Now that Mark Warner has put up the mother of all backlash ads, we might want to consider his entire political history, not just his overhyped and overinflated record as Governor.
Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?
1993: Mark Warner replaces Paul Goldman as Chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party. During the November elections, the Republicans win the biggest gubernatorial landslide in the party’s history (Allen – 58%). The GOP also win the Attorney General election (Gilmore – 56%, I believe). Also, for the first time in the party’s history, the Republicans win a majority of votes for the House of Delegates (51%), although the district lines reduced the GOP votes to only 47 seats. Still, the Democratic performance in 1993 is the worst election result for the Party in 112 years (1881).
1994: In his second years as DPVA chair, Warner sees Chuck Robb, incumbent Democratic Senator who won more than 2/3 of the vote in 1988, reduced to a mere 46% in November. Robb is only reelected because the GOP vote was split between Oliver North and Marshall Coleman.
1995: In Warner’s last election of DPVA chair, the Democrats suffer their worst legislative election result in 114 years (1881 again), as the GOP wins 52% of the House vote (but again, only 47 seats) and 57% of the State Senate (gerrymandered down to 20). As Warner shifts gears to his Senate race in 1996, the Virginia Democrats in the Senate are forced into a power-sharing arrangement with the GOP.
1996: Runs against John Warner for U.S. Senate. Attempts to capitalize on conservative agner toward John Warner’s treatment of Oliver North and Mike Farris, but presents no issue on which he is to John W’s right. Loses 53%-47%.
2001: Tries to same tactic against Mark Earley for Governor, but this time positions himself to Earley rights on guns. Earley makes matters worse by refusing to rule out tax increases in NoVa and Hampton Roads so long as they vote on it themselves. In fact, he refuses to take any position until September, when he comes out against them both. 9/11 wipes out a month of campaigning, and while Earley starts making up the gap with his new anti-tax-hike position, Warner is able to run out the clock and win 52%-47%.
2002: Slashes the state budget in an attempt to scare NoVa and HR into imposes tax hikes on themselves through a referendum. In the referendum vote, Warner has the support of John Warner (running unopposed for re-election) and nearly all of the rest of Virginia’s elite. He still gets hammered in both referenda.
2004-5: Waits for the GOP legislature to split like a ripe melon on tax hikes, than takes a position roughly half-way between the Senate GOP (who wanted a $3 billion tax hike) and the House GOP (who preferred $0). The next year, Warner endorses his heir-apparent, Tim Kaine, but Kaine shifts tactics from Warner and instead accuses Republican Jerry Kilgore of supporting tax increases. Kilgore never sufficiently answers the charge, and goes down to defeat. Somehow, Warner is credited with the victory.
2008: Starts the U.S. Senate race the clear favorite against a divided GOP, and promptly reminds every Republican what they don’t like about John Chichester and anyone who would win Chichester’s seal of approval.
In other words, Mark Warner is hardly the electoral genius we are all told he is. In fact, the Chichester ad revealed an ignorance about Virginia’s center-right that actually makes him (Warner) beatable.
After all, the Republicans have beaten Mark Warner far more often than he has beaten them.
