The Sunday Times in Britain reports that the onetime counterterrorism czar and Kerry ’04 supporter, Richard Clarke, has been coaching former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner on national security affairs.
A couple of months ago, a senior Democratic strategist with ties to Sen. Kerry’s 2004 campaign told me that Hillary Clinton will easily raise $250-300 million for her primary run. He added that her biggest political threat isn’t Al Gore or John Kerry but Warner should he decide to tap his personal wealth. With his “moderate” appeal and business background, Warner would also be positioned to raise lots of campaign cash the traditional way. The Washington Post‘s E.J. Dionne and many others regularly tout Warner’s credentials as a popular, centrist Southern Democrat who governed a so-called Red state. As to foreign policy, though, Warner has been virtually content free. For example, on Iraq he won’t say how he would have voted on the war authorization had he been in Congress at the time. He won’t tell voters if he would have regretted his vote today had he supported the authorization back then. He won’t say whether he believes the president made the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power in March 2003 or whether he believes the President should have given UN inspectors more time. Guess he’s waiting to see how things look in Iraq a year or so from now. One New Hampshire Democrat, who recently heard a Warner campaign pitch, put it this way:
Stay tuned.
