Warner closes Senate career

CHARLOTTESVILLE — Sen. John W. Warner yesterday announced that he will not seek a sixth term next year, ending a maverick career in Congress that will have spanned 30 years when he steps down.

“I will conclude my service to Virginia as a senator when I complete this — my fifth — term on January 6, 2009,” Mr. Warner told a large crowd of supporters and reporters at the University of Virginia, where he went to law school more than 50 years ago.

Mr. Warner, 80, is a veteran of two wars, a former Navy secretary under President Nixon and a key Republican voice about the Iraq war.

His departure from the political stage opens the door for what many predict could be one of the most watched races in the country featuring political heavyweights such as Rep. Thomas M. Davis III and former Gov. James S. Gilmore III, both Republicans, and former Gov. Mark Warner, who is a Democrat and not related to the senator.

The Washington Times reported yesterday that the National Republican Senatorial Committee representatives traveled to Richmond last week to get opposition research from the state Republican Party on Mark Warner, who told The Times earlier this year he was being courted by state and national Democrats to run for the Senate next year.

Political observers say Mark Warner would be an immediate favorite, should he decide to run. He unsuccessfully challenged the senator in the 1996 Senate race.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gilmore, who recently ended his bid for his party’s nomination for the 2008 presidential race, has said he is “certainly interested” in running for the seat.

A congressional source close to Mr. Davis told The Times yesterday, “Tom’s running. He didn’t want to say more today because it’s the senator’s day.”

Mr. Warner would not say who he plans to support in the race, but many expect that he will throw his support behind Mr. Davis.

The senator cited his age as a primary reason for leaving and said that he will spend the next 16 months dedicating most of his time to bring “cessation” to the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts that he described as the “most complex series of problems I have seen in my life.”

“[Now] no one can say politics is going to dictate how I am going to speak out about what is best for the nation,” he said, referring to remarks he made last week about the need for the United States to withdraw 5,000 troops from Iraq by Christmas to pressure the Iraqi government to move toward political reconciliation.

Borrowing words from Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Warner, standing alongside his wife, Jeanne Vander Myde, said, “There is fullness of time when men should go, and not occupy too long the ground which others have the right to advance.”

Then he said, “Together with my family, I have decided to follow this sage, fair wisdom and yield the right to others to ’advance.’ ”

Republicans and Democrats praised the senator for his decades of service.

“Senator Warner is skilled at reaching across the aisle to forge consensus when the people of Virginia and this country are looking for leadership,” said Sen. James H. Webb Jr., Virginia Democrat. “He maintains an independence and clarity of thought that are all too rare in Washington.”

Mr. Davis agreed. “Senator Warner is a giant. … For decades, he’s been everything a public servant should be: thoughtful, honorable, persistent, courageous, and generous. He’s been that rare politician who cares more about getting things done than getting credit.”

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat, called Sen. Warner “a great Virginian, and a true statesman.”

Former Sen. George Allen, whom Mr. Warner campaigned for in his failed re-election bid last year, called the senator “a great patriot” and “a country gentleman.”

Mr. Warner is known for his independence, which periodically put him at odds with conservatives.

He opposed the Reagan administration’s Supreme Court nomination of federal Judge Robert Bork in 1987 and supported an independent candidate against Republican Oliver North in his 1994 run for Virginia’s other Senate seat.

The senator also has been criticized for supporting abortion rights, some gun control measures and embryonic stem-cell research.

Democrats said it was that independent streak that set the senator aside from others.

“Whether standing up to the president on Iraq or supporting Governor [Mark] Warner’s budget reform in 2004, John Warner often put principle before party — a quality sadly lacking in too many Virginia Republican leaders today,” said C. Richard Cranwell, chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat who is seeking her party’s nomination in the 2008 presidential race, echoed Mr. Cranwell’s sentiment.

“At a time when the tone in Washington is so often defined by partisanship and rancor, Senator Warner has always risen above the fray, focused on what he believed was the right course for our nation,” Mrs. Clinton said.

Mr. Warner, who graduated from Virginia with a law degree in 1953, was first elected to the Senate in 1978, when he campaigned alongside his wife at the time, actress Elizabeth Taylor. Mr. Warner is the state’s second-longest serving senator after Harry F. Byrd Sr., a Democrat who spent 32 years in the U.S. Senate.