Author: Texas Nate

Last week Mark Warner was a featured guest at a fundraiser for ActBlue, the PAC that has made state of the art online fundraising technology available to Democratic campaigns at the federal level since 2004. They’re currently fundraising to expand their services to candidates in state races across the county. Help ActBlue. Read what Benjamin Rahn, co-founder of ActBlue  has more to say in the extended entry.

Benjamin Rahn, one of the co-founders of ActBlue, has this to say about Governor Warner’s involvement in the ActBlue fundraiser:

All of us here at ActBlue are honored by and incredibly grateful for Governor Warner’s headline appearance at our June 15 fundraiser.  He drew a fabulous crowd, and his enthusiastic support for ActBlue made the guests feel great about investing in ActBlue’s work.

ActBlue is proud to be among the many successful new organizations and initiatives sprouting up in the modern Democratic movement.  But our entrepreneurship will flourish only if the Party’s public figures invest the time and political capital in these efforts.  Governor Warner’s support for ActBlue is exactly the kind of leadership we need in the Democratic Party.

Benjamin Rahn (pictured with Governor Warner)
Boston, MA

Click on the photo of Ben and the Governor to see more photos from the ActBlue event on our Flickr page.

Are you in Las Vegas this coming Friday night?  If so, Governor Warner is hosting a party for the blogosphere at Yearly Kos. It starts 2 hours  after the Booman/MyLeftWing/European Tribune party so please come on over for at least a  little while — it’ll be a great chance to grill Mark Warner on any positions you differ on.  If you are attending YearlyKos, you’re invited. To put your name on the elevator list, go and sign up at the Forward Together website.

Unless his flunkies screw up, you’ll also have credentials in your registration package, but just to make sure you don’t miss the open bar, the free food, and the free rides (they have crazy rollercoaster rides atop the 100+ floor Stratosphere), get on the list.

Here’s the details:

Blogosphere at the Stratosphere Party

Hosted by Gov. Warner

Friday, June 9th

9-11pm

Stratosphere Casino Hotel Tower

Also, Governor Warner is speaking on Saturday at 12:30 for all attendees with Q & A’s following… See you at the top of the Stratosphere Friday night.

It seems timely to post this while Booman’s account of meeting Governor Warner is frontpaged.

Governor Warner spoke to the Wisconsin Democratic Party a while back and we excerpted part of the speech for this video.

It’s also available as a podcast if you’re into that sort of thing.

crossposted on the Forward Together Blog.

Governor Warner is wrapping up a two day visit to Iowa where he campaigned for Congressman Leonard Boswell. The DeMoines Register, and Associated Press have coverage of the trip.  Political Forecast has a report from the Boswell fundraiser.

This morning NPR aired an interview of Governor Warner by Steve Inskeep (audio file available). NPR also has an analysis of the inteview.

Here’s an excerpt:

INSKEEP: Let me ask about another issue where it would seem that voters are not satisfied entirely with the president’s performance but they’ve been reluctant to embrace Democrats. What would a Democratic president do differently? What could a Democratic president do differently in 2009 in Iraq?

WARNER: First of all, get rid of Secretary Rumsfeld. It’s remarkable in my mind that the architect of this war — where we have inappropriate use of intelligence information, selective leaks, no plan for what we do after we take out Saddam Hussein, no ability to actually build any kind of regional effort to find a stable Iraq — is still calling the shots. I for one, as you see now increasing numbers of our very military leaders who have been tasked with doing this enormously challenging job — and by the way, the military has done their job; they took out Saddam Hussein, they took out the command and control of the Baathist Party and the Iraqi army — what they’ve not had is the kind of support, I think, from this administration that they deserve. What I think we need to do going forward is, we need to look at this through the very pragmatic view of what is in America’s best long-term interest. A failed Iraq is not in America’s best long-term interest. This I don’t believe was about al-Qaida to start with. But now, a failed Iraq could be a haven for al-Qaida, and other foreign terrorists is not in our interest. A failed Iraq that could end up becoming a client state of Iran, a vehicle for Iranian expansionism in the region, is not in our interest. What do we need to do? The one shining spot from this administration is in our ambassador in Iraq, Khalilzad, who is actually trying to force the Iraqis into a unity government where you don’t have militia leaders controlling, for example, the defense industry or the defense ministry or the interior ministry, where he’s trying to bring in the rest of the region. I think going forward, what we need is a true unity government that where the Iraqi man on the street feels some sense of security. The Iraqis need to step up in terms of their own security forces. And No. 3, we’ve got to look at how we cannot simply make this an American problem. A regional contact group similar to North Korea, potentially a U.N. high commissioner — some way to have more international responsibility in terms of how we end up with simply a stable Iraq and then how we can then exit the country and leave the country in no worse shape, at least in terms of threatening to America and destabilizing to the region, than before we went in.

