DENVER, Colo. -- Tom Donohue’s optimism about NAFTA shouldn’t be taken as read on the Democratic Party’s attitude, writ large, toward trade liberalization. Even if the controversial trade agreement survives unaltered, now is a day of rising protectionism. Mark Warner, who spoke at Tuesday's convention proceedings, is a case in point.

The 2008 presidential hopeful was once the face of centrist liberals. He was a hugely successful businessman (cell phones) and the Democratic governor of a red state. He belonged the Democratic Leadership Council, wrote articles with titles like “The Sensible Center,” and endured the ire of the party’s left wing. His answers to a 1996 questionnaire support free trade.

But in tonight’s speech, he threw red meat to anti-free-traders. Warner’s summation of world affairs: “Two wars, a warming planet, an energy policy that says let’s borrow money from China to buy oil from countries that don’t like us.” And at the climax:

If you can send a job to Bangalore, India, you sure as heck can send one to Danville, Virginia and Flint, Michigan and Scranton, Pennsylvania and Peoria, Illinois. In a global economy, you shouldn’t have to leave your home town to find a world-class job.
Let me tell you about a place called Lebanon—Lebanon, Virginia. Lebanon is in the coalfields of southwest Virginia, and everyone in that whole town could fit right here on the convention floor. Lebanon is like many small towns in America. It has seen the industries that sustained it downsized, outsourced, or shut down. Now, some folks look at towns like Lebanon and say, “Tough luck. In the global economy, you’ve lost.”

“Outsourcing,” even if it makes American goods and services cheaper in the aggregate, is not something politicians can ever get behind. But their critiques of it lie on a scale, and Warner’s has, over recent years, moved from the mild pole to the fiery one.