While the Warner campaign has been quiet when it comes to what Mark Warner actually supports, they have taken a strong stand against something at least: Mark Warner firmly opposes any questions about issues or criticism, even from members of his own party.

Last night, the Warner campaign had several comments posted from Democrats. One was asking his stance on gay issues (and why a previous comment had been deleted) and another was critical of his campaign tactics. This morning, the comments are not only mysteriously gone, but the option to even comment is missing. Luckily, through the miracle of browser caches, Red Senate has been able to preserve these comments for posterity:

On December 12th, 2007 at 05:38 PM, Lenny wrote:
How come you took my comment thanking the Governor for standing with the GLBT community? Does he not support the GLBT community?

On December 12th, 2007 at 06:55 PM, John P. wrote:
It sure is a shame that Phil Forgit lost. The media says that with the low turnout it all boiled down to GOTV operations. Too bad we didn't have some extremely popular former Governor, perhaps even a Senate candidate, who could have thrown his weight around and helped turn another VA House district blue. Oh wait, we did have one. He just felt like sending out a couple of token e-mails and tooting his own horn. Gov. Warner, you need to realize that the world does not revolve around you. The special election last night reminded me of your announcement timing. We could have taken both chambers of the state house with a little more money but instead you felt like jumping the gun and announcing before the 2007 elections were over and funneled valuable resources to your needless "pre-emptive" announcement. Please remember that your are not the only Democrat in VA.

Rob Wittman has handily won election, not only that he won traditionally Democratic areas. All while the media was pushing Phil Forgit at every given opportunity and Democrats were confident of victory.

A sign of things to come?

The Richmond Times Dispatch is covering the story, first broke at BVBL, of the Warner campaign's spy in the GOP. At the time of the story's breaking, the few defenders of Mr. Payne attempted to paint him as nothing but a low-level policy worker with little interest in electoral politics. The fact that he is now a "strategist" for the Mark Warner campaign would seem to indicate that maybe his motives weren't quite as pure as they would like to pretend:

Former Gov. Mark R. Warner has hired a strategist from the Republican Party's failed bid to save its Virginia Senate majority to enlist GOP support for his Democratic U.S. Senate candidacy.

William H. "Will" Payne II joined the Warner campaign from the staff of Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, a key ally in Warner's successful effort to win a $1.4 billion tax increase in 2004 for schools, police and human services.

Payne declined to comment yesterday, deferring to Warner spokesman Kevin Hall.

"Will is able to reach out to those pragmatic independents and Republican-leaning folks who would be naturally inclined to Mark Warner's brand of leadership," Hall said.

But M. Boyd Marcus Jr., a senior operative for Warner's likely Republican opponent, former Gov. Jim Gilmore, said Payne's affiliation with the Democrat raises troubling questions.

"It was a grave violation of any kind of ethical standard to go out and hire someone from the other side who had access to immense amounts of sensitive information," Marcus said.

Clean it up in '07 said on 15 Nov 2007 at 10:33 am:

Once again on this blog, much is being made out of these legislative assistant positions. I laughed when Fittzsimmonds supporters were actually asserting that these are some knd of “insider” policy shaping jobs. They aren’t. They are administrative posts that are VERY apolitical, and in some instances the positions are held by people of the opposite party of their bosses. There are some legislative assistants who have held their positions even as a different member of a different party was elected to the post. Some General Assembly members view this position just for what it is: a constituent affairs adminstrator…..and yes…they have to make coffee too.

They are people hardly in a position to be included in high level campaign and policy strategy sessions on the statewide level. Heck, Stolle himself probably has a hard time getting in on those conference calls.

It's hard to say if the dirty tricks or the transparent lies in defense of them are more sickening.

A number of Virginia bloggers have launched Bloggers 4 Jim Gilmore. Make sure to add it to your blogroll as it is sure to be a great source of news in the Virginia blogosphere and has a number of great authors from numerous blogs.

SWAC Girl reports:

Word has come out that the democrats had a tracker inside the Republican Advance over the weekend filming Jim Gilmore and others. The dems, of course, will be trying to repeat their "macaca" glory from last year ... and so the nasty games begin.

Do you have a Democrat on your list who lacks in ethics but has big wants in notoriety? We have found the perfect gift for you!

It's the Slime Cam! Fun to chase around any and all Republican Candidates when you know you don't have any issues and desperately need something, anything, to slime your opponents with!

Act now, and you can get a free carrying bag of dirty tricks!

Wait, That's not All ! What if you film a Republican saying something that no one has any clue, because the candidate himself doesn't even know! It doesn't matter, you can just make that crap up in Wikipedia....

And Remember, Desperate is, as Desperate Does! (Looks Like Governor Jim Gilmore has some people scared).

And let's not forget that Warner already had a mole listening in on sensitive GOP conference calls just before the election. Mark Warner hasn't opened his mouth once on any single issue even once, yet his campaign manages to find time to pull every dirty trick in the book.

What's next from the Warner campaign? Phone taps? Midnight break-ins at the Gilmore campaign office? Only time will tell...

Chris Saxman has stated in his RPV Advance speech that he is not running for U.S. Senate. As we speculated, it was a publicity stunt for a 2009 run all along.

The Jim Gilmore for Senate campaign is providing live coverage of the Donald Huffman Advance at their campaign blog and are uploading pictures as the day goes on.

As for Chris Saxman, one individual on the ground at the advance described his apparent level of support as "anemic."