Of the four governors I covered at the state Capitol, Mark Warner would be my top choice if I were picking one to serve a second term. If I were choosing a next-door neighbor, he'd be rock bottom last.

My reasoning is the same in both cases.

Warner's blend of ego and obsessive-compulsive personality makes it impossible for him to shrug off a problem, be it large or small, as someone else's responsibility. There is no fence high enough to keep him out of your yard if your shrubbery is getting shaggy. And if it's a budget that needs pruning, he'll be first in line, his shears sharpened, to do the honors.

Despite my desire for a Warner sequel in Richmond (and yes, I'm already freaking out about the 2013 gubernatorial election, but that's another column), reporter Michael Sluss' story last weekend reminded me why Virginians need him in the U.S. Senate.

The lengthy article chronicling the Democrat's efforts to build a bipartisan consensus for reducing the national debt should have been overkill. Why is it front page news when a member of Congress identifies a problem and tries to solve it? Because Americans have packed the U.S. Capitol with hundreds of men and women whose only reaction to the financial crisis is to run toward the nearest TV camera and demand that someone else do something about it while looking around for an easy target to blame.

It's hard to understand why they bother to seek elected office if they can't think of anything more constructive to do than email press statements that inevitably begin, "I am deeply disappointed ..." but never end "with myself."

Polls show voters don't have the same difficulty channeling their disappointment in the appropriate direction. Congressional approval ratings so far this month range from 12 percent to 19 percent.

Popularity polls mean nothing, though, if voters continue to support the candidate who feeds them the most vacuous platitudes, spreads the most venal lies about his or her opponent and then kisses the most babies at the cantaloupe festival.

Warner isn't on the ballot this fall. It feels as if he's the only politician in Virginia who isn't. But it's worth keeping him and his lonely quest for rational governance in mind as candidates for other congressional seats gear up for their campaigns.

Locally, incumbents in the 5th, 6th and 9th House districts all face challengers. While those races have been relatively quiet so far, the contest to fill the Senate seat being vacated by Jim Webb has been raging for more than a year.

An underlying theme of last weekend's Virginia Bar Association debate between Republican George Allen and Democrat Tim Kaine was the need to elect a senator who can work across party lines.

While the two former governors underscored examples of cooperation in their political biographies, their rhetoric was strikingly different when questions turned to more immediate issues like health care and deficit reduction.

Allen's criticism of Kaine drifted from policy differences into personal jabs, including a comment that Kaine was Obama's "handpicked" Senate candidate. The Republican offered little hope that he would be a consensus builder if given a second Senate term after his 2006 defeat by Webb. For example, Allen rejected a hypothetical budget compromise in which spending cuts exceeded tax increases by a ratio of 10 to 1. Throughout the debate, Allen drummed away on Obama as if he were reliving his long-expired dreams of a White House bid.

In contrast, Kaine promised to "be a partner with President Obama or a President Romney."

Maybe you believe Kaine; maybe not. The more important question is why Allen seems to be satisfied with a campaign that could leave him sidelined unless his party takes decisive control of the Senate as well as the White House, and perhaps might hamstring him even in the event of GOP victories. Words spoken in the heat of a campaign don't simply evaporate.

There are more than three months to go before Election Day. Warner, of course, will back his fellow Democrat in the Senate race, but he'll be paying close attention to the words of both candidates. Voters should do the same.