Chairman's Update
Tim Kaine Breaks His Word, Joins Team Obama
Imagine for a moment this scenario, sure to unfold many times in the upcoming General Assembly session that starts next week: Governor Tim Kaine steps before the microphones and says... something.
It could be anything -- some budget figures, a promise or position on taxes, the benefit of a program he supports, or his opinion that Oreos go great with milk -- take your pick. Now the question isn't whether anybody within earshot will believe a single word of what he says, the real question is, how could they?
Yet again, our Governor has broken a pledge. Only two months after saying that he would not accept the position of Democrat National Committee (DNC) chairman because the grave state of affairs of Virginia requires his full attention... well, it's Chairman Kaine now.
Here's the Governor then on serving as DNC chair:
"That's not something I'm going to do. I don't view that, frankly, as consistent with being governor, so I'm going to be governor... I would view it as taking my eye too much off the ball about things that need to happen here."Amazingly, this comes only a few weeks after Kaine complained that nobody would accept at face value his insistence that he would not take a job with Obama. As the Richmond Times Dispatch pointed out at the time, while citing numerous examples of broken Kaine pledges, nobody believes a person (let alone a politician) with a track record of neglecting to keep his word.
Compare this with the record of the last Virginia governor to head a national party, Gov. Jim Gilmore, or as he's otherwise known, the last governor who kept his promises. When he accepted President George W. Bush's appointment to head the Republican National Committee (RNC), the Democrats were quick to jump all over him.
Said the Virginia Democratic Party co-chair in the Washington Post on December 22, 2000:
"It's just going to be another year of the governor not being here to solve the fiscal crisis facing the Commonwealth."Let the record show that Jim Gilmore not only balanced the state budget, but left a surplus for his successor.
With Virginia facing its worst budget crisis ever -- $3 billion (at least) in the hole -- and everyday Virginians worried about their future and their families, it takes chutzpah that would make Alan Dershowitz jealous for Kaine to take a job as the mouthpiece of Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, et. al., after admitting that doing so would conflict with his duties on behalf of the state he was elected to serve. The same Democrats who rode the slogan "change we can believe in" now have a chairman that nobody can believe.
In all fairness to Obama, selecting Kaine as the top partisan Democrat is a home run. His entire governorship has been void of any achievements beyond getting more Democrats elected to office. Not a single issue that he has asserted as a priority -- transportation, strong fiscal management, better schools, and on and on -- has progressed under his administration. As far as accomplishments go, Kaine is the Detroit Lions of governors, a sad fact for the people of Virginia who put their faith in his campaign promises.
As the Virginian Pilot points out, Kaine's legacy as governor will be notable, not due to any accomplishments as the state's chief executive, but "for his political legacy, calculated by the number of Democrats who have won elections with his help." The same editorial urges consensus building, hardly possible when your primary job as party chair is to appear on Sunday talk shows to bash Republicans and storm the country raising campaign cash for Democrats.
And so finally ends the image of Virginia Democrats as non-partisan problem solvers as carefully molded by Mark Warner. Call the Democratic Party for an address on where to send the funeral wreath, because the day of (in appearance if not substance) the non-partisan Virginia Democrat is dead and buried, just when we most need elected leaders to work across party lines to provide solutions.
It's hard to find any evidence that Tim Kaine could care in the least. Later this month, he'll be walking the red carpet and rubbing elbows with the nation's elite liberal jet-set to host an inaugural ball for Barack Obama. Unfortunately, doing so breaks Virginia laws against raising campaign money during a legislative session (a law fought for and passed by Republicans). Ignoring admonitions from even the op-ed pages that habitually support him, Tim Kaine once again puts political gain above the laws and interest of Virginia.
As we head into the 2009 legislative session, Republicans will try to set all this aside and work with the Democrats to resolve the many issues facing Virginia. Our main difficulty when listening to what Tim Kaine and his administration have to say is figuring out whether he is speaking in his capacity as governor, or his job as the top dog in the national Democrat party -- and whether he will do what he says he will do given his record of reversing himself more than my two year old daughter changes her mind.
Without offering any explanation as to why a decision he previously characterized as harmful to Virginia is a decision he now thinks isn't a bad idea, Tim Kaine said of accepting Obama's offer, "He's a pretty persuasive guy." It is a shame that as we prepare for the most critical legislative session in recent memory, regardless of what comes out of his mouth, the people of Virginia won't be able to say the same of their governor.
Jeffrey M. Frederick, Chairman
Republican Party of Virginia
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