A Look Back at Senator John Warner

John Warner - who I got to meet a number of times during my incarnation as a Republican - is leaving the U.S. Senate next month after serving 30 years (he will be replaced by Democrat Mark Warner who is not related to him). Warner is perhaps one of the last Republicans that symbolizes what the GOP used to be about before the lunatic "Christian" Right obtained a strangle hold on the Party. Warner was never loved by the Christianist set, but enjoyed high approval ratings by moderates and independents - the keys to winning elections. Moreover, Warner never bought into the anti-gay wedge issues that have become the hallmark of today's GOP and voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, albeit on technical issues, to the horror of the Christianists. Warner has also been pro-choice, supported embryonic stem cell research, and on June 15, 2004, was among the minority of his party to vote to expand hate crimes laws to include sexual orientation as a protected category. Here are some highlights from the Virginian Pilot on Warner's career:

*

Work and luck and sometimes a dash of bluster have sustained Warner through a political career that spans four decades, the terms of seven presidents, six other Virginia senators and 11 governors. A second-choice nominee after the Republican Party’s original candidate died in a plane crash, Warner won his seat in 1978 by the narrowest margin in Virginia history. But when he retires next month at 81, he will have cast more Senate votes – 10,728 – and received more votes – 5.36 million in five elections – than any other Virginian.

*

In 2006, as the Senate headed toward a partisan showdown over judicial appointments, Warner joined a moderate “gang of 14” senators who brokered a deal to secure confirmation of several controversial GOP nominees but preserved the Democrats’ right to use Senate rules to block others.

*

Independence has been central to Warner’s own Senate career, sometimes imperiling him. He was personally and politically close to Ronald Reagan, but infuriated Reaganites by refusing in 1987 to back Reagan nominee Robert Bork for the Supreme Court. In 1994, he effectively threw Virginia’s other Senate seat to the Democrats, refusing to back Republican nominee and Iran-Contra figure Oliver North. Incumbent Chuck Robb won the race.

*

More recently, Warner showed his independence by backing a package of state tax hikes championed in 2004 by then-Gov. Mark Warner, the man who will succeed him next month. “I remember the day he came to Richmond” to deliver his endorsement, Mark Warner said. “He just said, 'Mark, I think I’m going to come down and say a few things.’ … That was the day he got up, as only John Warner could do, and said: 'Politics be damned. ’ It’s time to put Virginia first.”