I just got back from a meeting with former Virginia Governor Mark Warner at the Ritz Carlton hotel. The meeting was arranged by Jerome Armstrong, and was attended by Markos, Chris Bowers, Duncan Black and me…plus a guy doing a documentary pitch for the Sundance Channel on the rise and influence of bloggers.

Warner sat down with us with no staff and we had a bull session for about an hour and a half. We covered a surprisingly large amount of territory. But first, I want to say that I was impressed with Gov. Warner on a personal level. The fact that he agreed to spend time with us was nice, and he was enagaging, told jokes, had fun, listened closely, engaged in debate, and showed absolutely no arrogance whatsoever. On several points he was challenged quite forcefully and he showed no defensiveness, and was willing to grant points and carry forward a constructive conversation.

We talked about the spat between Emanuel and Dean, and Warner was generally supportive of the 50 state strategy (without allowing himself to take sides in the recent flap). Bowers pressed him on the fact that Virginia is the only state with two uncontested Congressional seats and he had a very informative and humble reply. Basically, he acknowledged that, as Governor, he had focused more on building up the team for state races. And he went on to discuss the characteristics and difficulties of the two districts in question.

We talked about our prospects in the midterm elections and a few of the individual campaigns. We had a long discussion on the merits of doing things to satisfy and mobilize the base, disagreeing somewhat on whether the base was already mad enough to go vote, or whether too much of its anger was directed at the toothless Democrats. I brought up Russ Feingold’s stratospheric rise in on-line polls after he took a stand on the Patriot Act and called for censure. Markos and Bowers filled him in on the details of the polling.

We discussed the leftward and anti-American movement of Latin America in recent years. Warner made a statement about Chavez undermining democracy in Venezuela and throwing around a lot of oil-money to foster anti-American sentiment and policy. I challenged him to give me some evidence of Chavez’s dictatorial tendencies. He mentioned packing the Supreme Court and cracking down on the press and trade unions. Then Duncan and I talked about our worry that we were trying to create another Saddam out of Chavez, and that we had seen enough meddling in the affairs of democratically elected officials in Latin America. I hope we made an impression on him.

We all pressed Warner on Iraq. He opposes the timetable for withdrawal and bases that on a calculation that it will not be helpful to declare a deadline in our negotiations with our allies in the region over what to do about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He also discussed the tenuous situation in Palestine, where Hamas has come to power. He feels that a date certain for withdrawal will also take away a potent argument from the struggling Iraqi government: namely, that the Iraqis need to support them or they’ll never get rid of the Americans. His reasoning was well considered, and based in part on a recent trip to the region and a meeting with the King of Jordan.

I don’t think any of us were satisifed with his answer, but I could tell that he had been thinking about it, that he had sought a lot of advice, and that he was as torn about the terrible mess and poor options as everyone else. He wasn’t dogmatic about his reasoning even as he made a sustained defense of it.

It was a fun meeting and I’d like to thank Jerome for inviting me to attend it and Governor Warner for setting aside the time. There are many policy issues on which Gov. Warner and I dont agree and I didn’t agree with everything he had to say today. But, I was very impressed with him as a person and as a politician. He has all the attributes our current President lacks: intelligence, curiosity, humility, a good sense of humor, and a willingness to listen and change course.