After Roanoke, Mark Warner heads to Norfolk

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner ratcheted up his campaign Monday, promising a gradual exit from Iraq and battling expectations supporters and political professionals called unrealistic.
Breaking with both major candidates for his party's presidential nomination, Warner called for a withdrawal plan from Iraq that was incremental and without a timetable.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to set a date for withdrawal of American ground troops from Iraq.
Without elaborating, the former governor said the pace of the withdrawal said the pace of the withdrawal "depends on how things are on the ground."
He also faulted the Bush administration for failing to force Iraq to take a greater share in its own defense and reconstruction.
"Americans are spending $11 billion to $12 billion month (in Iraq) while Iraq is sitting on $70 billion worth of oil profits," Warner said.
Warner started the day in Roanoke, addressing about 250 people at a fire station, then flew to Norfolk where a crowd of about 350 people greeted him at the Nauticus maritime museum with the historic USS Wisconsin battleship in the background.
He planned additional stops in Richmond and Alexandria to end the first full day of a campaign kickoff tour. Warner announced his intent to run in September.
He is unopposed for the Democratic nomination. His predecessor as governor, Republican Jim Gilmore, and Del. Robert G. Marshall of Prince William are competing for the GOP nomination.
Even as the favored Warner barnstormed the state to moderate workday crowds, Warner backers and advisers fretted that too many people may consider the race a lock.
Polls show Warner holding a double-digit lead over the tenacious Gilmore, and he has raised more than $6 million since last fall to about $700,000 for Gilmore.
Roanoke Mayor Nelson Harris said as much when he introduced Warner there by asking the crowd, "Are you happy to be at a Mark Warner victory party?"
"This is unfair to Mark as a candidate," said David "Mudcat" Saunders, a consultant who helped pioneer Warner's rural outreach strategy in 2001 and did the same for Democrat Jim Webb's successful Senate race in 2006.
"This is Virginia, and when the mayor introduces him today saying we're at a Mark Warner victory party that's an unreal expectation," Saunders said.
Expectations so high can suppress a candidate's ability to raise money and leave supporters and staff lethargic, Saunders said.
"I mean in Virginia, a 55 percent to 45 percent margin (in an election) is a really big win for a Democrat," said Saunders.
In Norfolk, Mayor Paul Fraim agreed.
"The expectations are way too high. There is a great deal of enthusiasm with these crowds, but this is going to be a very difficult and hard-fought campaign," Fraim said.
John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee-apparent, will be formidable in Virginia because of his war hero past, Fraim said. Also, he noted, Virginia has not backed a Democrat for president since 1964. The eventual GOP Senate nominee will be quick to capitalize on that, he noted, as Gilmore has already tried to do. Gilmore has already printed up yard signs and bumper stickers that marry Gilmore's logo with McCain's.
"I think it's a destructive notion if anyone thinks this campaign is over. In the end, it's only going to be a few percentage points," Fraim said.