If you're a Virginia resident, for the second year in a row you have the opportunity to decide between a pro-life, conservative Protestant and a pro-abortion sell-out Catholic. This time, instead of Bush and Kerry, it's Kilgore and Kaine. (Too many "K" names, I know.)
Tim Kaine, the current lieutenant governor, is the liberal former mayor of a big city who alternatively runs away from his record or tries to conceal it. Virginia is a solidly right-of-center state, and the only reason we have a Democrat governor is because he swore up and down that he wasn't a liberal. Kaine has to win by simultaneously pretend he isn't a lefty, while sending enough lefty vibes to urban and suburban liberals to keep them interested.
It probably won't work, although it isn't for lack of smarmy pandering. Read this statement on "Values and the Family." He quotes scripture, talks about being a Catholic missionary...you'd think this was a true son of the Church. This abortion statement would lead an unsuspecting voter to believe that Kaine is pro-life because of his Catholicism: "I have a faith-based opposition to abortion."
That is so misleading that it constitutes a lie. He does not want any abortions prohibited, so far as I can determine (feel free to send me evidence to the contrary.) He wants to promote contraception as an alternative to abortion:
Kaine said the state should emphasize "tried and trusted ways to cut abortion," including contraception access. He does not support abortion, citing his faith, but said he would enforce laws allowing it.
Worse, Kaine doesn't even stand up for his own principles. He used to be an opponent of the death penalty, which enjoys massive support among Virginia voters. Executing murderers, along with abolishing parole, liberalizing concealed-carry permits for firearms, and imprisoning more criminals, led to a dramatic drop in the statewide crime rate over the last decade, significantly more than the national average.
Kaine called for a death-penalty moratorium in the past, and as an attorney he represented capital-murder defendants. His opposition seemed honorable, but now he's running advertising where he practically promises to kill death-row inmates with his bare hands. "My faith teaches me that life is sacred," Kaine says into the TV camera, "but I will carry out death sentences handed down by Virginia juries, because that's the law."
His opponent, Kilgore, has been running tough ads attacking Kaine's previous views on the subject, and so Kaine decided that the law trumps faith. Had he said, "I believe that the death penalty is necessary to defend society against the worst criminals," he would have remained within Catholic tradition. But unlike abortion, where he will merely look the other way, Kaine is willing to take an active role by signing convicts' death warrants. It's the kind of thing that gives weak-willed politicians a bad name.
Kaine's candidacy is an opportunity squandered. In 1928, Virginia gave its electoral votes to Republican Herbert Hoover because the Democratic candidate was Catholic, marking the first time that our commonwealth had ever gone Republican. It's heartening to see that Kaine can showcase his Catholic faith for this overwhelmingly Protestant electorate, but it is unconscionable that he should attempt to conceal his moral and political cowardice with a veil of religion.
Which is why on November 8, I will vote to give him the sound electoral thrashing that he so richly deserves.
Postscript: Tom McKenna has a good summary of why Kaine's position on the death penalty is misleading and incoherent.
Our election is 11/8 -- is yours really 11/1?
Uh...no, I'm wrong. I'll make that correction. But I stand by the rest of it!
I agree. I also thought along w/my huz that Kaine's eager promise to kill those sentenced to death would have been funny had it not been creepy.
I write the following at David Morrison's site the other day:
Did you see Kaine's rebuttal ads? What a weasel. He said "I’ll enforce death sentences handed down by Virginia juries because that’s the law." No, that's not the law. The law is that a governor has the pardon and clemency powers to use as he deems fit. His using them would not be counterlegal; the power is there in the law. A governor is under no legal obligation whatsoever to defer to juries' findings (clemency is part of the longstanding tradition of granting the executive prerogative powers to remedy injustices in given cases).
Kaine is a weasel.
I wish you guys the best. I hope Kilgore can pull it out but I am a bit nervous. But anything can happen.
I'll vote for Kilgore before a weasel any day. A Catholic who refuses to live his faith is not worthy for public office. A polititiam who blatantly uses religion to gain votes is a cynic not a Christian.