John Warner: The Accidental Senator

John Warner is now in his 28th year and fifth term as a U.S. Senator from Virginia. Warner, a Republican, carries a lot of clout in the Senate as the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Nationally, he's one of the most respected members of the Senate.

Interestingly enough, Warner's career in the Senate almost never got started. When he first ran for an open seat in the Senate in 1978, he lost the Republican nomination to an up-and-coming younger politician named Richard Obenshain. However, Obenshain's bright future in politics ended abruptly when he was killed in a plane crash just two months before the general election. After Obenshain's funeral, Virginia Republicans called an emergency session to pick a new nominee. Warner, the runner-up to Obenshain in the earlier primary, was selected. Despite the disadvantage of a late start, Warner managed to pull out a narrow victory in the general election over Democrat Andrew Miller, the state's former Attorney General.

Early in his Senate career, Warner seemed like a solid, mainstream Republican. During his third term, however, he started to cultivate a rather tumultuous relationship with members of his own party, some of which no longer see him as a true Republican. Many observers, including myself, feel that Warner should have been honest and dropped the Republican label many years ago.

He began to show his true colors in 1993 when he refused to support Mike Farris, his party's nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. He felt that Farris was controlled too much by the Christian Right. At least indirectly due to Warner's withholding of his support, Farris became the only statewide GOP candidate to lose that year. Then in 1994, Warner actively campaigned against Ollie North, his party's nominee for Virginia's other U.S. Senate seat. He even recruited former GOP gubernatorial candidate Marshall Coleman to run as an independent and siphon enough votes from North to throw the election to Democratic incumbent and former Governor Chuck Robb. Even then, North just barely lost. This time, Warner's actions were seen as the direct cause of a fellow Republican's loss.

By the time Warner was seeking his fourth term in the Senate in 1996, he had angered many of Virginia's staunch Republican voters and they began a "Dump Warner" campaign. However, Virginia's GOP party rules allow the incumbent to select the nominating process. Knowing he would probably lose the nomination at a convention or caucus, where only party regulars would be voting, he selected a primary. In Virginia, primaries are open to all registered voters, so Warner encouraged Democrats and independents to vote in that primary and save his political skin. He also counted on the fact that voters have short memories, even those who lean Republican and/or conservative. His strategy worked as he handily defeated Republican rival Jim Miller for the nomination.

In the general election that year, I voted against him, and apparently so did many others who normally vote Republican. John Warner was supposed to win in a cakewalk over relatively unknown (at that time) Democrat Mark Warner, who had never held elective office. However, the election turned out to be very close, with John Warner winning by the slimmest of margins. Mark Warner thought it was close because he was such a good candidate, but it was really because people like me had become sick and tired of John Warner's antics and wanted to teach him a lesson. Still, the close election provided Mark Warner enough momentum and impetus to successfully run for governor of Virginia five years later.

John Warner was virtually unchallenged when he ran for his fifth term in 2002. However, I still did not vote for him. It's been rumored that he might retire after 2008. Let's hope so. One thing I do know is that he'll never get my vote again.

Comments

[Lee Wampler]

John, hope all is well with you; I'll vote for you as long as you run! Best, lee wampler

[J. Keen Holland]

One slight correction, Dick Obenshain beat John Warner and two others in a state convention, not a primary. In fact, the 1978 Republican State Convention was said to be the largest political convention ever held, with over ten thousand accredited delegates and alternates in attendance in Richmond.