Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Editorial: Kaine's call to partisan duty
The governor has made his job more difficult by agreeing to become his national party's chair.
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
Gov. Tim Kaine will have to prove in the coming weeks that his decision to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee will not intrude on the critical job of steering Virginia through a budget crisis.
Republican House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith says, "I will start complaining if the governor is going to be AWOL." Griffith won't be the only one.
The governor was right in November when he rebuffed President-elect Obama's initial overtures about the DNC job. Concerns now are only partially assuaged by Kaine's pledge that "I know what my first priority has to be and I've made that plain."
Kaine is offering every assurance that a good final year as governor will be uppermost on his mind. The fact that he will refuse any pay for the party post through the end of his term underscores that commitment. As does the fact that, unlike former Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore, who also took on the responsibility of heading up his national party committee during difficult budgetary times, Kaine won't be commuting to D.C. during the session.
Still, becoming even the part-time national spokesman for his party will make his full-time job harder.
Kaine and the Democratic-controlled state Senate must be able to work with Virginia's Republican-majority House to close the state's $3 billion budget shortfall with the least damage possible to tightly stretched core services. Virginia can ill afford another General Assembly session unable to elevate public interests above partisan considerations. Kaine's new role will present one more obstacle.
But then, little can be lost when bipartisanship has been so lacking.
GOP lawmakers have complained that Kaine has been a more partisan governor than his predecessor and fellow Democrat, newly elected U.S. Sen. Mark Warner. But Republicans, smarting from losing the governor's mansion in two consecutive races, have shown no interest in playing nice.
They will not want to make it three losses in a row in this gubernatorial election year. Their partisan interest will be to deny Kaine that stamp of approval from voters.
Neither can they afford to look like petty obstructionists, though. All seats in the House of Delegates also are up for election in November.
Virginia Republicans need to take care that they, too, keep the state's well-being at the top of their agenda.