INSKEEP: No worse shape? Are you saying maybe we have to lower the bar, lower the standard a little bit to the point where the United States would be willing to get out?

WARNER: I have not been one of those, and I understand the frustration that many Americans of both parties feel. I’m not one that believes we can set an arbitrary deadline. But I think if we don’t see the Iraqis themselves come together in weeks, not months, in terms of forming this unity government and then if we don’t see measurable progress in months, not years, after this government is formed, then I think have to look at a way to get out. We don’t need American troops simply playing referee inside a civil war in Iraq. But we have paid close to 2,400 lives, close to 13,000 American wounded. Our military sacrifice has been enormous. We need to do all we can, and, unfortunately, the window is closing, to make sure that there is at least a stable Iraq. I think the notion that somehow a democratic Iraq was going to lead this widespread democratization effort all across the Middle East.. That… needs to no longer be one of our primary goals. Our goal ought to be what’s in America’s best interest and that is stable and a way to get our troops home.

I wanted to let people know that Governor Mark Warner will be  a guest on Al Franken’s Air America show today. He’ll be on live between 1-1:30 eastern time.

Tomorrow Governor Warner is in Iowa where he’ll be a special guest at a fundraiser for Congressman Leonard Boswell.

The AP has a story on Governor Warner’s efforts on behalf on Democrats across the country:

There are lots of places Democrats can be competitive where we haven’t been before,” he said. “And we can reach out to Reagan Democrats, moderates and independents without sacrificing progressive values… There’s real growing concern about the direction of this country, and the best thing I can do right now is help candidates around the country.

And the Globalist features an op-ed from Governor Warner on the “challenges of technological advancement.” More in extended entry.

People are, understandably, afraid of change. They’re afraid of new technologies. They’re afraid of different cultures and ways of doing things.

…

The forces of change — often wrought by technology — are not beyond the control of individuals. The forces of change can and must be controlled by individuals.

…

In the late 1990s, before I became governor, I worried that parts of Virginia were falling behind. The technology boom was transforming northern Virginia, but it was not reaching the rest of our state.

You could put computers in a library, or build a fancy computer lab and offer lessons — but many people won’t come.

While northern Virginia was gaining tech jobs, parts of southern Virginia relied on textiles, tobacco and furniture-making — not industries in which you would want to hold a lot of stocks.

Against that backdrop, I founded a group called Tech Riders. The name was inspired by the civil rights Freedom Riders of the 1960s. Only we would bring a whole new kind of freedom — the freedom to be empowered by computers and the Internet, to join in the great transformational change of the day.

We hired college students to go around the state. AOL, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, chipped in, and we bought hundreds of computers.

But we faced an interesting challenge. You could put computers in a library, or build a fancy computer lab and offer lessons — but many people wouldn’t come.

They didn’t want to try something new in a strange place. They didn’t want to be embarrassed.

So our question became: How can you get people to approach technology without fear or resistance? The best thing to do would be to go into everyone’s living room. But since we could not do that, we had to ask: Where else could we make people comfortable?

How can you get people to approach technology without fear or resistance? The best thing to do would be to go into everyone’s living room.

