Warner romps in Va.

Mark Warner, a Democratic former governor popular for his centrist record, won a resounding 63-36 victory over conservative former governor Jim Gilmore, with 85 percent of precincts reporting.

Warner entered Tuesday with a 30-point polling lead after successfully painting Gilmore as a failed governor who left the state with a $6 billion deficit.

Succeeding Gilmore as governor, Warner won the support of Democrats and moderate Republicans to push through a $1.5 billion tax increase in 2004 to balance the budget and pay for education initiatives.

He ended his term as the most popular governor in Virginia’s history and remains so well-loved that analysts postulated he might drive Virginians to the polls more effectively than the presidential candidates.

Mentioned by political analysts as an attractive future presidential candidate, Warner surprised Democrats at the party’s 2008 national convention, when he pleaded for bipartisanship in a keynote speech that was expected to be a fiery, partisan call-to-arms.

Barrack Obama delivered the keynote speech at the party’s 2004 convention — a speech that rocketed him to national political stardom.

Warner will succeed five-term Republican Senator John Warner, a politician revered in Virginia and one who also appealed to both sides.

The newly elected Senator stuck with a message of bipartisanship in his Tuesday night victory speech, calling for Virginia to “avoid the political divisiveness of the past” and pledging to seek John Warner’s counsel.

“Assuming that the Democrats fall a few seats short of 60, Mark Warner can be very useful as a bridge to more liberal members of the Republican congress,” said George Mason University political communications professor Stephen Farnsworth.

Mame Reilly, Warner’s former political director, said the Senator-elect is a quick study and a work horse.

“He’s going to get to the Senate and roll up his sleeves and get to work,” she said.