Arlington Kaine Co-Chair on Kaine...and Raising Kaine!

By: Lowell
Published On: 12/6/2005 2:00:00 AM

Raising Kaine provided a big lift to Tim Kaine?s candidacy, especially in Northern Virginia. On a personal level, the Raising Kaine effort provided a shot of energy for me. Raising Kaine represents a young, smart, focused, hard hitting, winning, progressive force in politics. Although the leadership of Raising Kaine is young, everyone is old enough to have a taste of losing important elections. Rather than dwell on the negative, Raising Kaine represents taking action now, in whatever elections possible, and building new leadership for the future.

Raising Kaine effectively spread the word that Jerry Kilgore was very much like President Bush. The comparison was true not just in their beliefs, but in their lack of interest and full understanding of important issues. Bush & Kilgore are hardly fiscal conservatives or for less government. In fact, they are for less taxation and more government. Unfortunately, on both the National and State level, the Democratic Party is limited in what we can do once taking power due to the financial messes inherited by Republican predecessors. Jim Gilmore, VA Governor from 1997-2001 before Mark Warner, left office with a budget that forced Warner into cutbacks.

Although my guess is much of the initial impetus behind Raising Kaine was to channel energy in a positive way after the demoralizing Kerry defeat, I believe Raising Kaine leaders discovered that Tim Kaine was a truly special candidate.

Having known Tim Kaine for many years and as one of his earliest supporters during his 2001 Lt. Governor race, I know he is in politics for all the right reasons. He ran for Governor to make things better, not because he enjoys all the ceremony of office.

Tim Kaine?s pledge to offer pre-school access to all four-year-old children was a bold move representing progressive values in a conservative state. His pledge to give localities more power to control unwanted development was certainly one of the keys to his success in suburban areas. As the Mayor of Richmond and before that a City Council Member, he fought with other local government leaders for these powers. One of the main reasons Tim Kaine ran for Lt. Governor in 2001 was that Governor Gilmore and the Republican Legislature were not addressing education and land use issues that were making it difficult for local government leaders to do their jobs.

In short, Tim Kaine made it clear what he stood for. Despite the media criticism of his death penalty and abortion positions, those are strongly held, sincere beliefs. Voters saw Tim Kaine?s sincerity and honesty. It obviously helped that Kilgore ran an over the top, negative campaign.

I was nervous after the Kilgore death penalty ads appeared. Raising Kaine was part of the rapid response team. Tim Kaine was also helped by the editorial condemnation of the ads throughout the State. I was pleasantly surprised that many friends who are independent voters had a negative reaction to Kilgore?s negative ads, especially the death penalty ones.

Tim Kaine will always remember and appreciate the work Raising Kaine did. He told me recently that he plans to have an event to thank Raising Kaine.

Thanks for including my column. I look forward to working with all of you on future elections. For now, lets enjoy this win.

Guest column by...
Paul Ferguson, Member, Arlington County Board
Co-Chair of the Kaine Campaign in Arlington County

[Note from Lowell:  Thanks Paul, we really appreciate it!]

Comments



Mr. Lang, I don't kn (Teddy - 4/4/2006 11:27:49 PM)
Mr. Lang, I don't know how old you are now, but today's kids, saturated by television, are more advanced than either you or I at the same age... even though they do still want to "play." Evidence is available that shows that pre-school programs wherever installed have regularly delivered excellent results in giving kids a Head Start (yeah, that's right). And, it is going to be a voluntary program, so you might say there will be some self-selection involved. I don't know where Tim got his statistics, but as I recall he said that $1 spent in pre-school saved $17 years later in costs dealing with drop-outs, juvenile crime, etc. Sounds reasonable to me.

As for Paul Ferguson's very good article, I can't help but feel that here is one more piece of evidence that the blogosphere is rising to fill the gap left by the so-called mass media, which ha failed miserably in fulfilling the true function of The Fourth Estate in a republic. That is, providing real news and investigative reporting to educate an involved citizenry. The mass media have simply become an arm of the global corporations and their political minions, who treat "news" as managed, as entertainment, to be manipulated.



I bet Lowell is so e (David Lang - 4/4/2006 11:27:49 PM)
I bet Lowell is so excited about that comment.

I got a question about the pre-k for 4 year-olders. I know that studies say that the brain starts developing around there. But when I was 4 I didn't really like to learn, just wanted to play. So what will happen if all the kids don't improve with this program?