Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, once counted among the vice presidential contenders, slammed GOP policies on energy and the economy during his prime-time speech Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention.
Warner — fighting for a Senate seat in a traditionally red state that Democrats are trying to capture — called the presidential contest between Barack Obama and John McCain the “race for the future” and the “most important contest of our generation.”
Under Republican policies, too many kids have the grades to go to college but not the money, he said. Warner also hammered the GOP for the housing crisis, broken health-care and education systems, and an addiction to foreign oil.
“Two wars, a warming planet, an energy policy that says let’s borrow money from China to buy oil from countries that don’t like us,” he said. “How many people look at these things and wonder what the future holds for them? In George Bush and John McCain’s America, far too many.”
Democrats are hoping that putting Warner under the convention’s spotlight as the night’s keynote speaker will help him win the open Senate seat in Virginia — and that his popularity could spill over into votes for Obama come November.
But Virginia has not gone for a Democrat for president since 1964.
The band inside the Pepsi Center jazzed up the crowd with the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited” just before his speech. Delegates were on their feet dancing and waving signs saying “Strong Middle Class.”
Keeping with one of the convention’s themes, Warner told his own “American story.” The businessman, who made his money in the cellphone industry, said a buddy told him of a new idea called “car telephones.”
“With luck and a lot of hard work, I got in on the ground floor of the cellphone industry,” he said.
Warner said his biggest criticism of Bush is he “never tapped into our greatest resource: the character and resolve of the American people.” After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the president should have asked Americans to join him in a push to “get us off foreign oil, to stop funding the very terrorists who had just attacked us.”
“Every American would have said, ‘How can I do my part?’ ” he said. “This administration failed to believe in what we can achieve as a nation when all of us work together.”
Obama, he said, will lead the country in the right direction on health care, education and energy policy.
Jennifer Brown: 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com
