MARK DOWN. I�m disappointed that Mark Warner has dropped out of the presidential race. I think he would have made a good candidate, and hope he will consider running for Vice President, if asked. Many are already speculating that he will run for Senate in 2008 if Republican incumbent John Warner retires. I�ll presume he didn�t consider the presidential run just to build up a massive war chest of federal dollars he will then hold and dump into a Senate �08 race, but whether that was his original intent or not, the latent effect is the same -- he�ll be locked and, um, loaded. Who is the big winner in all of this? Al Gore, because the Hillary-alternative crowd now has one fewer choices on the menu. John Edwards is still there, too, of course. If Gore is smart he�ll invite Edwards down to Tennessee and ask him to put together a Democratic �greatest hits� ticket from 2000 and 2004: The better of the two presidential candidates and the better of the two veep running mates. Gore-Edwards in �08 would be tough to beat in the primaries and the general. And though I�m of course a strong advocate of the non-southern strategy, it works best with one (or more) southerners on the Democratic ticket. They can find newly-elected Senator (Mark) Warner a nice seat on the west side of the Capitol for the inauguration on January 20, 2009.
--Tom Schaller
