A sharply split Virginia Republican Convention nominated former Gov. Jim Gilmore to run for the seat of retiring Republican Senator John Warner.

Gilmore got only 50.3 percent of the delegate votes Saturday over conservative Bob Marshall, the Virginia General Assembly's most ardent foe of abortion and gay marriage.

The slim margin - only about 65 votes, less than a percentage point - leaves Gilmore to face popular, well-funded Democrat Mark Warner (web|bio) in the fall election in a state where the GOP lost the past two gubernatorial races and the 2006 Senate election. 

Gilmore assailed Warner in his speech as a tax-prone "limousine liberal" who will say anything to get elected. He ignored Marshall in his remarks to the approximately 3,500 delegates.

"He will go to the Senate and vote with the liberal Democrats who are out of touch with the nation," Gilmore said. "Mark Warner doesn't care what you have to pay for a tank of gas."

As he spoke, a team of his aides wearing blue and orange baseball caps worked the convention floor, making sure his delegates cast their votes.

Marshall's loud, sign-waving supporters, many of them church-based social conservatives new to the intricacies off party maneuvering, packed the convention.

"Go, Bob, go," they chanted through his remarks, the roar drowning out Gilmore's supporters. In conceding defeat, Marshall noted that he had only $78,000 to spend compared to nearly $1 million Gilmore raised. "And I still came within 80 votes."

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