Merry Christmas!

..and a Happy New Year to all of you reading this blog.

Even though Santa left coal in our stockings for another four years.

George Will touts Warner.

I don't have much use for George Will, for obvious reasons, but he is a heavyweight among pundits and widely-read and syndicated. In fact, I saw this article on the op-ed page of my local paper, the St. Petersburg Times. In it, Will makes the case for Warner as someone the Democrats should look to in 2008:

An exhortation that echoed here 140 years ago -- "On to Richmond!" -- may soon be heard from Democrats wandering the country in search of a path out of the political wilderness. They will trek to Virginia's capital to take the measure of Mark Warner.

One interesting bit in the article is this critique of the Kerry campaign:

Concerning the Democrats' current fretfulness about cultural or "values" issues, Warner laments that Kerry "never broke from Democratic orthodoxy on any issue. Your base will always hold you to an orthodoxy standard."

Quite true. Kerry never did have a "Sister Souljah" moment in the campaign. It probably wouldn't have been enough anyway, but it couldn't have hurt.

"Why wait? Mark in 08!"

Apologies for the lack of posting lately. Once again, I've been real busy at work, and to top things off, I just picked up an iPod, which I have been playing with (and playing) during most of my spare time.

Anyway, here's the best Warner08 article I've seen in a while, from (of all places) London's Times:

On the day before Thanksgiving a group of 70 or so unwontedly jovial and bibulous Democrats and their friends were taking part in what has become an annual event. The host was Mark Warner, the Governor of Virginia, a youthful looking 49-year-old with a smile as wide as the Potomac River. He and his friends have been gathering on this Wednesday for almost 20 years — since he started out as an entrepreneur in the cellular telephone business.

This year, for one very obvious reason, the crowd was bigger and livelier than ever before and the conversation was about only one topic. Warner is an emerging contender for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Shares in the telegenic governor were already riding high before November 2. But with Mr Kerry’s defeat, widely seen as another lesson in what happens if you nominate a northeastern liberal Democrat for the presidency, they soared.

His appeal is clear — he is a southern Democrat who holds high office, and an election winner in a part of the country that President Bush won easily last month. He has done his best to keep the lid on his supporters’ enthusiasm, but the buzz at the Palm that day was that Mr Warner is already up and running. The presence there of high-powered political operatives — including Joe Trippi, who masterminded Howard Dean’s meteor-like campaign this year — suggests that there will be no shortage of useful support if he begins a run for the White House when his governorship comes to an end in 2006. Mr Warner has money too — he is a self-made multimillionaire and is already eagerly fundraising among supporters.

Steve Brady, Mr Warner’s former business partner, captured the enthusiastic mood at the Thanksgiving party, giving a rousing speech which ended when he took off his jacket to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned: “Why Wait?” on the front and “Mark in 08” on the back.

The subhead on the article is titled "The Democrats already have a front-runner for their next attempt on the White House" and the article's emphasis on Warner implies that he's the man. While it's far too early to anoint Warner a front-runner (his national name recognition is still very low), there's no question that he's emerged as the new face to go with the usual suspects like Hillary, Wes Clark and John Edwards.