There's a great nytimes mag piece on warner today as the dem party's 'plan b'.
I worked for mark at columbia capital in the mid nineties. It was my last job (which I was fired from) before becoming an entrepreneur.
Mark was a pretty good guy. He always struck me as the president of your student govt type (which I don't like) but was surprisingly smart and grounded.
I remember talking to mark about his political ambitions and trying to argue he would have more positive world impact overthrowing our corrupt two party system than being yet another hired gun president working on behalf of special interests.
The nytimes reporter, matt bai, seems to agree for pragmatic reasons, saying that mark will have to run as an outsider and attack the dem machine to win votes and support against hillary. Yet mark seems unwilling to do so. He's always been the consumate insider so its hard.
if warner did step up and attack both parties and their horribly corrupt ties to special interests he might seal his name in history. See mark's worth over $200 million. This is a guy who could say fuck you to a lot of important donors and still be there.
And ill predict a strange secondary impact of that move, a lot of other rich and not so rich fuck you'ers would come out of the closet with big checks. That's the $50 million we saw for dean but its also the coffers of guys like pierre omidyar (ebay), george soros, the google guys, ted turner.
How cool would it be to see a fuck washington campaign funded by a small group of billionaires and millions of ants?! Hell yes. Politics could get fun.
And mark, what do you have to lose? Let's see, you can go the safe pussy route and be the next kerry backup in case hillary trips. Even then your just an alternative to condie or whichever lame republican stick figure.
OR you could emerge as a leader with passion (like al gore became after he gave up). You could stop being so fucking polite and point your brains and money against washington to give the power to the people. If not now, when? After you're elected? Nfw.
Ill repeat what I said on your farm 12 years ago, there's no point in being president if you're just another incrimental politician. You will only make the history books if you lead a revolution which our country needs more today than either of us realized then.
And we love risk takers. That's why we hate the kerry candidates. Lose the handllers and take it to the people. Its ok to say that bush is an idiot leading our country back to the middle ages. Its ok to say that hillary is a scary woman who nobody can relate to. And why not just seed your campaign with 50 mil of your own money and tell all those important 'bundlers' to go 'bundle' someone else.
What's your fucking money for if not to overthrow a corrupt system and restore democracy to a once great country? Wow, I can't imagine a better blurb in the 2085 edition of 8th grade history textbooks.
If you ever do decide to run a real campaign give me a shout (markpinc@yahoo). I'd love to help. Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.
Long time reader, first time commenter...
Yea Mark! Great post. I will contribute some paltry but symbolic sum if warner runs. Keep us posted.
-David
Posted by: David Niederman | March 13, 2006 at 10:48 AM