THIS IS WARNER COUNTRY, say the signs along rural Route 220. If they’re right, the 46-year-old high-tech millionaire from “Novaville”–that’s northern Virginia, with its once booming Internet companies and its very own Tiffany’s–could become the first Democrat elected statewide in Virginia since 1994. He may also change the way the party does business. Last year’s election map revealed a painful truth for Democrats: rural America wanted nothing to do with them. Now along comes Warner, who’s never held office, with a plan to beat his GOP opponent, former attorney general Mark Earley, by taking back the hills.
There’s Warner’s ubiquitous bluegrass ditty, sung to an old tune by the Dillards of “Andy Griffith” fame, that gets in your head and sticks like pine tar. There’s the NASCAR team Warner is sponsoring. And there’s Sportsmen for Warner, whose 50,000 bumper stickers feature a rifle. Sources at the NRA, whose lobbyists met recently with Warner aides, say the gun lobby may well sit out the race altogether–a huge blow to the GOP, which relies on gun owners’ support. “We’re going to the heart of where rural Americans live,” says Steve Jarding, Warner’s campaign manager. “Why the Democratic Party would write off hunters or fishers or NASCAR fans–or anyone–is beyond me.”
Warner hardly seems like a guy you’d find at the feed store; a Harvard-trained lawyer, he made his fortune selling mobile-phone licenses. But Warner, who lost a close Senate race in 1996 but did well in rural areas, is keenly aware of what some Dems privately call their “white-male problem.” Although he’s a former state party chairman, Warner almost never mentions the word Democrat in his rural speeches, preferring to indict both parties for a budget debacle that has voters seething. He knows that Franklin County’s lost 1,500 jobs in three years, and that people here feel ignored. “We’ve been called hillbillies and we’ve been called rednecks,” says Dave (Mudcat) Saunders, Warner’s local liaison, as he surveys an American Legion Hall packed with 200 supporters. “At best, we’ve been called a liability. But Mark calls us an untapped resource.”
Warner’s aggressive foray into GOP country has his opponent incensed. Going on the attack, Earley wants rural voters to know that Warner moved to Virginia only in 1994 and is sitting on the biggest money pile ever amassed in that state. He repeatedly lashes Warner with that most vicious of epithets: “liberal.” “The Clinton-Gore administration basically tried to shut down the coal industry in America,” Earley says during a stop near the mining country. “Mark Warner was part of that whole philosophy.” Earley will remind voters that Warner gave money to such loyal Dems as Ted Kennedy and Dick Gephardt. “He’s made investments in these guys,” says David Botkins, Earley’s spokesman, as if the word itself disgusted him.
The challenge for Warner is to win votes in rural counties without alarming urban Democrats who fear the NRA and wouldn’t know a banjo if it knocked them unconscious. It’s a strategy that seems to provoke much torment and reflection inside the Democratic Party. Although there are only two governors’ races this year, anxious party leaders in Washington haven’t yet agreed to help fund Warner’s rural-outreach campaign, leading some Virginia Dems to grumble that the national party is still leaning too far left on social issues. While party chairman Terry McAuliffe says he’s a convert to Warner’s rural strategy, others in the party have been urging him to stay away from issues like guns altogether, rather than risk alienating the party’s urban base. That’s essentially what Al Gore did. But if Warner wins in November, Democrats may find themselves singing a very different tune–accompanied by a washboard.
Correction
