While he is no social conservative, I concede, I think we can all agree that a standard-issue Democrat instead of the radical leftist in the White House (or instead of a feminista like Hillary) would be pretty tolerable even though we'd have the culture fights. Hey, it's a luxury to be able to fight them if our economy and national security are fairly stable and the underlying approach to governance remained intact. Instead, all the underlying assumptions we have about the economy and national security are thrown out the window.
I think Mark Warner would have been at least as moderate as Bill Clinton--whose presidency was pretty moderate in retrospect, personal morality aside. [We now see what radical is like in the WH.] It has been said that it was Hillary who kept pushing leftward. I think Warner could have won the presidency--as any Dem could have, we see--with the Bush-Iraq fatigue and the mess of the financial industry. Mark Warner could have won huge and would have done a great job on economic matters and would have set right the course without the enormous stimulus mess. He's a smart business man and politician. Likeable, too, I must concede. No, I did not vote for him for governor. Alas, Hillary again, behind the scenes got Warner to bow out of 2008 early on to clear the way for her. However, she didn't count on Obama, as none of us did.
Mark Warner did run for retiring John Warner's (no relation) seat and won. He's been pretty obscured since January.
Warner is speaking out now about how Obama's missed the key issue in healthcare reform. I have been wondering where he stands on the economic idiocy of Obama. He's probably more like the GOP on this stuff, I'd guess, though I wouldn't think of him as a free-marketeer, low-taxer.
"I wish the president would have started the debate by explaining to the American people that our current health care system is not financially sustainable, for even another decade," Mr. Warner said. "Driving down health care costs should have been the focus of the debate."
Mr. Warner, 54, made millions investing in technology ventures before he became Virginia's governor from 2002 to 2006 and helped cut the state's $6 billion deficit through a tax package.
On Tuesday, he told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show the key points of the debate should be that the largest contributor to the U.S deficit is federal spending on health care, Medicare will go bankrupt in the next seven years and the average American family will spend 40 percent of its disposable income on health care insurance.
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"As a former business guy, I believe America has to stay competitive in the global economy," Mr. Warner said.
The effort by the Democrat-controlled Congress to fulfill Mr. Obama's goal of reforming health care in his first year began this summer, with contentious debates on Capitol Hill, then in town-hall-style meetings across the country.
The House last week passed a reform bill, but the Senate has yet to hold a full vote. Among the major issues are cost, a potential government-run system and now abortion funding.
Mr. Warner also said Tuesday that he, along with some Republicans and fellow Democrats in Congress, think the economy will never fully recover from the recession unless the roughly $1.4 trillion federal deficit is brought under control.
He said old methods are not working and advocated for a bipartisan commission to make a new set of regulations on which Capitol Hill lawmakers could vote only "yes" or "no."
"I'm a new senator, but I don't see how we're going to get the deficit under control if we do it through the regular order in the Senate in which people can add and protect their own programs."
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These are not necessarily strong statements against socialized medicine, but I think we should be able to conclude from his statements that he doesn't think starting a new huge social welfare program makes fiscal sense, and that the thing to do is to study the existing programs and improve them and lower costs. How would he improve the market performance (pricing, variety, quality) of private insurers? That's not clear. Is he an objector to the "public option"?
