The Sunday New York Times Magazine has a novella-sized profile of former Va. governor and presidential candidate Mark Warner that is either uplifting or unsettling, depending on one’s level of allegiance to Hillary in the upcoming, cannibalistic bloodfest of Democratic king-making.
If you see the New York senator’s opportunistic lurchings to the right as too clever by half, perhaps you’ll see Warner -- the only perceived Great Southern Hope -- as a welcome addition to the party’s mix. If, on the other hand, you have either accepted Hillary the Inevitable or enthusiastically endorse her, you’ll likely see Mr. Warner -- “onto whom a lot of anti-Hillary Democrats have suddenly projected their hopes” -- as little more than meddlesome.
True, Warner has a few qualities that brush up against presidential stature. Foremost, he’s a pragmatic dealmaker -- a “Reformer with Results” who entails actual reform with actual results -- as the profile recounts. “Relentlessly wooing his Republican Legislature at a time when the two parties in Washington were growing ever more belligerent toward each other, Warner managed to erase a potentially catastrophic $6 billion budget shortfall by working out a bipartisan deal to raise some taxes … and lower others.”
And his domestic vision seems grounded enough in competence, based on his past -- and, again, actual -- business success. “Warner's constant theme, which a lot of Washington politicians talk about but few seem to actually understand, was [is] the need to modernize for a global economy.”
But then there’s the downside. And to me, it’s a steep one.
“That Warner isn't ready for all the questions a presidential candidate must field was apparent during a somewhat calamitous interview in January with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's ‘This Week.’ Warner seemed surprised and uncomfortable when the host tried to pin him down on questions that divided the country and his party. He refused to say whether he thought Samuel Alito should be confirmed for the Supreme Court or whether he thought the president had the authority to order domestic wiretaps without a court's permission.”
I saw that interview. It was like watching a Roger Mudd maul a Ted Kennedy, or, rather, a Kennedy allowing himself to be mauled out of an inexcusable lack of preparation, a failure to strap on some cajones, or worse, a refusal to bow to controversy -- in short, the spectacle equated to a Hillarization of Mark Warner.
Hence, with that all too familiar feeling of growing alienation from the slate of probable Democratic candidates, I was relieved to read this in the Warner profile about another, and largely forgotten, Great Southern Hope:
“With almost two years to go before the first votes are cast, some insiders who question Clinton's electability dream of finding yet another candidate who has the national profile and who could generate enough excitement among the base to match her. The question is, Who? ‘This sounds absolutely strange coming from me, because I never in life thought I would utter these words again,’ [Donna] Brazile says, ‘but Al Gore.’ It's true that Gore has been a fiery critic of Bush in recent months, but former advisers who still talk to him say he seems genuinely uninterested.”
The two operative hopefuls in that passage are “seems … uninterested” and “almost two years to go.”
I cannot, of course, read Al Gore’s mind or crawl into his bad alpha self, but something inside me says that Al has learned a lesson -- and the lesson is that the next presidential candidate who’s willing to banish nervous, endlessly polling advisers and simply tell it like it is, is also the next president.
That’s not Hillary’s style, it’s not Warner’s style, nor is it Biden’s or Bayh’s or Edwards’ or any other visible Democrat’s. But Al Gore has had the freedom -- and wisdom -- in the last six years to develop a sense of dire national reality that others seem determined to dance around.
So Al, please work up some genuine interest in getting your “fiery critic” show on the electoral road.