By Ray Reed
Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: May 6, 2008

Democrat Mark Warner’s centrist theme in his statewide tour for the U.S. Senate got enthusiastic support today in Lynchburg from Preston Bryant, who represented the city for 10 years in the Virginia House of Delegates.

“I am a Republican, and I am supporting Mark Warner for the United States Senate,” Bryant said, to cheers from a crowd of about 250 at the foot of Monument Terrace during Warner’s noontime campaign stop in Lynchburg.

It was the seventh city visited by Warner since he began the tour Sunday in Abingdon. He planned stops later today in Charlottesville and Harrisonburg.

Del. Shannon Valentine, who now fills the House seat Bryant previously held, said she has “great hope for our country because of a man named Mark Warner.” She said Warner’s election as governor seven years ago opened the door for new leaders in Virginia.

Former state Sen. Elliot Schewel of Lynchburg began the partisan speech-making by blasting former Gov. Jim Gilmore, Warner’s predecessor as governor and who is also a candidate to oppose him in the Senate race next fall. 

“Jim Gilmore was an absolute disaster as governor,” said Schewel, a Democrat.  “He left office with one of the lowest approval ratings of any governor in recent history, and he left Mark Warner with the worst budget deficit in the history of our state.

The budget crisis turned around during Warner’s four years in office, partly because Bryant and a hand-ful of other Republicans supported a tax increase that Warner proposed. 

“Mark Warner ended his term with a surplus,” and “one of the highest approval ratings of any of our gov-ernors in recent years,” Schewel said.

Gilmore and Del. Robert Marshall of Prince William are competing for the GOP nomination to oppose Warner in November.