Warner's Momentum - Updated

That Mark Warner is being boosted by Daily Kos sure isn’t going to hurt the former Virginia governor’s move to become a player on the Democratic Party’s national stage. Warner is busy doing what a candidate ought to be doing at this point, he’s putting his ducks in a row and weighing his options. Kos is helping with the ducks and that’s going to mean a lot of young lefties and other political junkies in all sorts of places are getting to know Warner, a guy they might not notice otherwise.

New York Times Magazine cover March 12, 2006
The following editors' note was posted on the N.Y. Times web site on Wednesday, March 15, 2006: The cover photograph in The Times Magazine on Sunday rendered colors incorrectly for the jacket, shirt and tie worn by Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor who is a possible candidate for the presidency. The jacket was charcoal, not maroon; the shirt was light blue, not pink; the tie was dark blue with stripes, not maroon. The Times's policy rules out alteration of photographs that depict actual news scenes and, even in a contrived illustration, requires acknowledgment in a credit. In this case, the film that was used can cause colors to shift, and the processing altered them further; the change escaped notice because of a misunderstanding by the editors.

Calling Warner the Anti-Hillary, as some now like to see him, is an easy lede but mostly it's trick to cast him as a gimmick. But those propagandists trying to brand Warner in that fashion, to hobble him, are probably in for a surprise -- unlike so many politicians, with Warner's natural aw shucks style, the build-up doesn't outweigh the performance.

As he proved in Virginia, the more you see of Warner, the more you like him. Although she has lots of powerful friends, can the same be said of Hillary Clinton?

From Kos:

"While just about all the 2008 contenders from both parties ignored Austin's South By Southwest (did they even know it existed?), the Warner campaign was busy building support. Warner hails from the tech industry an thus has credibility in this field. And his tech people were working it, recruiting the smartest and brightest industry execs to serve on advisory panels or work the campaign.

"While most of the other campaigns will hire the same ol' consultants doing the same ol' crappy websites (and thinking that "blogging" is cutting edge and hip), Warner's people were scouring the conference for the interactive technologies of tomorrow, the stuff that will truly be cutting edge and hip in 2008. By then, blogging will be downright institutionalized.

"The goal was clear -- locking these supporters up early not only gives the Warner campaign a frighteningly effective talent pool to draw from as the election heats up next year, but also deprives rival campaigns of their talents."