We decided to go into peoples’ houses of worship. So Tech Riders went into churches, synagogues and mosques.

People could see that embracing this new technology did not mean leaving behind what was important to them. And within two years, 16,000 Virginians of all ages — many of them parents and grandparents — had benefited from Tech Riders training.

…

All of us want a better future for our kids. I think America must speak to that commonality. We must say to the young girl, whether in southwestern Virginia or southwestern Bangladesh: I’m on your side. I want you to make a positive contribution. I want you to be empowered by this transformative change.

The pace of change is breathtaking. If you think the last few years have been remarkable, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

But I am an optimist. I believe in the capacity of change to lift people up and bring people together. In a world where the concerns of one become the concerns of all, the actions of one can make a difference to all.

Mark Warner has released a short video clip about the importance and opportunities of 2006. Take a look and if you agree that 2006 is critical year for Democrats, please come to the Forward Together PAC site and tell us how you plan to help Democrats win in 2006.

Governor Warner has been busy campaigning for Democrats across the country, including Francine Busby, Claire McCaskill, Harold Ford, Jr.

More from Governor Warner in the extended entry.
Here’s more from an email Governor Warner sent to supporters of the Forward Together PAC earlier today:

“2006 is going to be a critical year. Not only is the Congress at stake, but we’ve got 36 governorships, a series of state houses and local elections as well. And if we are going to be successful, Democrats have to be the party, this year, that lays out a progressive forward-looking agenda for our country.

“That’s what Forward Together is about this year: supporting those candidates who will be able to not only expand our Democratic family, but also pick up some of those disaffected Republicans and independents who are very scared by today’s Republican Party — a party that lacks fiscal discipline, that increasingly is being controlled by the social right-wing agenda.

“Democrats need to be the party that is for innovation and investment in education and providing greater access to affordable health care, the party that brings everyone forward together. There is a particular opportunity for us to reach out to rural America with a message of economic hope for areas that once carried our economy on their back, and now need new investment and educational outreach to succeed again in a global economy. If the Democratic Party can provide those ideas, we can take back the Congress, we can end up winning the majority of the governorships and that will set us up well for future elections.”

Mark Warner started Forward Together PAC to help candidates in key races who share his common sense, future-focused, results-driven approach to politics that has worked in Virginia. Please come to the Forward Together web site and get involved.

Blog readers have known for a while that 2006 may be a once in a generation opportunity for Democrats to change the political map. Now it’s hitting the traditional media. This week TIME Magazine reported that “a startling realization has begun to take hold: if the elections were held today, top strategists of both parties say privately, the Republicans would probably lose the 15 seats they need to keep control of the House of Representatives and could come within a seat or two of losing the Senate as well.”

At Forward Together PAC, we’re working to help Democratic candidates capitalize on the opportunities presented. Governor Warner has been working on behalf of candidates like Francine Busby. Francine’s got a great track record of handling fiscal crisis and increasing access to public schools. She’s got the ability to reach out and draw strong support in a Republican-leaning district makes her exactly the kind of candidate that Forward Together is proud to support.  Francine’s leading in the polls heading into a special election on April 11 but it’s likely the race will go to a run-off in June. Francine needs our help to pull off a win in this key race.

Next week, Governor Warner will be speaking at a fundraiser for Claire McCaskill’s U.S. Senate campaign in Missouri. As State Auditor, Claire revolutionized her office, making state government more accountable by uncovering millions of dollars in wasteful spending and exposing inefficient government practices. She also has an impressive record as a tough prosecutor who targeted domestic violence and created one of America’s first drug courts.

These are the kind of candidates we started Forward Together to support. The kind of candidates who can claim the center and expand our Democratic family by reaching out to disaffected Republicans and independents – the people who just don’t like what they’ve seen after years of Republican control.

We changed the map in Virginia and we think we can change the map all across the country. If we can do that, we can help make sure that America once again leads the world — not only with our military and economic might, but with American values and a focus on the future. Help us change the map, come to the Forward Together web site and get involved.