Warner: Comments were ‘over the top’

By Bob Stuart

Published: October 16, 2008

U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner acknowledged Thursday that he made disparaging remarks 14 years ago about the National Rifle Association, pro-lifers and homeschoolers, groups he called a threat to “what it means to be an American.”

The comments, Warner told The News Virginian, were “way over the top and I wish I had them back.” He called the remarks “inappropriate, excessive.”

Warner’s Republican opponent, Jim Gilmore, who is trailing badly in the polls, earlier this month began circulating a Web advertisement featuring the comments, made in 1994 before the National Jewish Democrat Council. Warner was state Democratic Party chairman at the time. Warner previously had denied making the remarks.

“What is even sadder than his admitting that he had lied, after years of denial,” Gilmore spokeswoman Ana Gamonal said, “is the best Mark Warner could offer was that his comments were perhaps ‘over the top’ and that he had ‘learned a lot’ since then.”

Republicans long have sought to saddle Warner with the remarks, which would figure to rile voters in the deeply conservative sections of central and western Virginia. After a GOP radio advertisement featuring the comments aired late in the 2001 gubernatorial campaign, Warner called a news conference during which he called the attribution of the remarks to him “not only inaccurate, but disrespectful.”

According to a GOP-supplied transcript, Warner said a coalition of conservative organizations had taken over the Virginia Republican Party.

“And if they have their way, [they] will take over state government, made up of right-to-lifers; but it’s not just the right-to-lifers, it’s made up of the NRA; but it’s not just that, it’s made up of the home schoolers; but not just that; it’s made up of a whole coalition of people that have all sorts of different views that I think most of us in this room would find threatening to them and what it means to be an American. They all come together under a common cause to radically change the way we lead our lives.”

The comments cut a striking contrast to Warner’s carefully cultivated populist image. But they matched his positions on abortion, said Olivia Gans, president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, a state affiliate of the National Right To Life. The remarks “appear to reflect his truer position on pro-life issues,’’ Gans said.

As Virginia governor from 2002 to 2006, Warner vetoed a ban on partial-birth abortions and tried to gut a Virginia parental consent law which ultimately passed the General Assembly, Gans said. Warner ultimately signed a consent bill. An advocate of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, Warner also worked to weaken the unborn victims of violence law, Gans said.

“Now, he realizes he is out of step on the laws and is doing a fast dance to distance himself,’’ she said.

Though his sister teaches her children at home, Warner also is out of step with homeschoolers, said Serena Stout, of Waynesboro, who homeschools her 14-year-old daughter with her husband. Warner “does not know homeschoolers,” she said.

Frequently viewed as being driven largely by conservative-minded Christians, the homeschool movement spreads across a wide cross-section of Americans, Stout said.

“Everyone homeschools for different reasons,’’ she said. “I know single moms who homeschool and I know married parents. Homeschooling covers the whole spectrum of life in America.”

Warner’s comments figure to have little impact on his standing with gun rights advocates. Warner describes himself as a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. His record backs the claim, the National Rifle Association said.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said that both Warner and Gilmore registered “A’’ ratings with the NRA. Both candidates are seeking the group’s endorsement, he said.

“The real winners here are gunowners and hunters,’’ Arulanandam said. “There are any number of organizations … who would absolutely relish having this predicament.”

Warner signed more than a dozen pro-gun and pro-hunting bills during his four years as governor, Arulanandam said.