ALEXANDRIA, Va.-Mark Warner knows how he’d market Virginia, one of America’s booming high-tech hotbeds, if elected to the Senate this fall.
He’d have a picture of Thomas Jefferson sitting at computer, saying, “Two hundred and fifty years ago, Virginia was a good place for innovation. It’s still a good place for innovation.”
Warner, a 41-year-old wireless entrepreneur worth an estimated $100 million and until recently chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, wants to integrate technology into public policy to improve the economy, education, health care, social programs and government.
He is among a group of business executives of moderate political persuasion, some recruited by Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Bob Kerry (D-Neb.), that the party is pinning its hopes on-perhaps unrealistically-to regain control of the Senate from the Republicans in November.
“There’s a picture to be painted of Virginia that says while we can maintain all our traditional industries, we can be the leaders of this technology revolution,” said Warner, founder and managing director of Alexandria, Va.-based Columbia Capital Corp., which has invested in a number of telecommunications ventures, including personal communications services bidder GO Communications Corp. “We can be the folks in the forefront. And nobody’s painted that picture yet.”
The Indiana native is expected to win the Democratic nomination and face either three-term Senate incumbent John Warner (R-Va.) or James Miller III, budget chief under President Reagan. Warner said he expects the winner of the Republican primary to come out bloodied, helping his cause. The two Warners are not related.
“John Warner maybe was right for the Cold War,” said the younger and less experienced Warner, “but we have a different set of problems now.”
Not wanting to be overlooked, Democratic opponent and former Virginia congresswoman Leslie Byrne is quoted as calling Mark Warner “Republican lite.”
Byrne also lashed out at her Democratic opposition for accepting federal conservation payments at his King George County, Va., estate. Warner said ending the federal contract would have cost more than the payments he received, but he subsequently paid back the nearly $8,000 he received on the same day, Jan. 24, that he filed financial disclosure papers.
“I want the job more than my opponent,” said Warner. “I’m going to work harder for it. I’m going to frame this race as a choice between, `Are we more interested in where America and Virginia’s been or are we more interested in where it’s going.’*” But it may take more than that, namely exposure. But with a full campaign war chest and millions of his own dollars, that can be fixed over time.
Warner shuns campaign comparisons to publishing mogul and erstwhile Republican presidential hopeful Steve Forbes, saying he hopes to rely as much as possible on successful fund-raising. Forbes dug deep into his personal fortune to bankroll his campaign run before bowing out recently.
The Virginia Senate campaign could cost between $6 million and $8 million, according to Warner. Another difference between Forbes and Warner, the latter points out: Forbes inherited his wealth. Warner didn’t.
“I really lived the American dream,” said Warner, who used student loans to help pay for Harvard Law School. But “I look at what’s happening in Washington and I see politics is more and more controlled by extremists on both ends, the far right on one and the political correctness crowd on the other. You look at the United States Senate and many of the more rational members are getting up and quitting,” citing Sens. William Cohen (R-Maine), Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kan.), Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Bill Bradley (D-N.J.).
The first of his family to attend college, Warner wears a toothy grin on a bony, determined face. He vowed not to accept contributions from political action committees and to leave the Senate after two terms. Warner said he’d like to serve on the Senate Communications Committee, an assignment that would force him to put his telecom holdings into a blind trust. “I don’t want to even have the hint of conflict of interest,” he stressed.
Warner and the wireless telecommunications industry share the same success story. He capitalized on the cellular boom of the 1980s by brokering deals and making savvy investments, not to mention having a hand in the build-up of two of the largest wireless carriers: McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. and Nextel Communications Inc.
Columbia Capital is a leading merchant banking and investment banking firm in the wireless industry, holding stakes in a slew of wireless concerns like Nextel, Telular Corp., GO and Columbia Spectrum Management. The firm’s clout is bolstered by Warner’s wide network of political and telecommunications industry contacts.
So, with so much wealth, why politics?
“The passion that makes me do this is I really think this country is at the beginning of a technology revolution that’s going to outstrip what the industrial revolution did,” explained Warner. “It’s going to change our economy, how and where we do our job, how we educate our kids, how we deal with health care, incarcerate prisoners, feed the hungry-you name it.”
“I’m not pretending that technology in our industry has got some magic bullet or panacea that’s going to solve the problems and I’m not even saying I’ve got all the answers,” said Warner, “but I don’t think these guys in Congress are even asking the right questions.” His criticism extends to his own party.
Take the family values issue so popular with politicians today.
“If we could get 40 percent of America to telecommute two or three days a week you would do more for working moms and dads with kids than all the government programs in the world,” he stated. “It’s a mind-set shift that I don’t think many of the people in Washington-who have been there too long, haven’t built businesses in this new economy and are still fighting about the old, hot-button issues-have. I’m not sure that’s the kind of new thinking we’ll need to lead us into the next century.”
Warner fashions himself as a moderate, a fiscal conservative at that. His first order of business would be to balance the budget in seven years.
So what’s it like in the fast lane of politics?
“This is all consuming, harder than anything I’ve ever done in business,” Warner admitted. “It’s seven days a week.” But, “if you don’t get involved, you can’t complain.”
