He may have at one time, but that was not the case in this last election. From the Washington Blade:
Rather proves my point, I think.
On NPR this morning they had a story that said the Kaine candidacy was a trial by the national Dem party, particularly with regard to Kaine openly discussing his religious beliefs and playing it up. Howard Dean seemed mighty pleased with the results, and says Dem candidates will be encouraged to talk about their religious and/or moral values quite strongly in the 2006 elections.
I personally will find all the God blather infinitely boring, but I suppose I can stand it if it gets more Dems in power.
Which time, again?
How so? He’s for equality under the law in adoption instead of witch hunts for gay people, like most Virginian Republicans are for. He doesn’t and hasn’t ever supported gay marriage, so the issue of gay adoptions is moot unless you change the law to let any unmarried group of people adopt.
Which point were you trying to prove, again?
It still doesn’t change the fact that this was a race that the Dems were supposed to lose, and lose big (the last two Democratic Governors had been dismissed as bizarre flukes). Kilgore was Allen’s golden boy and a big part of his ticket to 08 prominance. Kaine started 10-13 points down and pulled out a 5-6% win with a coalition of voters that had never been seen before (winning even areas that were supposed to be Republican strongholds, like Virginia Beach and Chesapeake). That’s hardly a sign of the status quo.
On the one hand, someone in that story–a Democrat–talked about how faith in God was a value shared by all Americans, and I slumped a little. Thanks, folks.
On the other hand, it’s shared by most Americans; I recognize that. And while I’m not superkeen on the idea of spreading religion into even more corners, I’m pretty happy with the idea of a Democrat who talks straight about his moral values. Politics, as I’ve said before, isn’t a game: it’s a means to an end, a moral end.
We need to be making our case on moral grounds. And if folks need to frame that moral debate in religious terms, though it may not be the language I speak, if the underlying morality is the same as mine, I can content myself with that.
The other thing you probably heard in that NPR story is that Kaine’s opponent ran an ideological campaign: anti-gun-control, anti-immigrant, anti-tax, etc. Kaine ran a campaign based on improving schools in Virginia. He had–wait for it–specific, visionary, positive proposals for the direction in which he wanted to take his state.
And he won. Who’dathunkit?
Daniel
Well, Kilgore didn’t even really run as anti-gun control, anti-immigrant, anti-tax. Kilgore didn’t run as anything except as anti-Kaine. If you’re not from around here and didn’t see it yourself, you’re not going to believe it, but I’ve never seen a political candidate run more negative, in his ads or in his debates. His position on education was that Tim Kaine ruined public schools in Richmond when he was mayor, his position on the death penalty was that Kaine would pardon Hitler, his position on abortion was that Kaine would promote abortion, his position on traffic was that Kaine would increase the gas tax.
Jerry Kilgore’s campaign this year was just completely negative.
Wow–even worse than I thought. Am I right, though, that Kaine ran on specific proposals about how he was going to improve the life of Virginians?
Daniel
Sort of. More so than Kilgore, at least. I mean, a lot of his campaign was pretty much saying, “Elect me and I’ll keep doing what Mark Warner did”, as well as some negative campaigning of his own, but he did, up in the NoVa area, at least, talk about ways to reduce sprawl and increase local governments’ powers over growth.
In this case, the use of religion was to explain himself as a person to voters. His missionary work and religious upbringing were what made him care about public service, housing, and education. Before he got into politics, he spent most of his time fighting housing discrimination as a civil rights lawyer (gasp! HOW LIBRAL!!!) All that stuff explained why he was who he was and believed the things he did. Voters by and large found it authentic: not an attempt to impose any beliefs on them, but a chance to understand what he was all about.
The response we got from voters to the first ad mentioning his religious convictions and missionary work was tremendous: die-hard Republicans said that he had impressed them. And obviously, a lot of them went on to vote for the guy.
Agreed. The big Dem concern in VA was that we were getting our butts kicked in the DC outer suburbs, which are the fastest-growing part of the state. Kaine managed to essentially break even in the outer ring of suburbs around DC - Prince William, Loudoun, Fauquier, Stafford counties, and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park - while piling up a 107,000 vote edge in the Beltway cities and counties: Fairfax, Alexandria, Arlington, Falls Church.
The other interesting thing about Kaine’s win is that he either won or broke even in practically every independent city or town in Virginia. And I’m not just talking about Alexandria and Richmond and Norfolk and Hampton and Newport News and Roanoke; I’m also talking about Lexington (home of VMI), Lynchburg (home of Jerry Falwell), Martinsville (on the NASCAR circuit), Danville (deep in the Southside) and Covington (way back in the mountains). Practically anywhere where there was a town of any size, Kaine did well.
Virginia’s got a lot of rural areas, but it’s only going to get more urbanized over time. So the trendlines are looking very good.
Right when I was on the point of despair about living in Virginia because of its repressive homophobic legislation, this interesting election occurs to make me wonder about sticking around a little longer.