Opinion: Jim Gilmore sets his sights on the Senate

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Having launched and folded a hopeless presidential election campaign not that long ago, Virginia’s former Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore starts yet another campaign this morning, this one for the U.S. Senate. ‘The race is on,’ he says.

Gilmore wants the Republican nomination to try and keep the seat in Republican hands next year when veteran John Warner retires. Gilmore will likely face off against another former governor, Mark Warner, who decided not to run for the Democratic nomination for president.

Gilmore is the scrappy, 58-year-old son of a meat-cutter who rose from county prosecutor to attorney general to governor in Virginia’s unusual one-term system. A backer of George W. Bush, Gilmore served briefly as chairman of the Republican National Committee where he, well, scrapped with White House political operatives a few times too many and was soon scrapped himself in favor of another former governor, Montana’s Marc Racicot.

In 70,000 letters mailed to backers around the state plus an e-mailed video sent to 5,000 more and posted on his website and YouTube, Gilmore said he offered Virginians ‘unparalleled experience and a strong and steady hand.’ He said he intended to contrast his Army and national security experience (he was governor on 9/11 when a hijacked airliner was crashed into the Pentagon, which is in Virginia) with the Democratic Warner, who was not in the military.

Warner announced his candidacy in mid-September and raised $1.1 million in 17 days. He also has a personal fortune estimated at $200 million. A popular centrist, he will likely seek to portray himself as a businesslike politician and Gilmore as an ideological conservative who fought with his own party’s moderates.

Gilmore may face a primary challenge from a little-known four-term state legislator, Christopher Saxman. Nonetheless, Gilmore modestly called his likely race against Warner ‘a clash of the titans.’

The race will certainly be watched closely in 2008 on the national level as a crucial contest for control of the Senate, where reeling Republicans must defend 22 of the 34 seats up for election in November, 2008.

--Andrew Malcolm