Why Mark Warner is Still Popular

Yesterday was the annual Wakefield Shad Planking. For those not familiar with the event, The Wakefield Ruritan Club has hosted The Planking since 1949 on the wooded property of the Wakefield Sportsmen's club near Route 460 in Sussex County, Virginia, about an hour southeast of Richmond and an hour west of Virginia Beach. It is held on the third Wednesday in April each year.  Originally an all Democrat, all male, all white event, today it is overwhelmingly Republican and open to all interested in drinking free adult beverages and eating shad -- the oily, bony fish smoked for the occasion on wood planks over an open flame.  It's a place for candidates to see and be seen and for the politically active to renew old friendships and talk about the likely winners and losers of the year's coming campaign season. 

U.S. Senator Mark Warner was yesterday's featured speaker and Bearing Drift notes that even though Warner has become uncomfortable talking about his support for Obamacare, he at least should be given credit for doing something that the last two statewide Democrat candidates decided not to do, show up.  Warner hasn't abandoned what go him elected in 2001 - going to rural Virginia.

And Warner played his usual "bipartisan" self in his remarks to the assembled crowd:

“Today, we’re not Democrats or Republicans; we’re Virginians and Americans, first and foremost,” Warner said, thanking the Wakefield Ruritans for raising money for rescue squads, Little Leagues and scholarships.

“Of course, looking at this crowd, I realize I’m here as an endangered species, a Virginia Democrat,” he added, pausing a bit for the laughter to subside.

“Looking around the crowd, that’s kind of like Republican women here as well — not many of either one of us,” Warner said, smiling to a burst of energetic female screams meant to prove him wrong. “I knew I’d get ’em,” he said.

Shows why even with Ed Gillespie raising over $2 million over the last 75 days, why he has an uphill battle unseating Warner this year.