Sunday, January 01, 2006
Strong finisher
Mark Warner got off to a rocky start in Richmond, but leaves office on a roll with his ties to rural Virginia stronger than ever.
Related
roanoke.com/politics
RICHMOND -- Virginia's economy is surging, its coffers are swelling with cash and its perfect credit rating is envied by many of its peers.
Just as the state's fiscal trend lines point north, so too does the political stock of its 69th governor, Democrat Mark Warner.
Nearly three-fourths of registered voters rated his job performance as "good" or "excellent" in a July survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. Time magazine recently identified him as one of the nation's top five governors. And just last week, Newsweek magazine touted Warner and his fellow Virginian, Republican Sen. George Allen, as promising 2008 presidential candidates.
Warner, 51, will leave office Jan. 14 riding a wave of popularity and good fortune that seemed unimaginable when he walked into the governor's mansion four years ago. Saddled with budget shortfalls and inexperienced in the ways and means of the Capitol, the millionaire businessman faced the daunting prospect of finding common ground with a Republican-run legislature and fixing the state's finances.
But, after struggling through the first half of his term, Warner won hard-fought legislative support for a tax increase that he considered critical to preserving stable funding of education, health care and public safety programs. And throughout his administration, he pursued reforms in education, economic development and the state bureaucracy that won plaudits from lawmakers in both parties and elevated his national profile.
"For right now, I think what people are amazed at is that he started with so little and ended up with so much," said Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Warner would have sought re-election if Virginia's Constitution did not prohibit governors from serving consecutive terms. But the election of Democrat Tim Kaine, who has been fiercely loyal to Warner, provided the outgoing governor with the next best thing to a public seal of approval.
"I think people feel things have been getting done," Warner said during a mid-December interview in his office. "And it's been in a way that hasn't been focused on a partisan agenda.
"I don't think most folks give a hoot whether it's an idea that has a Democratic or Republican label attached to it, or whether it was the governor's idea or the legislature's idea. They just want stuff to happen."
Now Warner is taking his record, his message and his energetic persona to a national stage and a possible presidential bid. He insists he is far from a decision about running for the White House, saying he must thoroughly weigh the pros and cons of a campaign with help from his wife and three daughters. But his recent rhetoric and travel schedule suggest that he eventually will take the plunge.
"The attention I've gotten recently gives you a sense of what that process might be like," Warner said. "So those are all things I've got to sort through."
Getting to work
When Warner entered office Jan. 12, 2002, he had to sort through a budget mess caused by a sliding economy and compounded by unsustainable spending and tax relief commitments. Revenue shortfalls during the first two and a half years of his term approached $6 billion dollars, forcing cuts in proposed spending and the scrapping of some ambitious campaign promises.
Warner also found the state's transportation program in financial disarray, and slashed the road-building plan by 30 percent.
"We knew we were in trouble, and in trouble we were," said state Sen. John Chichester, R-Northumberland County, the chairman of the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee. "Enter this governor, who for the first two years of this administration didn't have two nickels to rub together."
As Warner said: "You almost woke up each day with the expectation that there would be more bad news."
Just five and a half months after Warner took office, Virginia closed out the fiscal year with the largest drop in state revenues in the 40 years the Department of Taxation had kept records. By late summer, the governor's economic advisers were forecasting more problems and Warner was ordering state agencies to develop budget reduction plans.
In mid-October, Warner announced that he would make $858 million in budget cuts to offset the shortfalls. He said he would eliminate more than 1,800 jobs. He would allow public colleges to increase tuition rates to offset the state's spending cuts. And, in a move that would be reversed after a harsh public backlash, he ordered the Department of Motor Vehicles to permanently close 12 offices.
"I can remember thinking, 'Are you going to lay off the support people for parole officers and make cutbacks there, or are going to cut back on some of the immunization programs, or are you going to shut down some of the DMV offices?' " Warner said. "There weren't good choices."
But the choices he made got the public's attention.
"That brought home to people that this was no joke, this was the real deal," said former Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum, D-Roanoke, who retired from the legislature at the midpoint of Warner's term.
