Mark Warner's Decision: Bad News or Good News?

[Sparkly]

Poll question: Mark Warner's Decision: Bad News or Good News?

What do you think of Warner's decision not to run for president in 2008?

Poll result (106 votes)
Bad News	(26 votes, 25%)	Vote
Good News	(68 votes, 64%)	Vote
Neither/Other	(12 votes, 11%)	Vote

[Nite Owl]

1. I didn't hear of that.

I don't know, never got to know him really.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Good news.

One more bland corporatist DLCer out of the way. How about somebody with a vision, passion, and some solid foreign policy experience for a change? Wes Clark comes to mind, or Gore.

[nam78_two]

3. Yeah Gore!

Way things are going with the environment, we need someone really serious about that issue to be the president....

[Auntie Bush]

6. Ditto for post 1 & 2.

Especially your comment about Clark!

[Totally Committed]

14. Ditto...

One less DLC-er is always a good thing.



TC

[Catchawave]

4. Link? WTF?

I mean if you're going to post a POLL, a little background would be helpful

[Sparkly]

5. .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061012/ap_on_el_pr/warner_...

[FrenchieCat]

8. Boy, they really don't want to mention the General, do they?

they even Mention Sen. Dodd, and the whole lot of them, including the kitchen sink.....but no General Wes Clark mention!

[fuzzyball]

28. The General has no chance....that is why they don't mention him

[FrenchieCat]

30. Yeah....well thanks for providing insight on the democratic process!

what would I do without your added "insight"?

[Catchawave]

9. Uh, put THE LINK ON YOUR poll.

D'oh

[Sparkly]

11. I think it's pretty common knowledge.

If not, anybody can look on any news source and find it. It's not from an obscure site.

[Catchawave]

15. I'm in Virginia, I got THE email......

Your Poll was misleading. Thank you, put the FREAking NEWS link on your POLL.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[welshTerrier2]

17. are you questioning the accuracy of the OP statement?

i'm not clear what it is you're looking for ... you said you received the Warner email so it sounds like you're not questioning the fact that he did indeed decide not to run ...

here's a link from an earlier GDP thread that stated Warner won't run: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/10/12/warner_may...

here's another link from that same thread: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WARNER_PRESIDENT...

here's another one: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/12/warner.pres/inde...

is that enough? are you on a mission to require all OP's provide a link? i don't get what you're after here ....

[Catchawave]

18. It's clear not all DUers are from Virginia

The Poll, imo, was cruel and insensitive to Warner supporters, especially without a viable news link.

I may be one of the sensitive ones, for that I'm sorry.

I'm still waiting for the OP to update s/he's poll to include a little background, instead of creating a Clarkie Feeding Frenzy. D'oh.

[welshTerrier2]

19. no need to apologize ...

just for the record, i'm not from VA nor am i a Clarkie or a supporter of any particular candidate ...

my take is that when a prominent Democrat withdraws from a presidential bid, it's perfectly appropriate to ask DU'ers their opinion ... it's hard for me to see how doing so is "cruel and insensitive" ... in fact, the poll provided two choices, not one ... the OP did not in any way whatsoever criticize Warner ... seems pretty neutral to me ...

as for it becoming a "Clarkie Feeding Frenzy", i'll have to go back and reread the responses ... why would one candidate's withdrawal and a poll asking DU'ers their opinions about it create a pro-Clark bias in the replies? seems odd to me ...

anyway, i hope i've provided the links you were looking for ... if you'd like me to look for others, just ask ... i'd be happy to oblige ...

[Catchawave]

20. Look at the results.....

What other candidates' supporters dance on these graves? Thanks anyhow I need to talk to a mod now

[Sparkly]

22. I have no idea what your problem is.

There's nothing "misleading" in the poll. The information is factually correct and readily available; I posted a link in case anybody missed the news. There is no rule I'm aware of that requires a link in poll OPs, particularly when the topic is common knowledge.

I offered no opinions one way or the other, myself. And I said NOTHING about any other potential candidates!!!

[Jai4WKC08]

34. You forgot the rule, Sparkly

Clarkies are never ever ever allowed to voice any opinion from which the supporter of any other candidate might catch the vaguest whiff of negativism. Even something as seemingly neutral as a poll that asks how people feel about a decision made by someone else's favorite is apparently breaking the rule.

Really, get with the program, will ya?

[Crunchy Frog]

27. It is actually within the rules to post a poll without a link in it.

I'm not sure that it's within the rules to tell someone you're alerting on them.

[blm]

7. Neither. Dems mainly use the debates to make their decisions, so I don't

really buy that any one person dominates in a Dem primary until we have a few debates under our belt.

If he thought he could do it, he'd throw down. Anyone would. Anyone can.

[Jack Rabbit]

10. Mark Who?

I voted neither.

When one or the other of our DLC DUers suggested Warner sometime last year, I did a Google search. The first three items were about a British travel agent named Mark Warner and the fourth was about the former governor of Virginia.

A guy with that kind of name recognition is less likely to be president than Kermit the Frog.

