RPV Takes First Shot At Marky Mark

Here is the first RPV press release commenting on Marky Mark’s campaign kick-off:

Tall Tales From the Campaign Trail:
Mark Warner Begins Senate Campaign

RICHMOND, VA – As Democrat Mark Warner officially kicks off another campaign, Virginians can rest assured that they have seen this story before: Mark Warner travelling around the Commonwealth making promises about what he will do if elected. This time they are prepared.

Virginians have learned that Mark Warner will say one thing on the campaign trail, only to turn around and do the opposite once elected. He vowed repeatedly in his 2001 that he would not raise taxes:

“I will not raise your taxes.” (October 10, 2001 Gubernatorial debate transcript)

“The fact is I will not raise taxes. You can say it 20 more times, but the people will know the difference.” (October 10, 2001 Gubernatorial debate transcript)

Not only did he break that promise, but he pushed through the largest tax increase in Virginia history.

“This month, Mark Warner officially launches his campaign to represent Virginia in the United States Senate,” said RPV Chairman John Hager. “In doing so, Mark Warner is once again expecting Virginians to trust what he says on the campaign trail. This time, however, voters from the Commonwealth know that this Democratic candidate is not credible.”

The stakes are high in 2008 as the current Democrat majority in the Senate is banking on Mark Warner to help enact its liberal agenda.

“While Ted Kennedy and his friends in the Senate would like nothing better than to welcome another tax-hiking Democrat into their ranks, Virginia will have the final say in the matter,” Hager added. “Republicans are ready to unite behind our nominee and to send him to Washington to fight for limited government and Virginia values.”

Not a bad start, but they’re going to have to do much better than this. We all know that Marky Mark lied when he said that he wasn’t going to raise taxes. Unfortunately, voters have come to expect candidates to break campaign promises. So, why is Marky Mark as popular as he is? Primarily because the GOP-led General Assembly blocked him from doing most of what he would have otherwise done. Aside from having raised taxes, Marky Mark has no legacy from his time as governor. So, given that he did next to nothing and people were able to go on with their lives without the government doing all sorts of meddlesome things due to gridlock, he reaps the credit for that. Ask the average voter what Marky Mark did in office and why they approve of him and they will be hard pressed to give a specific answer.

If the GOP is going to beat Marky Mark on the merits and not have to resort to dumping the personal dirt on him that they have in waiting (big shout out to Howard Wolfson and the Clinton campaign folks for pulling it all together), they are going to have to go after the various examples of incompetence from his administration that are readily available. Personally, I’d create the narrative that Marky Mark’s time in office was marred by Enron-style accounting.

On October 17, 2001, Enron revealed that due to an accounting error it had overstated the company’s net worth by more than $1 billion. In November of that year, Enron restated its earnings for the past four years, saying that its profits were $568 million less than it had previously announced. That is a total of $1.568 billion in accounting errors for Enron.

In 2004, Mark Warner erroneously forecast that a deficit existed and was off by $1.4 billion. This led him to call for a $1.4 billion tax hike — his sole “accomplishment” as governor. Surprise, surprise, we wound up with nearly a $2 billion surplus after that. His administration then “misplaced” $137 million of that money intended for education. That is a total of $1.537 billion in accounting errors for Mark Warner.

If Mark Warner had committed such gross accounting malpractice in the private sector that he committed as Virginia’s governor, he’d be cell mates at a country club prison with Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling.  Instead, he now wants us to trust him with the federal treasury. I don’t think so.

Furthermore, the GOP needs to puncture the whole myth about Marky Mark saving Virginia from a budget deficit thanks to his tax hike. Virginia cannot have a budget deficit. By law, Virginia must have a balanced budget. In fact, when Warner took office, he inherited a budget SURPLUS from Jim Gilmore.  (For the record, Virtucon has not endorsed in the GOP senate race with some contributors personally supporting Gilmore and others supporting Bob Marshall.)

Nevermind that Marky Mark and his protege Timmy! haven’t been able to meet environmental goals for the Chesapeake that were established by Gilmore.

Marky Mark won in 2001 because he was able to run an issueless campaign, had no record to run on, lied about not raising taxes, sponsored a NASCAR with his campaign logo on it and ran this awful bluegrass song commercial on the radio “Mahhrrkkk Wahrnerrrr….  He stands for edumacation….”

Make this campaign about issues.  Make this campaign about his record.  If the GOP nominee does this while also putting forward a commonsense conservative platform of his own, this will be a real race.  The dirt dump will only make it a blowout in the direction opposite of what most people currently expect.

UPDATE: Brian Kirwin at Bearing Drift challenges Marky Mark to say what exactly his gobbledygook “radical centrist” label actually means.