By: Greg Mitchell If he wasn?t already the ?hot? outsider in the race for president in 2008 (yes, it?s already underway), the cover story of this Sunday?s New York Times Magazine certainly cements it. The giant photo of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, beaming a little creepily, stares out adjacent to a Democratic campaign button promising, ?The Anti-Hillary.?
The Times pegs him as the ?centrist Democrat? though ?national unknown? who could be ?the BILL Clinton of 2008.?
The massive article by Matt Bai actually kicks off with what may be a flawed conceit: that Hillary Clinton ?already seems to have a lock on the Democrat nomination.? Many observers would argue that she will be strongly challenged in the primaries (which usually tilt left) by more liberal candidates. But Joe Trippi, the former Howard Dean guru, writes off any serious challenge to Clinton in Bai?s article: ?It?s not possible,? he says.
Still, huff and puff as he might, Bai ends up picturing Warner, who is comfortable with domestic issues, as an empty suit when it comes to international and military affairs, uncomfortable or ill-informed in answering many policy questions, despite much remedial work. He seems to have, literally, nothing to say about Iraq. With his only experience as a one-term governor, his chief appeal seems to be that he is wildly popular in a Red state?and is ?really, sickening wealthy,? with access to a person fortune ?said to approach $200 million.?
Warner?s standing with liberals will not be helped by his support for the death penalty, nuclear power, free trade and Medicaid reform. The article recalls Warner responding to a California Democrat who lectured him on abortion rights: ?This is why America hates Democrats.? The strongest statement Warner makes about President Bush in the article is calling him ?the president of missed opportunities.?
But one top Democratic fundraiser, Chris Korge, picks Warner as ?the one to watch,? calling him ?a big guy,? at least in size. Bai observes that Warner has an unusually large head that requires ?extra-large baseball caps.? It must be a striking charactertistic, as another observer later remarks on his ?huge head? which is Arnold Schwarzeneggereque.
Referring to the emerging Democratic candidate field, Bai refers to them as ?Gladys Knight and the Pips,? with you-know-who as lead singer. But he pictures former Sen. John Edwards as stirring up grassroots blog support with now-credible populism, notes that Sen. John Kerry has plenty of money in the bank, and quotes Donna Brazile as saying she never thought she would utter these words in this context again and then offers: ?Al Gore.?
The article also looks at the new power of the liberal blogs and ?Netroots? in the race, with special attention to an early force in their creation, Jerome Armstrong, who is now working for Warner. Among the un-Hillarys, Bai notes, Wesley Clark and Sen. Russ Feingold have the strongest following online, but now John Edwards is gaining, as is Warner, according to a DailyKos poll.
Over lunch with Bai, Armstrong dismisses the idea that Warner was too centrist for the blogosphere. Warner, he argues, ill attract followers because of his shot at winning and his campaigning this fall for other Democrats. ?Partisanship,? Armstrong says, ?doesn?t always have to beal with calling people names. Partisanship can be working hard to elect Democrats and fighting for Democratic principles.?
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