Reply #2: This proves something which I hadn't thought of before [View All]

I've been defending Warner on this forum, but I wasn't sure why. And now I know. He's actually more of a threat to Hillary than Kerry. The criticisms he has made against Democrats, that were seemingly directed to Kerry, in fact, also work for Hillary -- you know, like not being competitive in 50 states. She is, after all, a blue state Senator and very polarizing. It doesn't look likely that she will win in any of the states that Kerry lost. But here's the thing. Mark Warner's main weakness is his lack of foreign policy and national security experience. It's true that Hillary is on the Armed Services Committee, and was privy to pillow talk and presence in the WH when Bill was president, but she's not a veteran, she doesn't have the incredible bredth and depth of experience on a variety of FP issues like Kerry does. She's going to attempt to play the "centrist" Democrat in '08 if she runs (her votes have proven this). Kerry is definitely going to "play" who he actually is -- a JFK (as in Kennedy) liberal and a foreign policy guru (the Vietnam war veteran will be largely in the background only, yet present in our subconscious). So who is more threatened by Mark Warner? Why Hillary, of course. He's everything she wants to be plus an excellent governor's record with actually DOING what he talks about. The Republican Noise Machine will have a much harder time branding Warner as a hated liberal as they will with Hillary (even though, didn't she vote for Goldwater?).

I guess I'll be honest with you all. I have read all of the names of people who want to be president on the Democratic side. The only ones in the running, IMO, are Hillary, Warner and Kerry. There are fundamental problems with all of the others. Biden won't be able to shut his mouth, the other governors are not half as distinguished as Warner, Edwards is too much of a lightweight (sorry that Cheney debate speaks for itself), Clark is just not a natural pol, and I guess I don't know enough about Evan Bayh (is he any good?) to opine on him. Hillary is the star power, Warner is the press darling, and Kerry is the . . . well, he's the real president.

I know that officially we are focussing on '06, but let's get real (yeah, like Dr. Phil). It takes nearly 4 years to run for the president so people need to get going now. I would say Hillary is a little behind already, because she has that '06 election, but on the other hand, she is very tough and smart and should never be discounted.