According to John Warner, out of the hospital and feeling fine, his successor needs to have "experience" given the fact that we're "in the midst of two difficult wars right now." As such, we can't afford "on-the-job-training." but instead need "someone with congressional experience." Sen. Warner "named three congressmen from Virginia as well-qualified possibilities: Reps. Thomas M. Davis III of Fairfax County, Eric I. Cantor of Richmond and Robert W. Goodlatte of Roanoke."Who's not on John Warner's list for the Republicans? First and foremost, this is a major "diss" to former Governor Jim "No Car Tax" Gilmore. Obviously, Gilmore doesn't meet John Warner's "congressional experience" test. For his part, Gilmore fired back, ssying that "We don't have a situation where senators pick their successors."
In addition to Gilmore, Warner may have been aiming his comments at several others whose names have been bandied about on the Republican side -- Peter Pace and Pat Buchanan, for instance. And let's not even mention Oliver North, we know how that turned out in 1994, when John Warner almost single-handedly prevented the convicted felon from being elected to the U.S. Senate.
By the way, I'm not sure if John Warner meant it this way, but the fact is that Mark Warner doesn't have "congressional experience" either. Sen. Warner did say that Mark Warner "[c]ertainly he has credentials," so maybe he's just talking about the Republican candidates.
The problem is this: Goodlatte says he has no interest, Cantor is one of the worst members of congress by almost any standard, and Tom Davis isn't sure he's going to run (especially after his wife loses to Chap Petersen in 31 days). So who does that leave? Hey, what's George Allen up to these days? Eating ham sandwiches and pork chops? Ha.
P.S. Note that Sen. Warner didn't mention Representatives Virgil Goode, Thelma Drake, Randy Forbes or Frank Wolf. Verrrry interesting.