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In 2014, Mark Warner nearly lost his U.S. Senate seat to Republican Ed Gillespie because Warner deliberately kept his distance from his fellow Democrat in the White House, Barack Obama.

Warner did not want to offend his supporters in the Republican-leaning business class. He did offend the Democratic base, giving key voters — read: liberals — an excuse to stay home. For Warner, it led to a near-death experience. Ever since, his votes in the Senate have been decidedly more accommodating of the Democratic rank-and-file.

In 2017, Ed Gillespie appears poised to win the Republican nomination for governor. He is avoiding his fellow Republican in the White House, Donald Trump.

Gillespie, a professional talker who amassed a fortune plumping for the corpocracy, is keeping his mouth shut. As a PR man, a former lobbyist and political operative, Gillespie knows that sometimes what you do not say is more important than what you say.

Other than Trump’s caught-on-tape boast about groping women, Gillespie is offering little or nothing about the controversies defining the new president, whom Gillespie was in no particular hurry to endorse.