In 18 years of publishing, this newspaper has never endorsed a political candidate. Nor are we about to start now.But that does not mean we cannot ponder whether a particular candidate is fit to hold office. Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore begs that question to an extreme we have not seen in Virginia for many years.
Mr. Kilgore has proven himself willing to ignore the public service standards of the profession that brought him to the only elective office he?s ever held, while manipulating the grief of crime victims as a weapon in the pursuit of public office. Virginia does not stand for the things that Mr. Kilgore finds politically convenient, and it should not stand for such a person holding the highest office in the Commonwealth.
Kilgore doesn't have the character to make a good garbage man, let alone Governor.
This candidate has skated on the edge of political opportunism with his nonsensical positions on transportation, state budgets and local government fiscal responsibility. But he could be fairly criticized on those counts without calling into question his fitness to hold office. His demonizing of Democrat Tim Kaine on the subject of the death penalty, however, simply crosses that line irreversibly. Both of these candidates are lawyers. Lawyers are officers of the court. They are sworn to serve the law and to respond to the courts when called to service as public defenders. As governors of Virginia, they are equally sworn to uphold the laws of the Commonwealth.Given the ethical standards to which Mr. Kilgore apparently subscribes, it is not shocking that he would trivialize the role of court appointed defense lawyers in the criminal justice system of America. But it is astonishing that the Virginia Bar Association, whose job it is to discipline as well as to advocate, has had nothing of substance to say about his exploitation of families of crime victims in television ads while attacking another lawyer for serving the court. The shame of that silence falls on every lawyer in Virginia.
Jerry W. Kilgore is the weakest candidate for Governor in our 400 year history. His mere nomination is an insult to the commonwealth. It's not just his fast-and-loose numbers, his fiscal irresponsiblity, or his persistent use of hatemongering lies. It's his complete absence of sense or character that ultimately disqulaifies this dizzy weakling from any office.
What we have seen in the final two weeks of the campaign is the emergence of a willingness on the part of Mr. Kilgore?s campaign to do and say anything, no matter how reprehensible or indefensible, in order to simply get elected. That very willingness is what defines people who ought to be kept out of public office, because it says far too much about where their standards are likely to lie if they are elected.It was said that legendary Chicago Mayor Richard Daley used to tell his minions to ?vote the graveyard? when it came to getting out the vote on election day. Mr. Kilgore has found an entirely different use for the graveyard in his quest, and he should not be rewarded for the thought of it. Those who allowed the use of the names of their murdered relatives to advance the political aspirations of the likes of Mr. Kilgore can find their own reconciliation with having done so. Their role in all this hardly honors anyone, dead or alive.
No voter who reads this article, regardless of party, affiliation or family ties could possibly pull the lever for Virginia's most popular liar, Jerry W. Kilgore.
The Commonwealth is too precious to be left in the hands of an insecure idealogue like Jerry Kilgore. It is beholden upon every Virginian to vote on Nov 8 for strong leadership and ensure that Tim Kaine is elected Governor of Virginia.
Elections have consequences, in this case the consequences are too dire for Virginia to make a mistake.