As
all the talk around the Obama Campaign has been about Virginia Governor Tim Kaine for VP, SemiPolitico has decided to take a general look at the pros and cons of the possible Obama-Kaine ticket. Of course, no official word has come out of the Obama Camp, and the AP has reported that Tim Kaine
is "mum" on the issue, so we can't really be sure. All we know is that there are some ups and downs to choosing Tim Kaine as the Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate (your welcome for the obvious statement).
One of the biggest criticisms of Barack Obama is his inexperience, and a lot of this has to do with the fact that he is a senator (in his third year). For a number of reasons, the American public has not been so keen on choosing senators as Presidents. In fact, only two senators in history have ever moved directly from the Capitol building to the White House, Warren G. Harding in 1921 and JFK in 1961 (neither man finished their first term in office). The last Senator to be elected president was Richard M. Nixon in 1969, but this was after serving only 3 years in the Senate, and then 8 years as VP. When it comes to senators, we don't like to put them in the White House unless they have had other practical experience such as a governorship or holding the office of VP (Truman, LBJ, Nixon).
Obviously, with John McCain and Barack Obama the "presumptive" nominees (Hillary is still alive in hearts and minds), we will be forced to add a third name to the list of senators who made the direct move to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but that doesn't mean the public will be comfortable doing so without some reassurance. In this context comes Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. Although Kaine has only held the position for almost 3 years, that title may do a lot to ease talks (or mostly feelings) of Obama's inexperience in running a country. Even though Kaine is inexperienced himself, three years of being governor, four as Lt. Governor, and two as a mayor of a state capital (Richmond) is a lot more experience to a lot more people than three years as a U.S. Senator (of which one and a half have been spent campaigning), seven as a state senator, and three as a community organizer. Although, it isn't clear that a lot of the country would use this manner of thinking, so the opportunity cost of picking Kaine over someone such as Bill Richardson, Evan Bayh, or Kathleen Sebelius could be high.
It's hard to say that the fact of Tim Kaine being from Virginia isn't one of the main reasons the Obama Campaign has decided to focus on him as of recently. If you take a look at money spent in the south, Obama has been running uncontested commercials for a month in states such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. Most of the talks surrounding these ads have been speculative on their intentions, the question being if they are being run to legitimately compete in these states or only to force the McCain campaign to spend resources in places that are notoriously left untouched by presidential elections. If Obama were to pick Kaine (even though Kaine has an approval rating of 56%), it would be hard to argue that Virginia would not lean Obama (it is a virtual tie right now), and that states such as North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri would not be up for grabs.
A Kaine VP selection also fits in with Obama's campaign message from the beginning, which is the notion of change. Recently, the Obama camp
has stated that they would like to choose a Washington "outsider" for VP. Kaine is exactly that, being that he is a governor and has never served in a Washington post, which is compounded by the fact that he is a "new guy" as well. But, this notion is much related to the experience factor of both men, and there is, of course, a trade off. Being an outsider means no Washington experience, a concept that has hurt Obama so far, in both the primaries and what have been the first months of the general election campaign. Kaine can be viewed as a good outsider, somone not jaded and compromised by the inside wheelin' and dealin' that goes on in our nation's capital. On the other hand, he could be an outsider in respect to the knowledge of the ways to get things done, an argument that Hillary Clinton used to her advantage in the 100 years primary.
When taking a look at Tim Kaine the politician, rather than what Tim Kaine would mean for electoral votes, there are some important considerations that are probably being scrutinized over at Obama HQ as we speak. In fact, Barack Obama has stated that the most important consideration in choosing a VP candidate will be a "shared vision", compatibility, and most importantly someone who can "help [Obama] govern". In the 2005 VA gubernatorial election, Kaine's opponent Jerry W. Kilgore criticized Kaine's stance on the death penalty and used this to play on the general notion of being "super-liberal". However, Kaine's views on a couple "litmus test" items don't really prove this to be the case. Due to faith based (Kaine is a devout Catholic) reasons, Tim Kaine is a staunch opponent to abortion. Also in the 2005 election, Kaine claimed the 2nd amendment to
"strongly support the Second Amendment. As the next Governor of Virginia, he will not propose any new gun laws. Instead Tim Kaine will guarantee strict enforcement of our existing criminal laws. He will also expand the use of such enforcement strategies as Project Exile that target criminals who use guns rather than law-abiding gun owners."
These two stances don't scream super-liberal, or even liberal at all in the many eyes, but the issue that Kilgore was most likely referring to was Kaine's stance on the death penalty. From the 2005 campaign website, Kaine stated that he was an opponent of the death penalty "until it is far". In his time as governor, eight people have been executed on death row. During this same time, however, Kaine has passed legislation to ban the electric chair as a medium of execution.
With Obama's alleged recent "shifts" to the center (FISA, Iraq), it may hurt more than help to have an anti-abortion VP who promotes the 2nd amendment. In the effort to obtain voters who were Clinton supporters, an anti-abortion VP may not go over so well with the many women Obama is courting (politically).
However, Kaine could prove to be valuable to another key group of voters that Obama had trouble with during the primary, which is the Hispanic vote. In a year long break from Harvard Law, Tim Kaine was a Jesuit missionary in Honduras, during which he became fluent in Spanish. Being a catholic and fluent in Spanish could court Hispanic voters in the mega-important state of Florida, as well as many other places in the country with a large Hispanic voter base. According to recent polls, Obama is already doing well with Hispanics, and Kaine's addition will not hurt this trend.
Whoever the Democratic VP candidate is, there will no doubt be some trade offs between the candidates. Whichever issue(s) the Obama camp decides is(are) most important (red state appeal, outsider/insider, voting groups, liberal/more moderate, etc) will have to be balanced out in some way. Because of how quickly the focus of an election can change and shifts in issues can happen, it seems that the Obama (and McCain) camp will have to wait a little bit longer to decide who and what they are after. But, if recent talks have any merit, Tim Kaine is definitely on Barack's (extremely) short list.
(Images from Truthout.org and Puente-Latino.com )
by John D'Alessandro Updated on July 31, 2008 12:36 PM
A nation with an infamously poor human rights record, China is hardly the ambassador of liberty and good will the International Olympics Committee (IOC) claims the Olympics represent. Upon awarding the Games to Beijing in 2001, the IOC assured us it knew what it was doing and that discussions concerning China's human rights policies were soon to take place. And yet, in the last seven years little discussion-- let alone improvement-- has taken place.
Besides Nazi Germany, the Committee has also awarded the games to a one party, politically oppressive Mexico in 1968, the Soviet Union in 1980 (only after it threatened to withdraw from any Olympic activity upon losing a bid for the '76 games), and the '88 games to South Korea in 1981-- hardly a year after dictator Chun Doo-hwan launched a massacre of the city of Kwangju, where civil demonstrations were taking place against the newly instated military government. Now, the 2008 Olympics have been rewarded to a Chinese government whose oppression of Tibetans and repression of political agitators is well known, and whose inaction surrounding the nation's immense wealth gap has left inland China behind while eastern China surges ahead to the center of the world economic stage.
As Cubans are to Florida politics, Big Farming is to U.S. "alternative" energy programs. Farming interests have tried to sucker America into the idea that corn-based ethanol is the ticket out, keeping willfully ignorant of the fact that corn has an energy yield of just 125%, while sugar cane 
