Some general thoughts at the campaign kickoff

The race for Virginia Governor is on with Lt. Governor Tim Kaine(D) making the first rounds in his kickoff tour. Apart from a snow storm that prevented him from landing in Wise county, so far all of his stops have been successful according to the campaign. Kaine will be returning to Wise County this coming Sunday, along with former Gov. Linwood Holton(R) who happens to be the candidates father-in-law. Holton hails from Southwest Virginia, so Democrats are hoping he will be able to assist Tim Kaine in this critical region.

Attorney General Jerry Kilgore(R) will be making his campaign kickoff tour starting next week. According to the latest poll, Kilgore leads Kaine 46% to 36% with 6% for independent Republican Russ Potts. This poll, while not good for the Kaine campaign, is not altogether surprising either. It represents Kilgore's higher name ID, and the state's Republican bent. Current Gov. Mark Warner(D) showed Democrats how to overcome that bias, and has beend oing so over the last four years fairly consistently. Mark Warner is currently the most popular politician in the state, and has already been out campaigning at several stops (especially in vote rich Northern Virginia) with Tim Kaine.

Kaine's task is to claim the Warner mantle of fiscal conservatism, bipartisnaship, and social moderation. So far, apart from the Death Penalty issue, Kaine has done a good job in staying away from hot button social issues. Kaine, for religious reasons, opposses the Death Penalty, but has said that as Governor he would uphold the laws of Virginia. Now, it amazes me how the GOP can criticize him on this, since they used this same justification to defend the likes of John Ashcroft when he was made Attorney General of the US. But they will continue to use it because Virginia has the second highest rate of executions in the country.

Kaine should probably do more to appeal to sportsmen just as Warner did back in 2001, thus nuetralizing groups like the NRA. 'Sportsmen for Kaine' bumper stickers all over the South and Southwest of the state would do a great deal to broaden his support. Also, take a page from Western Democrats like Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and emphasize environmental protection to benefit hunters and fishers and one could turn that issue completely around against the GOP. Those are just a couple move I recommend for the Kaine campaign.

One good thing that Kaine has already proposed is tackling the issue of rising property taxes. Property values are rising, and the taxes are rising along with them. Kaine's plans to halt this precipitous climb will definitely help him earn the fiscal conservative mantle, and will go a long way to fortifying his position in Northern Virginia, an area every Democrat must do well in in order to carry the state.

His early moves on Transportation are also good, but he will be pressed on the gas tax issue, of that there is no doubt. How the tax issue will play I think will be seen after the June primaries. Seventeen GOP House memebers voted to approve Mark Warner's tax restructuring bill that led to a small increase in the state sales tax (while lowering the food tax and reducing the income tax on lower income earners). Six of the seventeen have been challenged in their primaries by anti-tax crusaders. If all six challengers go down to fail in a GOP primary, then Kaine will certainly have more leeway to embrace any increase in the gas tax to cover the cost of the state's burgeoning transportation problems.

Mostly though, Kaine must also define his opponent Jerry Kilgore as a Republican of the Jim Gilmore mold. Jim Gelmore demonstrated that tax cuts were more important to him than state services. His hyper partisanship divided a completely GOP controlled Assembly. If Kaine can convince voters that Kilgore will return us to those days, then, along with establishing his bona fides as a fiscal conservative bipartisan, Kaine will almost certainly win in November.

Kilgore has hired slime master Scott Howell to do advertising for him though, so this race can be expected to get down and dirty quite quickly (in fact, already Kilgore has sent out fake memos purporting to be from the Kaine campaign). Howell is repsonsible for accusing Georgia's Max Cleland of being a traitor, and for the nasty ads linkig South Dakota's Daschle to Saddam Hussein. We can expect no quarter from Kilgore, and none should be provided to him.

At the moment, Kaine has a lot of work to do. But so far, all his early moves look promising. We her ein te blogosphere can only keep an eye on things, donate, and get the word out.