We don’t have a crystal ball. We never understood Tarot cards. We can’t read Senator John Warner’s mind. And we certainly don’t have any informants in the upper ranks of the Virginia Republican Party.
But we do have FEC filings, and they may very well be just as useful to find out whether John Warner is running for another term in the Senate or not. As you may recall, rumors were floating last month that Warner had signalled his preferred successor, Rep. Tom Davis, to prepare himself to run in his place. This was amidst news that Mark Warner, the mind-bogglingly popular former Virginia Governor, was considering a Senate run regardless of Warner’s decision.
Well, Tom Davis filed his first quarter fundraising reports today, and money talks:
Tom Davis (R): $623,463 raised; $833k cash-on-hand
$623k almost two years before the next election is an astronomical amount raised for a House campaign. While I haven’t seen all of the fundraising reports, it could very well be the highest haul of all House members this year. The next higest fundraising total was a similarly impressive number: $600k for freshman Democrat Ron Klein of Florida. Klein, however, occupies a bizarrely-drawn district with an insanely expensive media market, so he needed to post a larger-than-average 1Q report to deter any potentially strong challengers.
Stack up Davis’ $623,000 next to Warner’s five Benjamins (yes, that’d be $500 even) raised during the same time frame, and I think we may have some pretty compelling evidence to believe that John Warner is heavily leaning towards retirement.
Let the games begin.
That is an awesome amount for a house race.
Calling Mark Warner. Calling Mark Warner.
…Tom Davis will burn through that much money and more as he barely wins a nasty primary against George Allen. Then, we welcome our newest Senator Warner.
Under the arcane process under which state parties chose nominees in VA, they could either have a nominating convention or a primary.
Either way, a Davis candidacy will spark a conservative rebellion. Whether they pull Allen out of exile or Jim Gilmour or a rising star like Cantor… Davis will provoke a counterstrike by the right. Hell, half the Club for Growth membership and most of its leadership seems to be out of VA.
They nearly took down Warner in a convention a few years back when they were all riled over his dissing of Ollie North’s campaign and his not-too-subtle blessing of Marshall Coleman’s third party run at Governor. With the intra-party conflict between the state senators and delegates having raged for years and seemingly settled in favor of the delegates with Chichester bailing to retirement, do not expect the conservative wing to lie down for another liberal Country Clubber like Davis.
We need a good GOP brawl. Davis is strong in Fairfax County…and that’s where any Democratic margin has to come from. If Davis emerges as an undamaged nominee, I’d give odds he can take Mark Warner.
While the $623K might seem impressive for a House race by a member of the minorty, this is Davis’s MO. Without a lot of money and scaring people away with money, he has little chance of even staying in the House, forget about the Senate.
The VA 11th has trended hard Dem over the last few years. It is a growing area with liberal/moderate professionals as well as educated immigrants who have turned hard against Bush and hard against 1990s southern GOP conservatism. Davis saw this in 2000 when he shifted some Dem precincts to Moran in the 8th and got some GOP precincts closer to Loudoun county and some more in more GOP friendly territory of Prince William County. It still didn’t matter as the Dem ticket swept the 11th with 55%+ of the vote and Webb took another 55% in this district once represented by George Allen.
Davis has used his position in the NRCC and the Government Reform and Oversight Committee he chaired(and bottle up investigations that would have hurt his masters in the WH) to raise tons of money for himself and his wife (State Senator Jeanmarie Devolites Davis who is up for re-election this year). Even though this district is about a 53%-54% Dem district, his money (he has had several million in cash on hand since the mid 1990s when he was elected) has kept the DCCC on the sidelines and he has successfully frozen the NOVA Dem money away from the longshot challengers he has had until now.
This all changed in 2006. Davis burned through more than $3 million to defeat Andrew Hurst, a first-time candidate who directly challenged Davis on his fundraising, the GOP Congress on corruption, and Bush on the failed war. Hurst only raised $300,000, spent no money on broadcast television, radio, or direct mail, but still got nearly 45% of the vote. Davis spent like a drunken sailor on expensive DC television (the 11th represents a small part of the market), and I personally got at least 12 hysterically bad mailings where he attacked Hurst in silly ways and tried to portray himself as a Democrat by wearing all blue and enhancing his blue eyes. Davis is known foremost for being a total political animal, it is mentioned in every article about him, and nothing was left to chance.
However, while Andy did not win, he caused Davis to spend everything and leave himself vulnerable to Democrats who have won elections in the 11th before, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors President Gerry Connelly and former Rep and 2005 Lieutenant Governor candidate Leslie Byrne. Connelly is up for re-election this year and will raise and spend more than Davis has now to promote himself in a race he will win easily and set himself up for 2008 with high name recognition, a base of donors unafraid of Davis, a track record of local success in education, crime reduction, afforadable housing, land preservation, and the DCCC will get involved in this race and make it an instant top tier target and level the playing field.
In addition, Davis faces other problems in that his wife (his second wife who he married in 2004 and whose campaign he managed in 2003 even though he told the Washingtonian his first marriage failed because he was too busy with “work”) repreents the most Democratic Senate district currently held by a Republican and is facing a tough challenge from a seasoned candidate in Chap Peterson. She is currently trying to win by moving to the left of Chap on guns and other issues and overwhelm him with money (she has $500,000 so far, a lot raised from special interest with matters in front of Davis and his committee who have maxed out for Tom but can give unlimited cash to his wife), but it won’t work. Also, while $623K might seem like a lot, he will have to raise far more to even hope of winning a GOP primary statewide. In 2005, a Davis backed candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Sean Connaughton, was thought to be the frontrunner. He had far more money, is from northern Virginia, is a moderate, and was assumed to be a Davis stalking horse. He lost badly to William Bolling, a real conservative from southern Virginia. Forget Allen or Gilmore. Put a real conservative like Bolling, Cantor, or any of a half dozen Republicans in the legislature and they will beat Davis and his money. Simply put, northern Virginians do not vote in primaries like others in the state do, and Davis’s votes against the “surge” and others which he needs to make to hold the 11th will make it near impossible to get the nomination.
And unless he comes up with several million by the end of this year, he is going to lose his House seat too. His time has passed. He could get away with claiming to be a “moderate” and a Gingrich footsoldier in the 1990s when his district was slightly Republican and voters had not seen these frauds for what they were yet. Heading the NRCC and helping elect some of the biggest Neanderthals helped too, especially since the Washington Post and other refused to make the connection between his local image and his national activities. Now, he is another casualty of the Bush failure coupled with the Club for Growth, Christian Right takeover of the nominating process.
But don’t cry for Tom. When he loses (or bows out from running for either the House or Senate), trade associations and law firms will be ready to shower him and his wife with millions for their “skills”.
SIC summarized Tom’s travails well. This may be a lot of money but he needed to speand $3 Million against a candiate who took no PAC, union, or National Democratic money and he had the closest race of his career. He is one of three Congressmen who took money from Jack Abramoff and if justice prevails, he’ll be on Jack’s short list of pay-to-play politicians. His divorcing his wife to marry the losing candidiate he mentored and setting her up in a lobbying firm with businesses in front of his Committee doesn’t seem to be sitting well with the conservative southern part of VA in a state-wide Senate race. He’ll need every dollar.
The latest news is he knew about veterans sitting in pools of their own urine at Walter Reed since 2004, but didn’t want to bother the president. Not that the President knows what veterans go through, anyway.
http://www.TomDavisTruth.com
A Democrat would likely be a favorite to win it back.