It didn't seem right that we'd just post our list of The Top 25 Reasons Not to Vote for Jerry Kilgore on Raising Kaine. We owe it to our readers to say why we support Tim Kaine for Governor. The real problem with both these lists was paring them down to ONLY 25 items each. Well, we did our best. Here is our countdown of The Top 25 Reasons to Vote for Tim Kaine , counting down one-by-one, here's #12.12. Tim Kaine doesn't grandstand. Unlike his opponent, when Tim Kaine talks about issues, they are issues of substantive impact on the Commonwealth. The sleazy politics of fearmongering and divisiveness belong to his opponent, not to Tim Kaine.
Here's a good example of a contentious issue in which Tim Kaine keeps a reasoned position, while his opponent grandstands and reaches for the lowest most bigoted ignorant response in order to win votes:
The Politics Of ImmigrationWashington Post Editorial, October 5, 2005
GIVEN THE rapid growth of Virginia's immigrant communities in the past 15 years, maybe it was inevitable that the combustible national debate over undocumented workers would seep into this year's governor's campaign. So it did, helped along this summer when the town of Herndon decided to establish a publicly funded gathering spot for day laborers, many of them illegal, who work in Northern Virginia's thriving construction industry. Former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore, the Republican nominee for governor, knew a wedge issue when he saw one; he pounced on Herndon's decision. He said it would "reward" illegal immigrants and thus subvert the state's laws and stability.
[...]
Mr. Kilgore's across-the-board hostility toward undocumented immigrants strikes us as gratuitous and over the top. Hounding Herndon on its day-laborer center is populist nonsense: Would he prefer the status quo ante, when day laborers thronged cars and clamored for jobs in a convenience store parking lot?
[...]
Mr. Kaine stayed out of the Herndon dispute, which he correctly called a local matter. He grasps that immigrants, documented and undocumented, have become an integral part of the state's labor market, especially in Northern Virginia, where there is almost no unemployment. He has placed the blame for the problem and the burden for its solution where it properly belongs: with the federal government. Mr. Kilgore, by contrast, prefers posturing on illegal immigration, without regard to the resentments that may be stirred up toward immigrants generally. In seeking to crack down on and evict undocumented workers, Mr. Kilgore should bear the burden of explaining how the employment market would replace them.