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This blog (the first of its kind?) is here to tout the potential 2008 presidential candidacy of Virgnia Governor Mark Warner. John Kerry put up an admirable fight this year, and he had my wholehearted support, financial and otherwise. This was not Dukakis in 1988 or Mondale in 1984. He gave as good as he got. But Kerry's problem was that he didn't have crossover appeal. He couldn't make inroads into the red states (New Hampshire really doesn't count). It was a cultural thing, and although he came close, he probably wrung out every electoral vote humanly possible for a liberal from Massachusetts.

It's no secret that the template for successful Democratic presidential candidates in the last 35+ years has been a simple one: Governor of a Southern state. Jimmy Carter did the trick in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. The only route to the White House these days is either as a governor (Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush 43) or sitting VP (Bush 41) There hasn't been a senator elected since Kennedy in 1960.

And this is where Gov. Warner comes in. In 2001, Warner defied the odds in the traditional Republican stronghold of Virginia and won the governorship relatively handily. The most impressive statistic in his election is that he took 51% of the rural vote. Warner was a (very) successful venture capitalist before entering politics (a real business success, not a failed one), and he understood that he had to make a rural appeal to win. Warner sponsored a NASCAR vehicle, used a bluegrass song as his campaign theme, and managed to retain core Democratic values without alienating rural voters.

And Warner has remained very popular in Virginia, with a 61% approval rating. He even managed to win a $1.4 billion budget-balancing tax increase from a heavily Republican Legislature, which provided an unprecedented spending boost for public schools, long-deferred state employee pay raises and new money for law enforcement and colleges.

Virginia has a quirky law that prohibits a governor from running for consecutive terms, so Warner will be out of a job next year. There's a lot of talk he may run for George Allen's senate seat in 2006, but he might be better served by testing the waters for a presidential run. As long as he remains this popular, he should be able to swing Virginia's 13 electoral votes if he's nominated, there's no reason he would lose any blue states, and his rural appeal should put Iowa back in the Democrats' column as well. He also would run stronger in the South, and could potentially swing Florida, Arkansas or North Carolina.

What I hope to do in this blog is to follow any nascent Warner-For-President talk in the media and blogosphere at large, and create a place for others who might see the same potential in Warner to enjoy.