Governor Warner "Southern Star" interview at salon.com [View All]

[nickshepDEM]

As you drive south from Washington on Interstate 95, the high-tech corridors of northern Virginia give way to green grass and rolling hills and something that begins to look like the South. Pickups start to outnumber Volvos and VWs, and Starbucks gives way to the "scattered & smothered" comfort of Waffle House.

It's a long way from Washington to Richmond -- and even farther to the rural counties of southern Virginia -- but Mark Warner has covered the ground. The Democrat, a 50-year-old multimillionaire venture capitalist from Indiana by way of Connecticut, got himself elected governor of Virginia in 2001 in large part by reaching out to rural voters who were supposed to be in the Republicans' pocket. Warner sponsored a NASCAR team, used a bluegrass song as his campaign theme, and appealed directly to gun-loving hunters and sportsmen -- and it worked. John Kerry, he is not.

"People in rural America may speak a little slower, but they can spot a phony a mile away," Warner says. "You see other candidates who say, 'Let's just do the optics.' But unless you feel as comfortable hanging out at a country fair or having a beer and eatin' some barbecue as you do at your high-end, high-tech reception, people are going to see through that."

Winning elections is about more than beer and barbecue, of course: Warner says that Democrats have to engage voters in a conversation about the future, particularly the future of rural areas, small towns and midsize cities where the global economy hasn't delivered on its promise. Most of all, he says, Democrats have to give voters hope.

Check out the interview here:

http://www.salon.com/news/lotp/2005/06/13/virginia_governor/index.html