Democratic spin doctor not impressed with Mark Warner

Yesterday former Governor Mark Warner, appeared on ABC's "This Week" program hosted by George Stephanopoulous. I missed the first portion of Mr. Warner's conversation with Mr. Stephanopoulous, but the interview covered a wide-variety of domestic and international issues (Alito nomination, Iraq War, wiretapping, etc.) and for the most part the interview appeared to be fairly mundane. Everyone knows Mark Warner will run for President in 2008, therefore even a "lazy Sunday morning" interview with Mr. Stephanopoulous gives Virginia's popular former Governor a chance to expose himself to the larger general public, and this is a good thing.

But it appears that Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist/spin doctor, wasn't impressed. Apparently Ms. Brazile took umbrage to Mr. Warner's comments that his Presidential role model is the progressive reformist Republican Teddy Roosevelt. (Gasp!) One would think that since it has been over 100 years since Teddy first took office, the "sting" of a modern day Democratic Presidential hopefull choosing a Republican - who Warner claims would be a Democrat today, for whatever that's worth - as their favorite former President would have worn off. Obviously not to Ms. Brazile, who said she wouldn't have picked Roosevelt as a Presidential role model.

I guess Brazile would have prefered for Warner to have chosen one of her former clients as his favorite Presidential role model. Ms. Brazile has served as a influential policy consultant on numerous Presidential campaigns. For example, Ms. Brazile had an influential hand in determining the poltical fates of Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, and more recently Al Gore. The only successful Democratic Presidential campaign in the last 25 years, Bill Clinton's campaign, appears to be the only campaign in which Brazile had very little hands on contact, serving only as a low-level policy advisor. Lucky for Bill.

It appears that Mr. Warner's "sensible center" style of leadership/politics will be challenged by certain players in the Democratic Paty (surprise, surprise). If Ms. Brazile's opening salvo is indicative of the criticism that will be leveled against Mr. Warner, the former Governor will have an easy road to the nomination. With enemies like Donna Brazile, the future looks very bright for Mark Warner.