Over at NLS, Ben Tribbett has a quick summary of the conference call between Gov. Kaine and Virginia bloggers - Ben, Kenton Ngo, Vivian Paige, Eileen Levandoski, Jim Bacon, Josh Chernila, Bryan Scrafford, myself - yesterday. According to Ben, bloggers are starting to ask real "hardball" questions:
Kenton asked tough questions about Rail to Dulles, Eileen asked about regional authorities and how the picked the number of localities needed to approve, Lowell asked tough questions about embryonic stem cell research, and Josh asked a question about Kaine being the Democratic coach- a question which first bordered on this scene in the movie airplane where Josh sounded like he was trying to pick up the Governor, but then ended his question on a hardball about whether the Governor was helping the Democratic team by signing the transportation bill. That one actually may have been a relief for Kaine from where it sounded like Josh was headed. :)
I would add that Gov. Kaine spent the first 20 minutes or so of the call (after saying he'd give a 2-minute "State of the Commonwealth") talking about what he considered to be the progress made over the past few months. All in all, Kaine said he was "feeling very optimistic about where Virginia is at right now."
On transportation, Kaine complained that the GOP plan had been developed "somewhat under a cloak" and was "not perfect," but argued that in the end, "putting a plan on my desk was a huge step forward." Kaine also called the plan "solid" and even "innovative in some ways" (e.g., greater percentage of money going to transit). Finally, Kaine predicted that the "reconvene session will be pretty strong."
Thanks to Gov. Kaine for holding this blogger conference call. I hope to see the Governor on our Blog Talk Radio show sometime soon as well!
P.S. Hey Josh, do you ever watch movies about gladiators? Ha.
P.P.S. Further comments below the "fold."
*"I like to manage by outcomes. Data tells a story."
*Two main assets in Virginia are Dulles Airport, with its new service to Beijing, and the Port of Virginia.
*Virginia won "another pro-business award last week," and continues to be the "best managed state in the country." Other governors are "envious" of our success in Virginia.
*"We're not free lunchers" on transportation or anything else.
*The trasnportation plan was developed without Republicans in the General Assembly talking to local officials. Within minutes of passage of the transportation plan, local officials said they weren't going to go along.
*At the end of the day, Kaine said he "significantly rewrote" the regional plans in the transportation bill, and was able to meet "almost all of local officials' requests" for changes. Local leaders in NOVA and Hampton Roads said, "Governor, thank you for fixing this."
*In general, the state shouldn't just "tell local officials what to do."
*Kaine's amendments allow for using proceeds of bond package on urban and secondary roads. That's important for rural and urban areas alike.
*Auto insurance premiums provide a long-term, reliable revenue source for transportation.
*More money for transit is important.
*In response to Kenton's question on the Tysons Tunnel deal being conducted in secret without public scrutiny, Gov. Kaine noted that some people buy into "conspiracy theories," that he has a lot of experience dealing with transportation, and that the most important thing is to get rail to Dulles. The perfect shouldn't be the enemy of hte good.
*On embryonic stem cell research, Kaine didn't back down on his opposition to state funding.
*On the smoking ban, Kaine said it would be "tight" getting it through the House of Delegates.
*On the death penalty, Kaine said that there are many "great ways to slash crime without resorting to the death penalty."
The definition of word the "solid" connotes "thorough, vigorous, great, big, etc.
And "innovative" implies "ahead of the times; being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before". http://dictionary.re...
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
So being nice to the opposition hasn't invoked reciprocal niceness on the part of the Republican Party of Virginia!
Politics is hardball. If you give an inch they'll take a foot.
And I think the Republicans could jump on these words, saying "even Gov. Kaine says it's solid and innovative". There you have it.
So instead the theme of the day is Hi I'm ________ and I'm a Warner-Kaine democrat
We will see how much momentum is still left in Warner's coatails
I could go on and on but I prefer not to reveal the Republican strategy and besides the political junky dems already know it anayway :-p
The last poll I saw (Pew) said 61% of Catholics support it.
I've read there are hundreds of thousands of embryos in frozen storage. So if there is a belief these are human beings, why aren't people rushing to adopt them? (We know there are a few.) Here's one pro-lifer argument:
We need to look at these cryogenic tanks as frozen orphanages rather than some kind of material that scientists can manipulate for whatever reason they would like to." Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), 2001http://www.religious...
The Religious Tolerance site has the pros and cons of the argument, This is one it raised:
The surplus embryos will almost inevitably be eventually destroyed. Some do not survive the freezing process. Perhaps 50% will die during storage or thawing.
Would Kaine support a measure that attached involuntary manslaughter penalties against operators of malfunctioning storage equipment?
Also, IUDs are a similar issue.
Insertion of an Intra-Uterine Device (IUD). This generally prevents fertilization of ova, but can in some instances change the environment of the uterus to bar the "implantation of a fertilized egg."Would Kaine support a law imprisoning doctors and women who use IUDs?
Maybe he would support banning fertility clinics that use IVF? After all, this method directly causes the death of embryos. Religious Tolerance raises this point:
The disposal of almost all of the embryos results, or will result, in their death. Yet, even though the pro-life movement regards all embryos as human persons, pro-lifer leaders seem to be mainly concerned about the few dozen embryos which have been killed by having their stem cells extracted. There seems to be little or no concern over the many hundreds of thousands of embryos which have been killed or which will eventually die in IVF clinics.
I think Kaine is a good guy. I hope someone will be able to get him to fully explain his rationale.
For more of the debate (including more of the other side's position -- which I think is real weak) you can go to http://www.religious...
The main website has pro-con arguments, with citations, on almost every religious-political issue you can imagine.
Thats the real hardball question you should have asked
The pro-life/choice duality is not followed by the great majority of Americans, who consistently differentiate between questions like "no abortions, period" or no abortions except in various carefully described circumstances. The poll numbers for the "no exceptions" policy are usually extremely small. It is not a two-sided issue.