DENVER -- Mark Warner might have been speaking tonight.

Before he took his name out of the running, he was frequently mentioned in the speculation over the Democratic vice presidential choice.

He might even have been speaking tomorrow night. Before switching his sights to one of Virginia's U.S. Senate seats, he spent months exploring a run for the presidency. Instead, he wound up in the keynote speaker's spot that launched another presidential campaign four years ago.

His address last night lacked the soaring oratory of Sen. Barack Obama's 2004 introduction to the national stage, but it shared the future-focused, post-partisan themes that the Democratic nominee would like to make his signature.

" 'I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past,' " he said last night, quoting one of Thomas Jefferson's letters to John Adams. "Jefferson got it right at the dawn of the 19th century, and it's our challenge to get it right at the dawn of the 21st."

Mr. Warner's tenure as governor helped turn his state from red to purple and paved the way for its surprising status as a Democratic target this year.

"What's my biggest criticism of President Bush?" he asked. "... it's the fact that this president never tapped into our greatest resource: the character and resolve of the American people. He never asked us to step up.

"Think about it. After Sept, 11th, if there was a call from the president to get us off foreign oil, to stop funding the very terrorists who had just attacked us, every American would have said, 'How can I do my part?'"

Choosing the former telcom pioneer for the early convention spotlight signaled Mr. Obama's effort to identify himself with the reputation for working across party lines that Mr. Warner gained as governor.