Kaine as VP a win for Va.

The News Virginian
Published: July 30, 2008

Between gasps and breathless tittering over Barack Obama’s Middle Eastern and European forays and the exhilarating prospect of the junior senator’s election as president, television pundits and the Washington press corps are waving their tongues in Pavlovian fashion over speculation that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine might fill the No. 2 position on the Democratic ticket. In other words, what’s bad for America might be good for Virginia.
Politico’s Ben Smith, in his tireless veep vigilance, refers to Kaine as “the main object of speculation.” Kaine also is a main object in Virginia, of veneration among Democratic groupies, disillusion among some Democratic moderates and disdain among fiscal realists.
While clutching at Obama’s celestial political garments, Kaine has looked quietly on while the state has staggered deeper into the red, driven there by the housing collapse (not his doing) and exceedingly optimistic revenue projections in the last two budget cycles (the doing of Kaine budgeteers).
Once considered part of an endangered group — Democrats who can work with Republicans — Kaine lately has flailed at compromise, as in the budget debates earlier this year, and stamped his feet in pursuit of it, as in the special session on transportation, all to little avail. Obama may fancy Kaine, but in Virginia he is a lame governor walking.
So why the appeal to Obama?
First, Virginia is considered by the expert legions to be crucial to the presidential hopes of both Obama and Republican John McCain, and the state is tilting left. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win state was Lyndon Johnson in 1964; if Obama becomes the next, he might well cinch an election night victory. Kaine, who has strong support in population-rich northern Virginia, could be crucial to turning Old Dominion blue.
Second and perhaps just as important, Obama and McCain are pals. Their mothers came from the same small Kansas town and their wives both attended Harvard Law School. They both are Christians of a liberal persuasion. Kaine, like Obama, is a skilled speaker who would bring his own energy and little baggage to the campaign.
Still, while Obama muses over the prospect of tromping across America with a kindred political and spiritual spirit, he also must count the political cost of hitching Kaine to himself.
Obama already is faced with questions over his want of experience, having spent less than four years in the legislative big leagues and much of that time vying for the presidential throne. Kaine’s political life has been lived in Richmond, as a mayor and councilman, then as lieutenant governor before ascending to chief executive in 2005. An Obama-Kaine pairing would be “the most astonishingly inexperienced pair to hit Washington in modern history,” says Jim Geraghty of the National Review.
For Virginians swinging right, the possibilities are intriguing. Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a Republican, would advance to the top of state government in the event of Kaine’s departure in the final year of his term. Attorney General Bob McDonnell is the GOP candidate for governor, Bolling having decided to remain in the second position in hopes of helping unify the party. Both McDonnell and Bolling have pledged fiscal responsibility, which has been increasingly lacking under Kaine.
They would likely feel fondly about Kaine bidding Virginia farewell. Their sentiments and ours about the larger circumstances of his exit would be decidedly cooler.