Mayor Fraim has shot at bid for governor, analyst says

Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim

By HARRY MINIUM
The Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK -- After winning 77 percent of the vote Tuesday to become the city's first elected mayor in 90 years, what could be next for Paul D. Fraim?

A run for governor, political analyst Larry J. Sabato said.

Sabato, a Norfolk native and director of the Center For Politics at the University of Virginia, said Democrats around the state are quietly talking about Fraim as a successor to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine in 2009.

"He ought to think about it," Sabato said. "The Democratic Party has no obvious successor to Kaine. He is very popular around the state."

Sabato said if former Gov. Mark R. Warner decides to run again, the nomination is his. Otherwise, he said Fraim has as good a chance as anyone.

Fraim said, for now, he has no interest in running statewide and said he isn't positioning himself to run. He has not given speeches outside Hampton Roads. He said he hasn't even been to the Shad Planking in Wakefield - considered the place for aspiring statewide candidates to cozy up to the politically powerful - in nearly two decades.

His focus, he said, is on his native city.

"I don't know where those rumors are coming from," Fraim said. "Honestly, what I'm looking forward to is being the best mayor possible. That's the focus of 100 percent of my attention. I have no other political office in mind."

Perhaps so, but Kaine and Fraim have similar backgrounds, Sabato said, and that makes Fraim attractive to state Democrats.

Kaine was the mayor of Richmond who led a biracial coalition and had strong business support. Fraim has support from the city's black and business communities.

Kaine and Fraim are close friends, and flew to Dearborn, Mich., together last week to lobby Ford officials not to close the company's Norfolk Assembly Plant.

"I would think Paul Fraim would be a very strong candidate," Sabato said. "It's well known that Tim Kaine asked him to run for lieutenant governor in the last election and, had he run, I think he would have won.

"Paul Fraim is seen as a centrist who has managed a remarkable rebirth of his city, " Sabato said.

He said Fraim's denial that he's interested is the standard answer more than three years before an election. Yet Fraim said he might just run for re-election as mayor in 2010.

He certainly will have a large war chest with which to do so. Fraim raised more than $270,000 in campaign contributions, including $200,000 in one night at a Ghent fundraiser. He likely will have a considerable amount left over for a future campaign.

Councilman Paul R. Riddick wonders if that money might be a good start for a gubernatorial campaign. Yet Sabato said it's pocket change compared with what Fraim would have to raise.

"He'll need a lot of $200,000 nights if he wants to run for governor," Sabato said.

"But if he runs, Paul Fraim is a candidate to watch."