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Mark Warner Gave Me The Dead Fish Handshake
By spokesman | November 2, 2008
Mark Warner is the Democratic candidate in Virginia for the U.S. Senate. In 2001, while he was campaigning to be Governor of Virgina, I ran into him at a campaign rally and he gave the dead fish handshake because I live in Maryland, not Virginia.
The Whole Story- I was biking riding with a friend on the W&OD trial and we came across a street festival in Leesburg. We decided to walk our bikes through the crowd to see the festival. At the same time, candidate Mark Warner was working his way through the crowd, shaking hands and greeting voters. Suddenly we were right in front of him. Mark saw our bikes and quickly deduced that we must have ridden there. As he extended his hand to shake my hand, he said “I see that you guys rode here today, where are you from”? As he began to grip my hand, I said Silver Spring (which is in Maryland) and my friend said Vienna (which is in Virginia). Upon hearing the responses, Mark Warner’s grip loosened in my hand as he transformed to the dead fish. He pulled his hand away from mine and firmly shook my friend’s “Virgina” hand.
How Can Mark Correct The Snub?- I am not one to hold a grudge and would like to resolve this situation. As a Senator, Mark will be meeting people from all of the other States and he must learn to overcome his tendency for the deadfish grip on cross-state handshakes. Mark can correct his prior snub by granting an interview to the Bicyclespokesman. Currently, Mark Warner’s lead in the polls is 25%. So obviously he has shook some of the right hands. Nevertheless, an interview with the Bicyclespokesman can be important to picking up the cycling vote and really locking in a victory on Tuesday. In the interview, he can discuss some of the issues important to cyclists and demonstrate that he has the grip to work a brake lever.
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Topics: Bikes and Politics |
November 6th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Good reads, love the info, keep up the good work.
December 24th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Very good site! I like it!
April 14th, 2011 at 5:37 am
I came across this post recently although you wrote it some time back. I worked for Warner during that time period and may have enve been at that event. Despite your “encounter” with him, he was a pretty good guy. Like all politicians during an election, he was very focused on the people that could vote for him (i.e marylanders don’t matter in that case)
Thanks for the comment, I’m sure that he is a good guy
July 15th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
I liked your post about Mark Warner Gave Me The Dead Fish Handshake | BicycleSpokesman.com. Your website is very informative. Thank you for all your hard work.