Governor Tim Kaine was the featured guest at a reception held by Brian Moran, chair of the Democratic house caucus at Il Lupo?s restaurant in the City of Fairfax Saturday evening. A capacity crowd included Congressman Jim Moran, several members of the Northern Virginia delegation to the Virginia Assembly, local elected officials (e.g., David Bulova, current Delegate from the 37th District), former Del. Chap Petersen, 11th District Congressional candidate Ken Longmyer, and a host of hungry Democratic activists from across Northern Virginia. Transportation was, not surprisingly, the chief political topic discussed. Governor Kaine pointed out that four of the five main players in this - the Governor, the Democratic caucuses of the House and Senate, and the Republican caucus of the Senate - were in complete agreement on the main points for transportation. Only the obdurate, tunnel-visioned House Republican caucus, employing the strictest party discipline, stands in the way of sensible legislation to provide adequate, long-term transportation funding without stealing from education and health care. Despite the obstructionist tactics of the Republican House caucus, the Governor assured us there would be a transportation bill out of this session, which resumes tomorrow. The promise was greeted with cheers.
I had an interesting conversation with Governor Kaine (who diplomatically greeted me with ?Teddy, my favorite journalist?) about transportation funding. It is my belief that we should stop adding a penny here and a nickel there to niggling special levies, hoping to stay under the radar in raising transportation funds. Instead, we should go straight for a half percent added to the state sales tax. Period. This would provide a steady, bondable stream of money. Governor Kaine surprised me by saying that he thought such a tax might actually come to pass in the near future but not, unfortunately, this time around.
There were several quiet conversations going on about the Webb-Miller contest. One prominent Democratic elected official, when I tasked him about supporting Miller, claimed he ?didn?t realize Miller had supported the Iraq invasion? when he came out in support of the man. Oh, really? This gave me an opening to point out that the larger reality of this contest was not just the particular issues, but the absolute necessity of changing the rules of engagement, of crafting a Democratic response to Republican insanities by shifting the debate from Republican-defined terrain onto new, Progressive ground. In other words, stop conceding to the Republicans by using their framing of issues (as George Lakoff correctly suggests), and bring a fresh approach. The person to accomplish this is obviously James Webb, and can never be Harris Miller. End of story.
The bottom line here is this: if Iraq is a big problem for you, then Webb's your guy. If you supported the invasion of Iraq, then Miller's more to your liking on that front. Personally, I was somewhat supportive of the invasion (I believed Colin Powell, I thought Saddam was evil), so I'm not at all condemning Miller for supporting the war. I'm just pointing out that Webb and Miller have very different positions on this important issue.
Speaking of bloggers stealing, what it would be so hard for you to attribute the second-half of the bottom paragraph to author/writer George Lakoff? You stole, virtually verbatim, from these two books of his:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1931498717/ref=pd_bxgy_text_b/104-8504065-9817556?%5Fencoding=UTF8
Let's not get hung up on attribution and get on with doing. How many footnotes to history do you require to get off your hindquarters and accomplish something?
Also, let's STOP arguing about all these issues as defining for whom you will vote... that's exactly my point. This is beyond the special interest, even in Iraq (where my son is, please remember). What I see in Mr. Webb, and what compelled me to support him, despite some disagreement on this or that point, was the undoubtable fact that this man can truly change the terms of debate. Can we start talking about and working on the really important, long-term things? What about globalization? Global warming? Energy crisis? Water crisis? for example, and get off this ridiculous fixation on sex and gay marriage, for example.