Mark Warner Bails on '08 White House Race
My email in-box this morning contained one of the more surprising political developments of recent weeks. Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, one of the early front-runners in the 2008 Democratic White House race, has decided not to run for president. The unanswered question is: why?
The email missive from Warner's Forward Together PAC offered only platitudes and pablum for the Governor's premature withdrawal:
I have decided not to run for President.
This past weekend, my family and I went to Connecticut to celebrate my Dad's 81st birthday, and then we took my oldest daughter Madison to start looking at colleges.
I know these moments are never going to come again. This weekend made clear what I'd been thinking about for many weeks - that while politically this appears to be the right time for me to take the plunge - at this point, I want to have a real life.
After raising $9 million for Democratic candidates and making 67 trips to 28 states and five countries, Warner was well-positioned for a competitive if not certain 2008 presidential bid. While Warner's statement does not rule out other future electoral efforts, it only serves to raise more questions than it answers regarding today's decision.
In the wake of the Mark Foley imbroglio, one can only hope that there is less here than meets the eye.
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That's a kind of snarky remark, isn't it?
Do you have any basis for stirring up this kind of innuendo? Anything at all?
I'm an admirer of this blog, and I expected better than this.
Posted by Michael Burton on October 12, 2006 1:43 PMMichael,
You're right to focus on my closing remark. It was confusing and sloppy at best and very misleading at worst.
I'm a Mark Warner fan and was truly surprised to see him drop out of the 2008 race. My comment about the Foley mess was not meant to impugn Warner or otherwise link him to that GOP rats' nest, but rather a sincere hope that no skeletons in Warner's closet (no pun intended) were behind his decision today.
Posted by Perrspective on October 12, 2006 6:47 PM