You know, we've been at this RaisingKaine thing for 8 months now, and we've collected a whole bunch of great material on Jerry Kilgore. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to condense all the reasons NOT to vote for Jerry Kilgore into an easy-to-read "Top 25" list. But then I thought, that's too many in one shot. So, instead, I'll list a reason per day for the next 24 days, counting down -- David Letterman style - to #1 in early October. Anyway, here are the Top #25 Reasons NOT to Vote for Jerry Kilgore!!P.S. RaisingKaine reserves the right to add items to this countdown, assuming that Jerry Kilgore keeps saying and doing dumb shit.
25) Kilgore's top advisor is Scott Howell, the same guy who smeared triple-amputee and Vietnam War hero (and former Senator from Georgia) Max Cleland as a disloyal, unpatriotic, Saddam- and Osama-loving traitor. Oh yeah, Howell was also behind the racist "black hands" ad in the 2004 Oklahoma Senate race for his far-right-wing extremist client, Republican Tom Coburn (yeah, the same guy who favors the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and is obsessed with "rampant lesbianism" in the schools of southeastern Oklahoma).
24) Kilgore is running as a fiscally ruinous "spend and spend and spend some more" Republican. As if that's not bad enough, Kilgore proposes turning to a California Proposition-style referendum system, which has done great damage to that state. In other words, Jerry Kilgore's another Jim Gilmore, without the signature "no car tax" slogan.
23) Kilgore claims to be anti-tax, yet refuses to sign the State Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Kilgore is a hypocrite and flip-flopping weasel on this issue, as on so many others.
22) Kilgore is world class whiner, crying about supposed slurs to his "accent" by Tim Kaine. Uh, Jerry, Tim Kaine's married into the prominent Southwest Virginia family of former Republican Governor Linwood Holton...hello? Also, why did you reportedly go to a voice coach if you're so proud of your "accent," anyway? Or is it some other characteristic of your voice that you were trying to change?
21) Kilgore is completely over the top with his rhetoric. Back in early February, the Kilgore campaign actually said, "Tim Kaine certainly shares his liberal Democratic Party?s twisted conviction that each of these God-given rights (gun ownership, worship freely, etc.) are somehow a threat to our Republic.? What, is Kilgore trying to top George Allen's infamous "Let's enjoy knocking their soft teeth down their whiny throats" comment?
20) Kilgore's radical wing of the Virginia Republican Party is completely in bed with the extreme "Christian right," particularly people like Pat "Assassinate the President of Venezuela" Robertson. Don't ever expect Kilgore to stand up to Pat Robertson's social agenda, including completely banning abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, or the life and health of the mother.
19) Kilgore opposes "mandat[ing]" a paper trail for electronic voting. He also opposes same-day voter registration. Now what's THAT all about?
18) Kilgore refuses to take a stand on Confederate History and Heritage Month, either for it or against it. He has stated that we "blow [the Confederate flag issue] out of proportion." He has also tried to weasel his way out of the issue by making the lame comment that he would support something that recognizes "everyone who lived during the Civil War.? Yeah, slaves, slave owners, Union troops, Confederate troops, Abe Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Grant, Sherman, Lee...EVERYONE who lived back then. On this issue, as on so many others, Jerry Kilgore is not a leader. Never has been. Never will be.
17) Kilgore consistently refuses to debate one of the three candidates in this year's Virginia gubernatorial race, the "independent Republican," Senator Russ Potts. In addition, Kilgore also has been extremely reluctant to debate at all, with the first debate held in West Virginia on a Saturday morning with no TV coverage, and the second in the middle of a weekday on a cable news channel that reaches only a few hundred thousand people at most in Northern Virginia. Of course, after watching yesterday's pathetic performance by Jerry "the duck", I can see why he's so camera shy!
16) Kilgore will almost certainly resort to a raid on the state's general fund to pay for desparately needed upgrades to our state's transportation network. Plundering the general fund to pay for transportation -- the ?black hole of state spending" -- would, of course, require draconian cuts in education, health care, law enforcement, disaster preparedness, Chesapeake Bay cleanup, and much more. What a plan!
