.
October 13th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
“How would a Bayh/Biden ticket sound?”
Uhhh…like Bye, Bye…
October 14th, 2006 at 12:33 am
The same people who think Rudy Guiliani is a viable GOP candidate like Evan Bayh. Look he ain’t his father and the belief in the “moderate” Dem won’t survive the early primaries.
October 14th, 2006 at 12:44 am
You cant fault him for ever losing focus
http://tinyurl.com/yae8fg
October 14th, 2006 at 12:45 am
In the face of so many inquiries from ardent (and now heart-broken) supporters of my erstwhile 2008 presidential bid, I feel obliged to explain why I have disappointed them.
I have watched many videos of presidential campaign appearances, to get a sense of what the road ahead might be like, and particularly for clues as to what sorts of humiliating public encounters I would have to endure. I was forced to the unhappy conclusion that this grueling gauntlet would require that I spend far too much time with my family.
I think that’s a reason for bowing out early that any red-blooded American should be able sympathize with. I feel secure in the knowledge that your prayers will be with me from now on. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
P.S. Also, whatever you do, don’t vote for Biden in the primaries.
October 14th, 2006 at 1:17 am
Op-ed today by Thomas Friedman, about a conversation with James Carville in which Carville said that energy independence has become the number one issue for Americans, with all other issues trailing (Iraq/Afghanistan is #5). These days, about half the time I start into an an NYT op-ed column from the likes of Brooks or Friedman, I quickly suss out that they don’t know what they hell they are talking about, and move on quickly. But this was really James Carville speaking, so it was worth getting to the end.
Will energy independence be the It Issue for the Dems? Well, Mark Warner banged that drum pretty loudly, but I’m not sure it helped him much. And I remember Lincoln Chafee mentioning it in remarks that underscored many differences with the Bush administration.
This may be Issue #1, but I think the GOP could snatch the ball away. Nobody owns it yet. None other than Newt Gingrich writes, in a piece that came out on the AEI website a few days ago,
“The United States must develop a strategic energy policy which is explicitly aimed at making the Persian Gulf and the dictatorships less wealthy and less important. On September 11, 2001, oil was $23 a barrel. On August 16, 2006, oil was $77 a barrel. Every additional dollar a barrel is worth $930 million a year to Iran and $861 million a year to Venezuela. No wonder Ahmadinejad and Chavez sound so confident. Think of the windfall money they can spend. The confidence of the oil producers is reflected in OPEC’s decision to start their meeting on September 11. Think of the symbolism of the people we have enriched who are also the funders of terrorism deciding to meet on the anniversary of the day when people they funded attacked New York and Washington. We must have a strategy of moving beyond petroleum to a much more diverse and independent system of energy. This requires a strategy fully as intense and funded as a military campaign, and it is an integral part of defeating the forces of Islamic fascism and terror.”
Energy independence might be a shibboleth in the making. The GOP might build a platform based on the status quo: that they are more trusted by the voters on national security issues, so until we can transition to a less-dependent energy posture, America needs leadership with no qualms about going out into the world and roughing people up to keep the oil flowing. (Not that this is working out that way, exactly, but it’s primarily a matter of engineering perceptions that way.)
I think better energy INTER-dependence makes more sense. Feedstock crops for biofuels are more efficiently and cheaply grown toward the tropics. Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable if we were more dependent on unambiguously democratic Brazil than on a Venezuela that can wobble from coup to plutocracy to demogoguery? But that position might be a killer on the left and the right. To the left, it makes you a rain-forest raper. To the right, you’re up against agribiz and the rural vote, and their cherished agricultural-import trade barriers.
At least the Dems have mostly shut up about alMart. And in the nick of time, too. Chinese Walmart employees have just pulled off something labor organizers in the U.S. haven’t: a recognized union. How embarrassing! The Dem’s War on Walmart was misframed anyway: it was being pushed on the basis of a living wage and decent benefits for the *middle class*. Perhaps in China, Walmart workers have no problem being lumped in with the proletariat, as long as they aren’t lumped in with the roving, desperate lumpenproletariat. After all, you can’t declare class warfare without recognizing classes, can you?
July 24th, 2007 at 2:45 am
Jack…
It\’s really interesting….