Mark Warner is mostly known within political circles these days as the anti-Hillary, but the ex-Democratic governor of Virginia has strong IT credentials that would make him the first former high-tech executive to call 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home. Of course, he faces numerous obstacles in his still-unannounced quest for the White House, most notably grabbing the Democratic Party nomination from front-runner Hillary Clinton, let alone ousting the GOP hold on the federal government.InformationWeek is a business technology brand, so I won't get into the political hurdles confronting Warner. For that, read Matt Bai's excellent article, "The Fallback," published Sunday in The New York Times Magazine [subscription required].

As co-founder of the high-tech venture capital firm Columbia Capital, and as an early investor and leader in mobile phone provider Nextel Communications, acquired last August by Sprint, Warner had a high-tech vision for Virginia, introducing a program to bring broadband Internet capacity to rural counties, for instance.

Two years ago, Warner sat down with then-InformationWeek editor-in-chief Stephanie Stahl and me to discuss his views on how IT could advance his governmental agenda. Please read my article, Stephanie's column, and an edited transcript of our interview.

You'll be reading and hearing a lot more about Warner in the months and years ahead, this time about his vision--including the role high-tech will play--for America.