HotShot Blog

On Tuesday two very important governors races will be decided as voters in Virginia and New Jersey head to the polls. In New Jersey, despite the latest shenanigans by the Forrester campaign to spread lies about his opponent, Corzine will win handily. Virginia, on the other hand, is a dead heat.

The polling for the Virginia governors race puts Kaine slightly ahead of Kilgore. Rasmussen, who nailed the 2004 presidential election, has Kaine winning by 3 points. In a state where Republicans heavily outnumber Democrats, however, this is no guarantee of success, but it is certainly encouraging. The Kilgore campaign, terrified of a loss, are pulling out all the stops, including mailing a fake Democratic voter guide to suburban voters. The mailing urged people to vote for Russ Potts. On the back was small print saying "Paid for and authorized by Virginians for Jerry Kilgore." Dirty tricks, indeed.

If Kilgore wins, he has promised to slash taxes largely by eliminating a great deal of education funding. The idiocy of this should be clear. If we don't have good education in this country, it will not be possible for American workers to compete globally for good paying jobs. Kilgore will take a giant leap exactly in the wrong direction.

Furthermore, Kilgore is fundamentally hostile to many of the rights and liberties we hold dear as Americans. By that I don't mean abortion, although abortion could certainly be included as a privacy right. Kilgore stands on the wrong side of an ideological divide as to who should decide how we as Americans should live our lives. As a part of the conservative movement, Kilgore believes that government should have broad powers to legislate moral conduct, including matters of life and death.

Michael Schiavo recently spoke out about Kilgore's extreme views.

"I have seen firsthand what can happen when a governor disagrees with a single citizen. In Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush abused the power of his office in an attempt to replace my personal family decisions with his own opinions and political grandstanding," Schiavo wrote in a statement distributed by a Democratic consulting firm. ...

During the debate, Kilgore said he is "not going to agree to the forced starvation of any individual if that individual hasn't had a say." He said he would urge people to put their end-of-life wishes in medical directives.

"I don't think governors should use their PR grandstanding to intervene in these cases," Kaine replied, adding that disputes should be settled in the privacy of courts.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Personal matters such as these should be left up to families to dispute, not legislatures and governors, reason enough to support Kaine.

But a Kaine defeat has greater implications than simply setting Virginia back many years. Virginia will be a swing state in the presidential election of 2008, especially if Governor Mark Warner is the Democratic candidate or running mate. In addition, Virginia has a few competitive races in 2006 and 2008 that may be decided by voter turnout. As a Republican governor with a Republican legislature, Kilgore will be able to tailor and target the agenda to bring out the conservative vote next year and in 2008. We will likely see an anti-gay marriage initiative, anti-immigration legislation, and crusades against evolution, all designed to attract "values voters." Even though George W. Bush will fade into the dustbins of history, strategic initiatives such as these might keep the Republicans in power for at least another 7 years.