What’s up with our senators?

With this year’s election just finished, let’s look back at the state’s rookie senators: Democrats Jim Webb and Mark Warner.
Jim Webb has been extremely active recently, calling for the Senate Appropriations Committee to fully fund the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program with $9 million for the 2010 fiscal year.
The Civil War BPP is a matching grants program that has protected 15,300 acres of pristine battlefield. Mr. Webb also has co-sponsored a bill that would extend unemployment benefits by 14 weeks.
As for fellow senator Mark Warner, he has put his efforts behind health care reform and spent time on the campaign trail for gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds.
While Mr. Webb has been the more visible and vocal of the two, Mr. War-ner is still getting his feet wet, and we expect to see him become more involved, especially when it comes to pushing his “radical centrist” ideas.
To get elected in right-leaning Virginia, Mr. Warner used a business-friendly formula that made him appear more Republican than Democrat. That works on the campaign trail, but it can be a hard position to stake out, especially when the bulk of your party is pushing legislation that promotes unions, expands federal government and generally makes the private sector an afterthought.
It will be interesting to see if Mr. Warner truly stakes out his own course, or whether he goes lock step with the party’s powerbrokers.

adapted from the Culpeper Star-Exponent