Gov. Mark Warner (D) Elected 2001, 1st term up Jan. 2006
Born:	Dec. 15, 1954, Indianapolis, IN
Home:	Alexandria
Education:	George Washington U., B.A., 1977; Harvard U., J.D., 1980
Religion:	Presbyterian
Marital Status:	married (Lisa)
Professional Career:	Mng. Dir., Columbia Capitol Corp., 1989-01.
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Mark Warner was elected governor of Virginia in 2001, the first Democrat to be elected since 1989, when Warner managed Douglas Wilder's successful campaign. Warner was born in Indianapolis and moved to Hartford, Connecticut in the 8th grade. He was the first in his family to graduate from college, from George Washington University in 1977; then he graduated from Harvard Law School in 1980. After law school he worked in the fundraising office of the Democratic National Committee. There, former Congressman Tom McMillen told him about the potential of cell phone markets just as the Reagan administration was about to award almost 1,500 free licenses for metropolitan cell phone markets. Warner cobbled together investor groups and packaged their applications in exchange for a fee and a five percent ownership stake if they received the licenses. He made millions; his net worth in 2001 was estimated at $200 million.

In 1989, the same year he managed Wilder's campaign, Warner set up Columbia Capital, a venture capital fund which provided financing for more than 70 telecommunications and information technology firms, many of which went public; the best known is Nextel. From 1993 to 1995, he served as Virginia Democratic chairman. In 1996, he ran against Republican Senator John Warner (no relation) and spent $10 million of his own money on the campaign; he ran well throughout the state and held the Republican Warner to a 52%-47% margin, his closest since his first election in 1978. Over the next several years, Warner put millions into philanthropic efforts: In 1997 to a Virginia High-Tech Partnership to give internships in high-tech firms to students in Virginia's five historically black colleges and universities; in 2000 to TechRiders, which provided demonstrations in using computers in houses of worship around the state. He also set up four regional small business investment funds in Southwest Virginia, Southside Virginia, metro Richmond and Hampton Roads. By 1999, it was plain that Warner was going to run for governor in 2001. With no experience in elected office, he presented himself as an entrepreneur who could bring business methods to government.

Warner picked a good year to run. In 1993 and 1997, Republicans George Allen and Jim Gilmore had been elected governor by advancing popular proposals which their Democratic opponents opposed--Allen called for an end to parole and Gilmore for elimination of the car tax. In 2000, Allen was elected to the Senate, but Gilmore spent much of the year battling the Republican-controlled General Assembly over the budget; revenues were coming in lower than expected, and Gilmore wanted to keep phasing out the car tax. In 2000 and 2001, the two Republicans elected to downballot offices in 1997--Lieutenant Governor John Hager and Attorney General Mark Earley--were battling each other for the Republican nomination for governor. Against this background, Warner called for an end to old-style politics, regional divisions, partisan bickering and personal attacks. Earley won the June primary, but had little money and no clear campaign strategy--no bold proposal like Allen's in 1993 or Gilmore's in 1997. Warner had plenty of money: He ultimately spent $5 million of his own money on the campaign, but used his finely honed talents at fundraising to raise more in Virginia and around the nation. He ran ads starting in August and straight through November; Earley made a smaller time buy starting in mid-October.

Nor would Warner, who lives in a restored mansion in Alexandria's beautiful Old Town, be tabbed as an urban liberal. He called himself a "fiscal conservative" and pledged not to raise the income or sales taxes. Responding to complaints from traffic-choked Northern Virginia, he called for regional referendums on local sales tax increases: This pleased business interests and local legislators who feared congestion would stop growth and propitiated tax opponents who felt they would get a chance to vote no. He hired a rural strategist, David "Mudcat" Saunders of Roanoke. He opposed any new gun control laws and wooed the National Rifle Association, which remained neutral--a victory for a Democrat. He ran ads featuring old pickup trucks and blue grass music. He sponsored a NASCAR race truck. He traveled to all parts of rural Virginia, showing that this rich entrepreneur was in touch with folks and reminding them of his investment funds and his philanthropic initiatives. In October, Earley came out against the regional referendum, but this evidently hurt him with both sides: The businessmen and legislators were angry at him for opposing their project, while some tax opponents outside Northern Virginia thought it made a statewide tax increase more likely. Earley's ads were on hot-button issues like taxes and abortion, but Warner had inoculated himself on taxes and Earley's opposition to abortion put off some suburban Republicans.

The surprise is not that Warner won, but that he won by a small margin, 52%-47%, a reversal of the numbers in his 1996 Senate race. That time Warner had lost narrowly each of the major regions of the state; this time by narrow margins he carried them all. He carried Northern Virginia 54%-46% and the Hampton Roads region 53%-47%. He did well in the Richmond suburbs and carried metro Richmond 51%-48%. And in the rest of Virginia, he carried dozens of rural counties that national Democrats usually lose. Al Gore had won only 41% in this region the year before; Warner carried it 51%-48%, losing badly only in the Shenandoah Valley but carrying Southside and Southwest Virginia.

Once in office, Warner had to cope with unpleasant fiscal realities. The car tax phase-out was put on hold in November 2001, and Gilmore resigned as Republican National Chairman later that month. Warner got the legislature to approve November 2002 transportation tax referenda in Northern Virginia and in Hampton Roads, but the House of Delegates killed his education initiative in March 2002. As the budget shortfall kept growing, Warner continued to rule out a tax increase, cut $858 million in spending and laid off 1,800 state employees. Meanwhile, opinion was moving against the tax increases in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. They were opposed by tax opponents who argued that the politicians would just shuffle the money around and by "smart growth" advocates, environmentally-minded activists who argued that more highways just meant more growth and more traffic congestion. In November 2002, Northern Virginia voted 55%-45% against the referendum and Hampton Roads rejected it by 62%-38%. These are not two insignificant areas: Together they cast a majority of the state's votes. Warner said the results showed a "sobering" mistrust of politicians. The prospect was for a battle for scarce highway dollars between the traffic-choked suburbs and rural areas. In December 2002, Warner presented a budget balanced by one-time financial maneuvers that suggested that more fiscal troubles lay ahead.

Virginia is the last state to limit its governors to one term. In November 2002 Warner called for changing this, but in a way that would not make him eligible to run again in 2005; the House killed his measure in February 2003. From this distance the two likeliest candidates then are the two statewide downballot elected officials, Democratic Lieutenant Governor Timothy Kaine, a former mayor of Richmond, who won 50%-48% in 2001, and Republican Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, a former federal and state prosecutor, who won 60%-40% in 2001.

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State Capitol, Richmond 23219, 804-786-2211; Fax: 804-371-6351; Web: www.governor.state.va.us.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent
2001 general	Mark Warner (D)	984,177	52%
	Mark Earley (R)	887,234	47%
2001 primary	Mark Warner (D)	unopposed
1997 general	Jim Gilmore (R)	969,062	56%
	Don Beyer (D)	738,971	43%
	Sue Harris DeBauche (I)	25,777	2%