Virginia Tomorrow

1. The Player of the Week is

Tim Kaine who made it official that he’s in the 2012 Senate race. Kaine’s video announcement focused on his accomplishments in Virginia and deliberately avoided emphasizing his role at the DNC and his relationship with President Obama. Yet Virginia politics has become so tied to the national scene recently that it’s hard for me to imagine why it would be different in 2012. Kaine’s fate is likely to be inextricably tied to Obama’s performance in the Commonwealth.

2. The GOP Unknown

Virginia Republicans took glee in linking Kaine this week to the President and other Washington Democrats, labeling him the Cheerleader-in-Chief for the national party.

But here’s the great unknown for 2012.

Who’s going to be running at the top of the GOP ticket and will this help or harm the chances of the Republican nominee?

A new poll out this week had Donald Trump running a close second for the Republican nomination.

Fair’s Fair.

It might be time for the media to start asking George Allen and Jamie Radtke what they think about The Donald.

3. Scott ?

Kaine’s announcement was not accompanied by a statement of support from Congressman Bobby Scott.

Most observers believe that strong endorsements of Kaine by Mark Warner and Barack Obama make it far less likely that Scott will contest the nomination.

But, at a minimum, there is something going on in progressive Democratic circles. While it is unclear that Kaine will have an intra-party challenge like George Allen faces with Jamie Radtke, Scott’s apparaent uneasiness with the whole situation  is a signal that not all Democrats are wildly enthusastic about their likely candidate.

4. The Longest Race

The 2012 Virginia senate race is now going to be as long as a campaign as the 2012 presidential race.

My sense is that the sheer length of the race makes its ultimate path even more unpredictable.

The opportunities for candidate missteps, swings in the national mood, and emergence of new hot button issues grow exponentially as a campaign lengthens.

They say 24 hours is a lifetime in politics.

What are they going to say about a 19 month slugfest?

5. The Virginia Big Number is 13

That’s the number of points that an initial Roanoke College poll has Tim Kaine running behind George Allen in an increasingly less hypothetical matchup.

The release of the survey immediately elicited a firestorm of criticsm about its methodology, with Democrats arguing that a poll that examined a hypothetical matchup between the two a few months ago and which had more favorable results for Kaine was far more accurate.

No worry.

This race is going to be polled to death (probably even calling many of my friends who always tell me that they’ve never been contacted by a pollster) and we’ll find out soon enough what the lay of the land really is.

When people ask me, what pollster is “the best,” I usually say that I never look at any one poll, but instead try to make sense of what all the polls taken together seem to tell us.