15) One of Jerry's top donors is John Gregory, founder of King Pharmaceuticals. Problem? Well, King Pharamaceuticals is a Tennessee company that is a major manufacturer of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient used to make methamphetamine ("meth"). And guess what? As Attorney General, Kilgore opposed making Virginia's voluntary "Meth Watch" program mandatory. Kilgore also opposed Mark Warner's recent executive order restricting the amount of pseudoephedrine a person can buy in any given 30-day period. Now why would anyone need to buy 50 bottles of pseudophed at one time? And why would Kilgore oppose cracking down on this? Hmmmm.....
14) Kilgore's family is notorious for corruption and brass-knuckle tactics in their home town of Gate City. Jerry's mother, Willie Mae, just so happens to be registrar of voters in Scott County, where Gate City is located. Willie Mae is now under investigation for her role in a voter fraud scandal in 2004. About a month ago, a 37-count indictment was issued against former Gate City Mayor Charles Dougherty, Jr. The current mayor of Gate City, Mark Jenkins - who took office after the fraudulent election was overturned - has charged that Jerry Kilgore himself made inappropriate comments when he was still Attorney General of Virginia that ?delayed a criminal investigation into the matter.? Jenkins also says that "the wrongdoings that have been brought to light by the indictments ? could not have gone on had the registrar been properly performing her job.?
13) Kilgore's tax relief plan for Virginia homeowners would actually set a government-mandated cap on real estate tax assessments. This would, of course, massively interfere with the free market. Also, as the Kaine campaign has pointed out, Kilgore?s artifical cap on assessments ?raises questions about the impact on the resale value of Virginia homes.? No thanks, Jerry, I would rather see my home rise in value every year, enabling me to borrow against it with home equity lines or to choose to sell and cash in on its increased value than to have you tell me what price I should get for it.
12) Kilgore opposes even reasonable gun measures, like limits on the number of guns a person can purchase in a month, or restrictions on carrying concealed weapons into a Chuck-E-Cheese. Tim Kaine, in contrast, was not afraid to go on NRA News Radio to talk about his moderate, reasonable positions on gun issues. Jerry Kilgore, of course, turned down an offer by the NRA station to appear alongside Tim Kaine.
11) Jerry Kilgore attacked the authenticity of Tim Kaine's deeply-held Roman Catholic beliefs, claiming that Kaine never mentioned his religion ?until it became politically popular to mention [it].? Robert D. Holsworth, director of the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, rebutted this, saying that Kaine has been "speaking about his faith for many years, even before he ran for statewide office. It?s evident it?s something that is deeply felt in
10) Kilgore was a miserable failure as Attorney General. On his watch, drug arrests fell by nearly half, while forcible rapes increased 10%. Even worse, according to the Virginia State Crime Commission and Virginia Commission on Youth, "In the time that Kilgore served as the Secretary of Public Safety (1994-96), gang activity increased 220%." Oh, by the way, gang activity increased sharply while Kilgore was Attorney General as well. Great job, huh? If you want this kind of leadership, Vote Jerry Kilgore on November 8. If Jerry's record doesn't appeal to you, then vote for a real leader -- Tim Kaine.
9) Kilgore claims to be "pro-life," yet one of his largest contributors is New York-based Barr Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company that produces 20 different types of birth control pills, including the Plan B Emergency Oral Contraceptive (aka, the "morning after pill"). Also, in the recent debate, Kilgore called a question on whether he would ban abortion "hypothetical." Or was that "hypocritical?"
8) Kilgore is buddies with Eric Cantor, one of the loyal lieutenants to Tom DeLay, caught up in a major corruption scandal. Perhaps the reason you don't hear much about the close Kilgore-Cantor-DeLay relationship is the fact that Cantor's wife is on the board of directors at Media General, which owns several of the newspapers in Virginia (including the Richmond Times-Dispatch). Hmmm.
7) Kilgore is buddies with South Dakota right-wing Senator John Thune, who has been instrumental in attempts to cut funding for the Appalachian Regional Commission. As Brian Patton wrote back in April, "Thune wants to cut funds going into a region that is not only where Kilgore claims as his home, but is a region of Virginia that really needs all the financial assistance and leadership it can get." Brian added, with dripping sarcasm, "Yeah, we definitely would not want more jobs, better economic infrastructure, and better highways in Southwest Virginia. If that were to happen, we might actually start catching up with the rest of Virginia." In other words, Jerry Kilgore is bad for Southwest Virginia, just like Jerry Kilgore is bad for ALL of Virginia!
