Well, it appears to be all Warner all day today.

Someone mistook me for a bigtime blogger and I got invited to attend Mark Warner’s post-talk blogger chat. I asked the first question, which went something like:

I’m going to ask the Iran question, but I’m going to get at it sideways. You said that Iran is the biggest WMD threat out there. But Pakistan is a tremendously unstable country right now. And if Musharraf fell, Al Qaeda could get the bomb within 6 weeks. And al-Baradei has just said that Iran does not now have the bomb. So why is Iran the biggest threat?

He then listed several reasons why Iran was a threat: Ahmadenijad’s nuttiness, a “regional strategy,” support for terrorism. I pointed out that none of those things were WMDs. I’m not certain, but I’m fairly sure he argued that Hamas was a big threat, although he did later admit that Al Qaeda is a threat.

Anyway, I think I at least made him think about this differently.

There’s an underlying tension here at YearlyKos, as 2008 presidential candidates try to figure out how to engage with the blogosphere. The two biggest blogosphere darlings, Gore and Feingold, probably figured they were better off marketing a movie than preaching to the choir. But many of the other potential candidates did show up: Governors Richardson,Vilsack, Warner, and General Clark. (Senator Boxer is not a candidate, but if she were, her stock would be falling, because she endorsed Lieberman yesterday.) Those with real affinities have joined a panel. Richardson endorsed Jerome a Paris’ (and Meteor Blades’) energy plan. General Clark wowed a lot of people with his scientific knowledge (apparently he goofed on some scientific formula, though I didn’t see it), and Vilsack will join Teacherken to talk about education this morning.

Mark Warner, though, chose a different approach. Millionaires, you see, can throw a mean party.

Warner rented out the entire top of the Stratosphere, with a great spread and bars at every corner. I’ve worked in and out of corporate America for 25 years (and personally witnessed Howard Dean’s phenomenal $40 million burn). And I’ve never been to this kind of truly excessive party.
I don’t know whether all the free food and liquor bought our loyalty. I actually never saw the candidate … I was much more interested in meeting the folks from DKos. But who knows whether that was the point? One person suggested the real audience was Hillary, a giant pissing contest over who could blow money with the greatest abandon. “Hillary, money is no object.”

Apparently, the blogosphere is the new Iowa. There are worse ways to travel.