Ex-Va. Gov. Warner to run for Senate

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 determined 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 is trying 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 said on 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 NRSC 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 J. LaCivita, a longtime Republican strategist from Virginia who in 2004 masterminded attacks on Democrat John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Warner told The Associated Press that 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.

Nationally and in even in conservative Virginia, Republicans are desperate to end a losing skid fueled in part by President Bush's low approval ratings and the war in Iraq, and Warner instantly became a prime GOP target, said Emory University political science professor Merle Black.

"The only way the Republicans can win is by raising questions about Mark Warner's performance as governor and remind Virginians of what they didn't like about him, but that may be difficult because he was so popular. So the only way they can do that is to run a very negative campaign," Black said.

Democrats Thursday were almost giddy at the prospect of Warner's decision to run.

Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has been courting high profile Democrats in hopes of solidifying the party's majority. They include former New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, neither of whom have announced their plans.

But Warner became the party's star recruit. With Democrat Jim Webb's 2006 upset of Republican Sen. George Allen, a Warner victory next year would give Democrats both of Virginia's Senate seats for the first time since 1970.

Warner, LaCivita said, is running for the first time with a political and governmental record he has to defend, and Thursday's NRSC video is just a taste of what lies ahead.

"Now he has a very public record and a lot of it is on video tape. We've been waiting six years to use this stuff," LaCivita said. "He might fool people once or even twice, but he's not going to do it a third time."

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On the Web:

See Warner's video: http://www.MarkWarner2008.com

National Republican Senatorial Committee site: http://www.DontMarkWarner.com