Allen-Warner Deferred For Two Years?

It has been practically an article of faith in Virginia that outgoing Donk governor Mark Warner would be challenging the state's junior U.S. Senator, George Allen, for the latter's seat in 2006. The thinking was that this clash of the Old Dominion titans would be the proving ground and launching pad for a presidential bid for the winner in 2008.

Apparently Governor Warner didn't share that thinking, or maybe didn't fancy being known as "the OTHER Senator Warner," because he has announced that he's skipping a senate bid to go straight for the White House gusto:

Virginia Governor Mark R. Warner (D) plans to announce Tuesday that he will not challenge Sen. George Allen (R-VA) next year, leaving the popular Democrat free to explore a presidential bid, several close associates said Monday.

Warner, who leaves office in January, will announce his decision on his monthly radio show on WTOP, said Virginia Democratic Party Chairman C. Richard Cranwell, a Warner confidant.

"He is not going to run for the Senate," Cranwell said. "He really wants to finish out his term strong. He doesn't want anything to distract from that."

A senior political aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because Warner wants to make his own announcement said: "He is not going to run. He is going to announce it tomorrow."

The boon this development is to Senator Allen is the more obvious. Now he won't have to spend a fortune in financial and political capital that a knock-down drag-out with Governor Warner would have required. He can coast to a second senate term, continue cultivating a "positive" public image, and become the serious (as opposed to faddish media favs like Rudy Giuliani and John McCain) frontrunner for the 2008 Republican nomination.

I would have thought that Warner had more to gain from challenging Allen than ducking him. Sure, if he lost his presidential ambitions would be moot, but if he was victorious he'd add to his track record as a winner (and in a "red" state to boot) and gain added national attention by being in the Senate. In essence, he would become the Democrat version of what Senator Allen is now - a popular senator and former governor from Virginia.

However, Cap'n Ed suggests a big, fat, hurking fly in that ointment - Hillary Clinton:

Warner - even if he were to beat Allen - could only hope for a #2 position against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. In order to beat Allen, he would have to campaign to the left as a serious alternative to Allen and his center-right politics. That would put Warner on the left of Hillary for the primary campaigns, which might garner him some support but likely would cost him more in the end. Hillary will win the Left, anyway, based on her pre-Senate history. She has vulnerabilities from the DLC center even though she mostly espouses their positions now, but Warner could not hope to carry that banner less than two years removed from the kind of campaign he would have to wage against Allen to convince Virginians to change horses.

I don't buy the notion that Warner would have had to run against Allen by tacking hard Left. That's not how he ran when he won the Virginia governorship four years ago. You might argue that not doing so would hurt his fundraising, but I can't believe the DSCC wouldn't have made that race a top priority, or that Dem rank & file would have failed to recognize the value of running a perceived moderate in a heavily "red" state.

Meanwhile, ducking George Allen and not going to the senate is going to deny the one thing that Governor Warner will need to go with his centrist credentials: public notoriety. The '08 Dem primaries will not be a truly "open" nominating process because Mrs. Clinton will come into them as almost a de facto incumbent. Without her as the blue whale in the swimming pool, Warner could have made a run to the nomination similar to the one her husband made back in 1992. As it is, he'll be paved over by the Clinton machine with narry a backwards glance.

And for those who suggest, as Mr. Morrissey also does, that Warner is really running for veep, he's got two other handicaps working against him: a dearth of skin pigmentation and a name that doesn't rhyme with "Garak Lobama."

It is ironically to the Democrats' long-term loss. A Warner candidacy (and presidency) could have been a chance for that party to wipe the slate clean, start fresh, and leave both the Clinton kleptocracy and Sorosian/Moore-on/Cindy Sheehan insanity in the rear-view mirror. Or, in other words, what the Clinton ascendency advertised. As it is, Hillary will win the Donk nomination, probably the '08 election, but the Democrats will remain mired in permanent minority status.

And maybe, just maybe, a George Allen-Condi Rice ticket will prevent that unhappy historical detour from repeating itself.

If so, we may well have Mark Warner to thank for it.