Gilmore buried in hole he dug

The photograph at the top of Tuesday’s front page of The News Virginian shows Mark Warner soaked in perspiration, shaking a young admirer’s hand during the annual political Lollapalooza that is the Buena Vista Labor Day Parade. The picture of a sweating Warner belies the reality of his candidacy for U.S. Senate, a race that ended when Jim Gilmore entered it.
A successful entrepreneur and deft politician, necessarily adroit at talking much while saying little, Warner has so far outdistanced Gilmore in the polls and fundraising that tracking the statistics is hardly worth the bother.
In honor of Monday’s holiday, let us belabor the point: SurveyUSA showed Warner up by 24 percentage points in poll results released Aug. 11; Rasmussen Reports a day later put the margin at 26 points. As of midsummer, Gilmore had $117,000 in the bank. Multiply that by 24 times and you have Warner’s war chest — $2.9 million. Does Gilmore know the election is this year? Does it matter?
More intriguing: How might the disparities be explained?
It starts with record, as it must. Perspective leaves the object, like the front-page image of Warner, prone to the illusions of the beholder. Warner succeeded Gilmore as governor in 2002, and proceeded thereafter, as the story goes, to reassemble state finances left in shards by Gilmore mismanagement. This is true, but only to an extent.
Democrats roundly criticize Gilmore, a Republican, for his crusade to eliminate the car tax, a goal accomplished partly; the state at his behest eliminated 70 percent of the levy. Warner charged that the loss in car tax revenues helped create a budget gap that necessitated the record $1.4-billion tax increase he brokered with Republicans in 2004. In fact, there was a surplus that fiscal year before the increase and state revenues were growing without it.
What Gilmore cannot escape is his record on spending: Virginia’s operating budget swelled by almost a third during his four years as governor. Increasing spending while cutting taxes – a practice favored by President Bush – is like mixing nitrates, a fine idea if explosion is the intent. Colleagues from both sides of the aisle sought to make this point to Gilmore, who famously wondered “what mess?” as elephants filled the room.
Thus appeared a formidable Gilmore nemesis: himself. He is regarded with contempt among some party insiders put off by the kind of hubris displayed during the budget crises that arose during his stay in Richmond. When allies waved red flags, Gilmore disdained them. Similarly, when those among the red set questioned his support of first-trimester abortions, Gilmore chafed.
Counted singularly, none of these factors would be sufficient to quell Gilmore’s aspirations, not at least in a political realm where compromise is art. Arrogance is tolerated so long as it is balanced by competence. Wavering is overlooked when affability compensates. Gilmore scores poorly on each of these counts. The result is that one who does not suffer well his critics finds his hopes suffering, and his career with it.
Lacking the political sentience to recognize the flickering of a once-glowing future, Gilmore considered a run for the presidency worth the time and so wasted his. Lost on Gilmore is that which ought to be obvious to the observant, that party powers nudged him into a race they knew he could not win with the precise intention of accelerating his emerging fade into oblivion.