Tim Kaine’s selection as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee is testimony to the amazing string of electoral successes that Virginia Democrats have had since 2005. Let’s recall the bidding.
Kaine himself was elected in November of that year by a margin larger than Mark Warner’s.
In 2006, Jim Webb pulled off the upset of the season by defeating George Allen, simultaneously giving the Democrats control of the Senate and derailing the presidential bid of the GOP’s potentially strongest candidate in 2008.
The Democrats regained control of the State Senate in the 2007 legislative elections for the first time in the decade.
And in 2008 Virginia turned Blue in the presidential sweepstakes with Barack Obama’s decisive win in the state, breaking a forty year GOP victory streak.
If you had gone to InTrade while you were in Ireland four years ago and wagered that the Democrats would win the entire 2005-08 Virginia Superfecta, you wouldn’t be anxiously opening those year-end 401K reports that the rest of us were this week.
Given this record, it is easy to see why Barack Obama’s would ask Tim Kaine to reconsider his expressed lack of interest in the job and take the post. Wouldn’t you?
The reaction to Kaine’s selection in Virginia fell out along predictable partisan lines. Democrats expressed enthusiasm for the partnership that Kaine would forge with President Obama and the benefits that might accrue to the state. Republicans deplored his decision to “abandon” the state at a time of fiscal distress and to put party above his obligations to the public.
Whenever one of these partisan scrums develops, it is tempting to believe that there can’t be a serious principle at stake. But in this case, there does seem to me to be a simple yet perfectly legitimate question to consider.
Should Virginia Governors moonlight?
The path that Kaine is taking has been recently trod. In 2001, then Governor Jim Gilmore assumed the Chair of the Republican National Committee after he presided over a series of electoral successes that left the GOP in control of every major office in Virginia state government.
Kaine is the second Virginia Governor in the past eight years to start his next job while he still has one year remaining on the one that he was elected to perform.
I don’t find some of the criticisms that have been raised about Kaine and Gilmore taking the National Committee jobs fully convincing. For example, the argument about diversion of time and effort may have a modicum of truth to it, but I do not find this all that different from any statewide officeholder who running for election to the same or another office while still holding down their original position.
But I am concerned about what can happen when the interest of the national party diverges significantly from the interests of the Commonwealth. Governor Kaine’s second job will require him to publicly defend all the actions of not only Barack Obama, but of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. One’s imagination does not not have to roam very far to conceive of a situation where presidential proposals and congressional legislation can run directly counter to the interests and/or beliefs of a majority of Virginians.
Tim Kaine is an honorable and highly ethical individual. I have no doubt that he will take both of his jobs seriously, perform them conscientiously, and continue to represent the interests of Virginians to the best of his ability.
Yet, tough economy and all, I’m still not certain that Virginia Governors should be moonlighting.
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