Jim Gilmore, having made just about no impact on the Republican presidential race so far, has finally found a receptive audience: The editors of the Washington Post’s op-ed page, where he writes a letter to President Bush, declaring:

As a veteran of the U.S. Army I believe we cannot just abandon Iraq. I believe the only realistic alternative — the least bad option, if you will — is a limited deliberate drawdown of our military men and women and a redeployment of the forces remaining in the region to areas where they can more efficiently and effectively carry out a clearly defined mission.

I had heard that Gilmore, after leaving the RNC on not the best of terms [A GOP insider described his tenure as “a disaster from the start” to Stuart Rothenberg], had hoped to return to an influential role in Virginia politics. (No one’s certain that John Warner is running for reelection, the governorship is open in 2009, Webb is up in 2012…) A presidential bid, filling the slot George Allen vacated when his Senate reelection campaign fell just short, would appear to be on paper a good way to raise one’s profile, reestablish connections to donors, etc.

On paper, that is.