Warner under fire - Virginia Sen John Warner

National Review, March 25, 1996 by Rich Lowry

All politicians adorn their offices with pictures of themselves and sundry souvenirs, but Virginia Senator John Warner seems to be angling for a spread in Town & Country. His office is a personal shrine, and he's the guide. The tour begins with a framed 1944 letter from the Secretary of the U.S. Senate recommending the young Warner, who had just quit high school, as one of the finest young men he had ever known. Even as a dropout, Warner was getting his ticket punched by establishment figures ready to nudge along his career. In this case, Warner was after a spot in the Navy. He got it. There are pictures on the wall to memorialize his service and a little case with his decorations stacked up against those of his father.

Next, paintings by Warner's art instructor. So the Senator paints himself? "I'm going to end up with that," he says, eager to enjoy each piece of these memorabilia in turn. There's a picture of Warner as Secretary of the Navy -- "a young really whiz kid in those days," by his own account -- at the signing of the Incidents at Sea Agreement in 1972. "Over here is one of the high points I would like to think, modestly, of my career" -- a copy of the Warner-sponsored Gulf War resolution signed by all the key players like a get-well card. Over in the corner is a looming elk head, shot, of course, by the Senator himself. "With an open-sight, V-sight rifle at about 240 yards. I was a marksman in the Marine Corps and always shot pretty well."

Finally, a stack of Christmas cards with a painting of tangled yellow flowers on a dark background: "'Sunflowers' 1995, oil on canvas, by John Warner." Then the silver-haired senator, with his strong chin and fine nose, his 69 years showing only in the deep creases in his cheeks, plops down in a chair, props his feet on the table, and loosens his tie. Life, as they say in the beer commercials, is good. The cards feature a Thomas Jefferson quotation, which reads in part, "thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the better part of life is sunshine." Warner married, by turns, money and celebrity, and parlayed both into a political career; he lost the nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in 1978, then saw the winner die in a plane crash that sent him to the Senate; he works not so much in a deliberative body as in a chummy club with dozens of close friends. He has always, in other words, had reason to believe in the "benevolent arrangement of things." At least until recently.

The world is shifting beneath John Warner's feet. The national GOP has moved steadily rightward, making life in the Senate more uncomfortable by the day for him and his clutch of long-serving moderate friends. The Virginia Republican Party has seen an influx of religious conservatives for whom Warner, a self-styled Virginia gentleman, can only have disdain. And the Washington which Warner has made his life has become almost a dirty word. Outside his office, the Senator blinks at an increasingly incomprehensible landscape. At a recent meeting of Virginia activists, Warner played his favored role of gentleman escorting a lady -- in this case, keynote speaker Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R., Tex.) -- into a $50-a-plate Friday-night dinner. But the Senator's dignified aspect was spoiled when he had to wade through a raucous group of College Republican protestors at the door chanting the name of his opponent in Virginia's June primary. Surely they weren't supposed to be in Jefferson's benevolent arrangement.

JOHN Warner was a busy young man: service in the Navy and Marine Corps, a law degree from the University of Virginia law school and work as an assistant U.S. Attorney, stints on the Nixon campaigns in 1960 and 1968. But perhaps his most important early success was marrying the daughter of billionaire Paul Mellon. The hefty contributions his father-in-law made to Nixon almost certainly helped Warner land a job as Undersecretary of the Navy in 1969. Soon enough, he moved into the top spot. In 1973 the Warners had an amicable divorce, with Warner getting the Middleburg estate and a substantial amount of cash. By then he knew that he wanted to get into electoral politics, and he found the perfect entry ticket in 1976 by marrying serial bride Elizabeth Taylor.

Large crowds showed up at Warner for Senate rallies in 1978 just to glimpse the one-time sex-pot. It is this glamor-boy campaign that created a permanent sense among Virginia activists that Warner is somehow illegitimate. His opponent was the deeply committed conservative Dick Obenshain, the architect of the modern Virginia Republican Party. Obenshain beat Warner, but died two months later in a plane crash. Distraught Obenshain backers approached several other candidates before turning to Warner, who pledged to vote the Obenshain way and managed to unite the party that November. But the scars are deep. Warner still complains: "That group that are out fighting me today really tried to get four other people to run before they came to me."

Warner at first honored his Obenshain pledge. But gradually his own instincts prevailed. Warner can be a gracious man. If he has a reputation as a dandy, it makes for a certain charm. The problem is that chumminess is his guiding principle. "It's very difficult for him to say 'no' to people," says one defense expert, "particularly if he sees some political down side." So although his voting record is loosely conservative, he has a nose like a bloodhound for "bi-partisan compromises." "He's always off somewhere else when you need him at the end," complains one Senate aide. "And usually he's off somewhere else doing something harmful and at cross-purposes with what he was saying and doing when he was standing at the starting line."