Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Former Va. governor announces Senate bid

Republicans immediately launch a Web site bashing Mark Warner.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 14, 2007

RICHMOND, Va. - Former Gov. Mark Warner announced Thursday that he will run next year for the U.S. Senate - and minutes later, Republicans launched a Web site designed to tank him.

Warner, still popular 20 months after leaving office and with a personal fortune exceeding $200-million, threatens to take from the reeling GOP a Senate seat it has held since 1972 and widen the Democrats' one-seat majority.

Warner announced his candidacy in a video e-mailed to supporters. He wants to win the seat held by Republican Sen. John Warner, who is retiring after 30 years in office. The two are friends but are not related.

"Our country is at a crossroads," Warner says in the video. "We're dealing with a mismanaged war. Our stature in the world is declining. We have no national competitiveness plan and no thoughtful approach on energy policy that would actually create jobs, make us more secure in the world and that deals with the threat of climate change."

The National Republican Senate Committee's new Web site, DontMarkWarner.com, features a video that opens with a 2001 gubernatorial ad in which Warner says, "Let me set the record straight: I will not raise taxes." The rest of the video elaborates on a $1.4-billion tax increase Warner approved in 2004.

"Mark Warner's just waiting around for somebody to put a crown on his head," said Christopher LaCivita, a longtime Republican strategist from Virginia who in 2004 masterminded attacks on Democrat John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Warner said he expected the attacks - just not immediately.

"Listen, I am anxious to talk about my record as governor. You know, some of these national folks coming in with these attacks - it's classic Washington. An hour into the campaign, and they're already whaling away," he said.

[Last modified September 13, 2007, 23:42:15]