6) Bob J. Perry of Houston, chief financier of the infamous "Swift Boat Veterans" -- the group that slimed John Kerry's decorated Vietnam War service record during the 2004 Presidential campaign -- is a big contributor ($15,000 during 2005) to Jerry Kilgore's campaign. According to Texans for Public Justice, Perry also has been "a primary funder of efforts to limit civil liability in Texas, contributing $415,000 to Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC, the state?s largest non-party political committee. " Lovely company Jerry Kilgore keeps, huh?
5) Kilgore has also received a significant chunk of change from Kansas-based Koch Industries. According to Forbes Magazine ? no left wing rag, that?s for sure ? in late September 2000, ?a federal grand jury indicted Wichita, Kans.-based Koch Industries and four of its employees of 97 felony counts?accused of covering up the emission of a cancer-linked chemical called benzene from its Corpus Christi, Tex., refinery.? Interestingly, according to the Center for Public Integrity, ?just before the lawsuit went to trial? the Justice Department abruptly settled the case." In other words, Koch?s modus operandus is to commit crimes but then to evade serious punishment by ?settling? (i.e., paying people off) on extremely lenient terms. Of course, Koch is aided in this strategy by its ?friends? in high places, to whom they kindly give hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the goodness of their (corporate) hearts.
Now, another ?friendly? politician, Virginia?s own Jerry Kilgore, is receiving large sums of money ($35,500 so far) from Kansas-based Koch. The question is, why? What does Koch want from Jerry Kilgore? Or are they simply giving him wads of money because of altruism?
4) Jerry Kilgore's running mate, Lt. Governor candidate Bill "Gutter" Bolling, was an official at the Reciprocal Group, also known as "the Enron of the insurance industry." Amazingly, Bolling claims to have no memory whatsoever of any wrongdoing at the company, which -- according to an investigative report in the Washington Examiner, went bankrupt in 2003 ?with $770 million in unpaid claims." It is also worth pointing out that Reciprocal's top executives were found guilty of Enron-like fraud," and that the company's collapse "financially devastated thousands of doctors and lawyers as well as many hospitals across the country that relied on it for their malpractice insurance.? And THIS guy wants to be Lt. Governor of Virginia? What a team: Mr. Eavesdropping Scandal (Kilgore) and Mr. "Enron of the Insurance Industry" (Bolling). Impressive!
3) Aside from Bill "Gutter" Bolling, the other member of the Republican ticket is the Attorney General nominee, Robert Francis ?Bob? McDonnell. This guy is so extreme, he's actually earned himself the nickname "Taliban Bob". McDonnell has also been mocked as heading up a "Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" here in Virginia. Why the mockery? In addition to his overall religious extremism on a variety of social issues, this guy harassed and persecuted Newport News Circuit Judge Verbena Askew for possibly being a lesbian and therefore violating Virginia's bizarre "crimes-against-nature" law (which, by the way, officially outlaws heterosexual sodomy, even among married couples). Lovely. McDonnell is also closely tied to Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and is a graduate of Pat Robertson?s Regent University Law School. Interestingly, when asked whether HE had ever engaged in an act that would violate the "crimes-against-nature law," McDonnell replied, incredibly, "Not that I can recall." Wow. That Kilgore-Bolling-McDonnell trio is quite a ticket!
2) Kilgore recently was subpoenaed in connection with a political eavesdropping scandal . The scandal involves the illegal monitoring -- by members of Kilgore's own Attorney Generals' office -- of calls made by top Democrats, including Governor Mark Warner. There are two possiblities here. #1: Jerry Kilgore was heavily implicated in this scandal involving his own office, in which case he's a crook. #2: Jerry Kilgore didn't have a clue what was going on his office, in which case he's incompetent. As is usual with right-wing Republicans, Kilgore claims possibility #2: that he didn't have any idea what was going on in his own office. Just the kind of guy we want as governor, huh?
1) The Kilgore campaign has resorted to racial code language and "nativism" repeatedly in this campaign. That alone should disqualify Kilgore from holding ANY public office. Ever. The bottom line: Jerry Kilgore is not fit to be dogcatcher of Gate City, let alone Governor of Virginia -- for 25 reasons and counting...
OK, enough already, you get the picture. Anyway, it seems impossible that a Virginia voter could possibly need any more reasons not to vote for Jerry Kilgore. However, I'm sure I can come up with another batch if you really need 'em! There's so much material here, it's frankly unbelievable that Jerry Kilgore is the nominee of a major political party for governor of a major state in America. Unbelievable.