Warner, Webb could have a complex working relationship

By Jeff E. Schapiro, Media General News Service
Published: November 15, 2008

He won with 2.36 million votes, a record for a statewide candidate. His total was nearly twice that of his opponent. He swept all 11 congressional districts and carried 128 of 134 counties and cities.

And yet Mark Warner is merely Virginia’s new junior U.S. senator.

A guy accustomed to being No. 1 and partaking of its emoluments, Warner — a tightly wound, sometimes needy high-tech gazillionaire — is about to become one of 100. Further, Warner will be second to a fellow Democrat just barely elected two years ago: the steely, sensitive and strategically sarcastic Jim Webb.

Theirs may be a complex relationship, one rich in intrigues, slights — perceived and actual — and complicated by their alpha-omega personalities. At the heart of it could be another Democrat: Barack Obama.

Beyond seniority, which means all in the Senate, Webb has something Warner could only wish for: a personal relationship, a bond, with Obama forged in the cloak and committee rooms when Obama was the junior senator from Illinois.

That counts a lot among activists, donors and big-dollar interests preoccupied with the divvying of federal contracts and jobs, particularly high-level appointments and judgeships.

Or as a certain adolescent male in the Schapiro household would put it: Webb gets dibs.

This has got to be killing Warner, if only because he’s considered the boss of bosses among Virginia Democrats, having revived a moribund party in 2001 with a victory for governor from whence sprang succeeding successes, including Jim Webb’s.

But the presidential campaign, the first in which a Democrat carried Virginia since 1964, was a sticky matter for both. Webb and Warner ducked making endorsements when they really counted: early — as Tim Kaine did. Kaine backed Obama a week after he announced for president in 2007.

The point being that Webb’s and Warner’s reluctance to gamble when the stakes were highest could prove an X factor in the reward-or-punishment approach that invariably influences presidential thinking.

Even before becoming the senior senator, Webb had committee assignments befitting a heavy hitter: Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Veterans Affairs and Joint Economic, a research panel with the House.

Webb continues to generate headlines with his outspokenness on Iraq and Afghanistan. His update of the G.I. Bill — and John McCain’s opposition to it — contributed to the Republican’s underwhelming performance in defense-rich Hampton Roads.

Also, Webb is making a name for himself on issues few people think about, such as the cost - literal and figurative - of a booming prison population, fueled here by the lock-’em-up-and-throw-away-the-key policy of the governor-turned-senator whom Webb defeated by only 9,329 votes, George Allen.

Warner is no slouch. He’ll carve out a place for himself in the Senate on business and budget issues. But denied the perquisites he enjoyed as governor, Warner — remember: the junior senator — may find what he calls the “radical center” a pretty lonely place.

Jeff E. Schapiro is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.