Making the case
Thirteen months later, Warner unveiled a long-awaited tax package premised on the idea that Virginia's tax structure was outdated and ill-equipped to support the level of services the public demanded. The plan called for increases in sales and cigarette taxes, the elimination of certain income tax deductions and a reduction in the sales tax on groceries, among other things.
After a grueling 2004 legislative session that stretched nearly two months beyond its scheduled adjournment date, lawmakers and the governor reached an agreement on a tax package worth $1.4 billion in its first two years.
Warner cultivated legislative allies in both parties -- particularly in the Senate, where Chichester had crafted a tax package much larger than the governor's. Business groups, education advocates and retiree organizations rallied behind the governor's call for action. A breakthrough occurred when 17 House Republicans supported a compromise measure that ended a standoff between the legislature's two chambers.
"In 2004, part of the appeal of this tax reform was that we've got to stop being Democrats and Republicans," Warner said. "We're going to have to take the long view. Everyone's got to give a little."
House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, said he believes House Republicans gave too much and could have limited the size of the tax increase by sticking together longer.
"I think he [Warner] got very lucky, because the Senate wanted to raise taxes more than he did," Griffith said. "He came out as the centrist."
Remembering Southside
Warner campaigned as a centrist in 2001, vowing to fix the state's budget problems and expand education and economic opportunities to rural and distressed areas -- particularly in Southwest and Southside Virginia. He largely avoided debates over hot-button social issues that often doom Democrats, and he assured gun owners that he would not tamper with their firearms rights.
"Mark really cares about the people in the sticks and it really shows," said Dave "Mudcat" Saunders of Roanoke County, who helped craft Warner's rural campaign strategy in 2001. "Mark came out here. He never dodged them."
Warner brought a personal touch to addressing the economic challenges of Southwest and Southside Virginia. When talking about his most difficult days as governor, he cited the rainy July day in 2003 when he went to Fieldale to meet with hundreds of Pillowtex workers who had just learned they would lose their jobs.
By contrast, he gushed when he talked about luring a high-tech company to Russell County late last year. CGI-AMS Inc. will invest $6 million to open a software development and systems integration facility, creating 300 new jobs within 30 months.
"It was like, 'Yes! This is why I wanted the job in the first place,' " he said.
Warner said the state has created conditions to attract more businesses to Southwest and Southside Virginia by expanding access to adult and higher education programs and helping make broadband communications infrastructure available in rural areas.
"I would have liked for us to see more of the jobs we brought to Russell County all across Southside and Southwest," Warner said. "But, I think we have put in the prerequisites."
Warner said he realizes that "there are still a lot of people hurting" in those regions even as the overall state economy flourishes.
But, he added, "I hope and pray what they would say is that I didn't forget them, that I didn't forget the commitment I made when I was a job applicant. And that I tried to push as many jobs and provide as much educational opportunity as I can."
Going national
Warner's approval ratings suggest that he has retained the trust of those who supported him four years ago. Along the way, Warner's centrist approach may have given Democrats a new identity in a state that leans heavily toward Republicans.
"He's redefined the Democratic Party and it's been very positive for them," said Griffith, one of Warner's more persistent critics. "The question is whether they're going to maintain it."
Warner insists that national Democrats can learn some things from what happened in Virginia over the past four years. And, after he hands Kaine the keys to the governor's mansion, he will devote more of his time to spreading that message from New Hampshire to Iowa and points in between.
Warner has formed a federal political action committee called Forward Together that will enable him to help Democratic candidates across the country and boost his own national profile. Sabato said the outgoing governor already has emerged as one of the strongest Democratic alternatives to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who could become an instant frontrunner if she seeks the party's presidential nomination in 2008.
"He is wealthy, cuts a sharp media figure, has been governor of a Southern state and is a moderate in the universe of the Democratic Party," Sabato said. "He could be the anti-Hillary."
Warner said he has no timetable for making a decision about a presidential bid. And he is quick to remind reporters that the presidency is not the only political office that appeals to him as he looks to the future.
"I hope Tim does a great job, but I haven't ruled out coming back and trying to do this job again," Warner said.
