"The contest between Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) and Democratic challenger James Webb could be influenced by who's got the better Warner.

Webb campaigned yesterday with former governor Mark R. Warner (D), who remains immensely popular with Virginia voters despite his decision Thursday to back out of the 2008 presidential race. In a Washington Post poll taken last week, 73 percent of voters had a favorable impression of him.

Meanwhile, Allen stood side by side last night with Sen. John Warner (R) in a two-minute commercial broadcast on television stations statewide. Warner, the state's senior senator, is almost as popular as the former governor, according to the Post poll, which listed Warner's favorability at 66 percent.

The two Warners battled 10 years ago, when Mark Warner asked voters to elect 'Mark, not John' as he unsuccessfully sought John Warner's Senate seat. They have since become friends, but now are competing again in a politically charged October, with only three weeks until the Nov. 7 election.

'This is a good man,' Mark Warner said of Webb as the two campaigned at the Greenspring Village retirement community in Springfield. 'If you have friends, relatives, . . . kids that live around here -- make sure they know what you already know, what is at stake in this election. Let's take back our country, and let's start right here in Virginia.'

In front of about 300 residents, Mark Warner pleaded with the audience to get out and support Webb, whom the former governor called an 'independent voice' that is needed in the Senate. After announcing last week that he will not run for president, Warner vowed yesterday to do all he can to help elect Webb.

'I'll have a little bit more time now to campaign with Jim,' Warner said. 'I am going to put all my energy behind this effort.'

Webb advisers believe Mark Warner can play a critical role in helping them woo women and rural voters, two groups that recent polls indicate Webb needs to do better with.

In 2001, Mark Warner was elected in part because he reached out to rural voters, particularly in southwest Virginia, where he garnered 100,000 more votes than then-incumbent senator Charles S. Robb (D) had the year before when he lost to Allen. And polls just before Election Day in 2001 had suggested Warner was the clear favorite of women.

'I'm biased, but I would take the governor as opposed to the senator,' said Webb consultant Steve Jarding, who managed John Warner's gubernatorial campaign.

John Warner and Webb were former secretaries of the Navy; Webb served on Warner's staff when Warner was at the Pentagon. Warner has never publicly criticized Webb, having once tried to recruit the former Republican to run for the Senate seat that Allen now holds.

But the senior Virginia senator has made it clear he's supporting Allen in the current contest, partly out of self-interest. If the GOP loses control of the Senate, Warner would have to give up the chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Allen has turned to John Warner in the final days of the campaign, hoping his courtly colleague in the Senate will help him earn support among moderates and critics of the Iraq war.

'We make a good team, and we've worked together successfully on many issues that are important to you,' Allen said in last night's two-minute ad featuring Warner, which ran in the Washington area on WJLA (Channel 7).

John Warner has deep support among independents in Virginia, in part based on his opposition to Republican Oliver North's candidacy in 1994 and his own battle with conservative James C. Miller in the GOP primary of 1996. Warner has also become an individualist in the Senate, often joining Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge President Bush on such issues as torture and judges.

Allen is clearly hoping that some of that middle-of-the-road image rubs off on him.

'George is honorable, thoughtful and a principled man,' Warner said in the ad last night, which showed them in Allen's Fairfax County home. 'George has my vote. I ask you to keep him as my partner in the Senate.'

But John Warner also has impeccable military credentials. His recent comments that the Iraq effort was 'drifting sideways' make him a favorite of those who oppose President Bush's 'stay the course' position on the war. Allen has aligned himself with the president's position.

For Allen, being close to John Warner provides a way to distance himself from Bush.

'I have given my straightforward, outspoken views about the challenges that face not only our nation but the whole world in Iraq,' Warner said in the commercial. 'Iraq's government and its people must now show greater and greater strength against those who want to destabilize the country and seize its oil and to finance future acts of terror.'

Allen's aides said his voting record mirrors that of John Warner's. They said that Allen has cast only 154 votes, out of 1,937, that were different from Warner's.

Still, on issues, Allen and John Warner are hardly indistinguishable. In February, the National Journal said the pair was the Senate's top 'odd couple' among senators from the same state and party. In the article, Allen received a score of 86 for his support of issues important to conservatives; Warner received a score of 60.

Mark Warner seized on that point in questions with reporters after appearing with Webb.

'On issues like stem cell [research], issues like the situation on Iraq, it seems like the senator's positions are actually closer to Jim Webb's than they are' to Allen's, Mark Warner said.

Mark Warner will campaign this week with Webb in Hampton Roads. Next week, the two plan a series of campaign stops in the rural communities south of Richmond, the Shenandoah Valley and southwest Virginia.

John Warner will join Allen in the final 21 days of the election, according to Allen campaign aides.

Neither side would say whether they will use the Warners in future TV commercials." (Michael D. Shear and Tim Craig, The Washington Post, October 17, 2006)

Editor's Note: An index to coverage of George Allen on the Loper website may be found at http://loper.org/~george/archives/2006/Aug/925.html