[welshTerrier2]

12. a limited response

i have not and will not be commenting on specific candidates until after the election and perhaps beyond ... perhaps way beyond ... except perhaps to say that i will not be voting for anyone who is still supporting bush's war ... if they haven't learned by now, they aren't going to learn ...

for me, an interesting way to consider the impact of the Warner announcement is to look at its effect on the primary process ... on one hand, the 9 candidates we had the last time around seemed to be too many ... while i think we should be open initially to as many people and ideas as possible, i think having a large field diluted the message ... viewed through that lens, Warner's early exit may be a good thing ...

at this point, my concern is much less about who and much more about how ... i'd love to see Democrats "take the money out of the primary process" ... we talk a big game about campaign finance reform but then we don't practice what we preach ... let's have a fair fight where ideas, values and strength of character matter more than how much corporate cash our candidates can raise ... instead of fighting among ourselves between candidate A and candidate B, maybe we should spend a little more time talking about the process we would like to see ...

[WI_DEM]

13. both, bad because I think he could have been an interesting '08

candidate but good if he runs for the Senate from VA in '08--he probably could win.

[Phoonzang]

21. Really bad

I don't neccesarily love the guy but I think he was our only chance to win the WH in 2008 (unless Gore runs). Lets hope we have the House and Senate....

[FrenchieCat]

23. yeah......well.....Ok....

what-E-ver!

[Phoonzang]

32. Right...whatever that means.

[FrenchieCat]

38. I meant that this statement

of yours in the pure absolute "he was our only chance to win the WH in 2008 " is your opinion to which, of course, you have a right to say....But for me it really didn't mean a damn thing as it wasn't based on any substansive statement and therefore you failed to make your case! K?

[Bucky]

24. I wouldn't have supported him unless it got down to 2-3 candidates

I could see him as a possible second or third choice, but the loss of a candidate of his charisma and ideas is always to the impovrishment of our nomination process. The more faces we have to choose from the better prepared for November we are.

[Cha]

25. I applaud mark warner's decision

to have "a real life" but it's no skin off my nose.

[rep the dems]

26. I said bad news.

I know not everybody here likes him, and I don't agree with the idea that he was the only dem who could win in '08, but I think he could have made a pretty good president. Also, I want us to have lots of candidates to choose from in the primaries.

[fuzzyball]

29. MW got out of the way of Hillary

Now Hillary has few opponents from the center or to her right.

[Awsi Dooger]

31. Awful news

Warner was by far our most logical path to 270 electoral votes. Now there's almost no chance to win Virginia unless Warner is the VP nominee and a strong presidential nominee is above him. Otherwise, we're stuck needing Ohio and/or Florida again, which makes us the underdog.

I love how some of you like to ignore that. Thousands of DU threads between presidential cycles yet the basic math of reaching the key number of electoral votes is apparently irrelevant,. Then we'll be sitting here in November 2008 needing one more elusive state, and be baffled when red states Ohio and Florida reject us again.

I want to win. Not to forcefeed a far left nominee who the country will not support in a national race. Liberals are basically 21% of the populous. Conservatives are about 34%. Then you have moderates at a significant plurality of 45%. We can ignore that if we want to and throw out simpleton catch terms like DLC to exclude candidates we don't like, or we can realize the nation is not a mirror of DU and nominate someone who can win.

[Jai4WKC08]

33. Nonsense

Nonsense, to put it nicely.

#1. Warner is NOT the only man (or woman, at least theoretically) who can win VA.
#2. VA is NOT the only state that could give us enough electoral votes to get past FL and/or OH.
#3. Assuming we get a Democratic Congress to pass some real election reform, there is NO reason to believe FL, OH, or any other battleground state cannot be won by the right candidate.

It is my personal opinion that Warner would have made a lousy candidate: too inexperienced, too boring, and WAY too willing, anxious even, to just "get along" with the opposition -- my God, isn't that last exactly what's been our problem for the last two elections?! He is almost exactly what I do NOT want in a candidate, and I believe he would have only bled off votes and money from whoever will emerged from the rest of the pack with a half-way decent chance at winning.

Now, you may certainly disagree. That's why it is your option to vote "bad news" while I chose to vote "good news." But please, don't be so ridiculous as to suggest all our Democratic hopes for 2008 have been dashed because one man decided to pursue other options.

[BoneDaddy]

35. It means one of two things

either
1. It has been already decided that Hillary will be the candidate and Warner was too much of a competition and therefore the Hillary camp either had something on him or persuaded him not to run.
or
2. The republicans had something substantial against him and he chose not to run.


The blah about wanting to spend time with one's family? if you buy that I have a yacht to sell you in NY harbor. Trust me...it is a good ship.

[IndianaGreen]

36. It was neither!

A personal decision made long before the Presidential sweepstakes began.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

37. Not good news...

GREAT news.

After 8 years of Bush, our country is going to need a pro with massive vision and passion to lead our country back from the depths.

Warner simply doesn't have the chops. Period.

[TankLV]

39. Could care less - only glad he's not a possibility...

Another repuke lite...

[hijinx87]

40. devastating news

governors are frequently successful presidential candidates.

and if he could have flipped VA, it would have been all over.

[1932]

41. If you're hoping for a progressive, non-neoliberal,

non-coprorate, non-Wall St Democrat to win (or if there is another neoliberal, corporate, or military-industrial complex candidate you prefer) it's good news.

It's bad news if you think a southern, white, male, moderate is the Democrat's bast chance and if you want as many voices and choices as possible in the primaries.